This Porter is terrible

Does anything about this recipe stand out to you in a way that would make an almost undrinkable Porter?

3 gallon batch

4 lb US 2 row
1 lb Crystal 120
0.5 lb Chocolate
0.5 lb Light Chocolate
0.25 lb Carafa II
0.25 lb Flaked oats

60 .25 oz nugget
15 .25 oz kent
5 .25oz kent

Mashed at 156 for an hour.

Beer is terrible. Im thinking infection unless you all tell me this recipe is bad.

davekippen said:

Does anything about this recipe stand out to you in a way that would make an almost undrinkable Porter?

3 gallon batch

4 lb US 2 row
1 lb Crystal 120
0.5 lb Chocolate
0.5 lb Light Chocolate
0.25 lb Carafa II
0.25 lb Flaked oats

60 .25 oz nugget
15 .25 oz kent
5 .25oz kent

Mashed at 156 for an hour.

Beer is terrible. Im thinking infection unless you all tell me this recipe is bad.

Click to expand...

Too much dark crystal malt, too much chocolate malt, and too much carafa II. It shouldn't be undrinkable, but it should be very roasty, astringent, a bit harsh, and dark and not porter-like based on that recipe.

Crap. That sounds about right. I thought I scaled it based on a Founders Porter recipe from HBT. I must have screwed up the scaling.

davekippen said:

Does anything about this recipe stand out to you in a way that would make an almost undrinkable Porter?

3 gallon batch

4 lb US 2 row
1 lb Crystal 120
0.5 lb Chocolate
0.5 lb Light Chocolate
0.25 lb Carafa II
0.25 lb Flaked oats

60 .25 oz nugget
15 .25 oz kent
5 .25oz kent

Mashed at 156 for an hour.

Beer is terrible. Im thinking infection unless you all tell me this recipe is bad.

Click to expand...

It's a bad recipe, although that doesn't mean it isn't infected. 15% dark 120L crystal is just way, way too much for any beer IMO. Counting the pale malt and oats there are only 65% fermentable base grains in the recipe. I can't think of a beer where you would not want to use a minimum of 80%. Besides providing mostly unfermentable products that 120L crystal is pretty aggressive in flavor and is probably trying to take over the beer.

Here's a quick reformulation for consideration:

4.50 lbs pale malt
.75 lb oats
.5 lb chocolate malt
.25 lb light chocolate malt
.125 lb Carafa II
.125 lb crystal 120L
.25 lb crystal 60L

Awesome, thanks! Live and learn