Caramello Porter Recipe / Comments Please?

Having gotten my wife's (too?) bitter IPA going, it's now time to turn to my own needs for the next batch. What I want is a full bodied caramel/chocolate porter. I don't want it to be too roasted or toasty, just mildly sweet and smacking of caramel and a bit of chocolate.

Reading around, I think I want to try adding some Special B malt, but I've never used it and don't want to make it overpowering. Anyway, here's the recipe I have jotted down. I would appreciate any comments or suggested tweaks for this. I won't be brewing it for another month or so, so I've got time to tinker and tweak.

Caramello Porter

Malt Extracts

• 3.5# Laaglander Dark DME
• 3.3# Amber DME

Grains

• 1# crystal malt 90L
• 1/4# special B (for the caramel flavor)
• 1/4# Caraffe II

Hops

• 2 oz cascade (bittering)
• 1/2 oz tettnanger (aroma)

Misc

• 8 oz lactose

So.... what do you think?

-walker

I'd consider adding 1/4lb or so of lactose to the boil if you want a sweetness to stick out.

Or possibly another avenue--one thing that gave my Gravedigger some residual sweetness was Honey Malt. Add .25 lb of that to the mash.

Cascades in a porter...interesting.....

THANKS for the wife is lactose intolerant. i could use malto dextrin, I guess.

or.... what about taking the special B out and replacing it with Belgian Caramunich for the caramel flavor and sweetness. I've never used that grain either, so I'm not sure how sweet it actually is.

Note: I am new to creating recipes. and feedback is important for me. this is literally my 2nd creation, and the first one is awaiting the Judge of Time to declare it potable, let alone ENJOYABLE.


on that note, the first batch is possible over-hopped. so, can you elaborate on your "interesting" description of my use of cascades?

thanks,
-walker

Walker said:

THANKS for the wife is lactose intolerant. i could use malto dextrin, I guess.

or.... what about taking the special B out and replacing it with Belgian Caramunich for the caramel flavor and sweetness. I've never used that grain either, so I'm not sure how sweet it actually is.

Note: I am new to creating recipes. and feedback is important for me. this is literally my 2nd creation, and the first one is awaiting the Judge of Time to declare it potable, let alone ENJOYABLE.


on that note, the first batch is possible over-hopped. so, can you elaborate on your "interesting" description of my use of cascades?

thanks,
-walker

Click to expand...

Ooh...that definitely eliminates the lactose then, huh?

No harm using Cascades I wouldn't think, it just doesn't sound like a typical bittering hop for a porter. Most are probably Goldings or Fuggles. At any rate, it sounds quite intriguing. I'm no expert at recipes either by any means. Personally, If I had to use Cascade in a porter I'd use it for flavoring towards the end. Not bittering.

As for the grains and adding sweetness, honestly, I'd use a little bit of honey malt for that residual sweetness. I don't think Malto-dextrin is going to give you any real sweetness. Its used for adding mouthfeel and some body.

HTH.

ORRELSE said:

I don't think Malto-dextrin is going to give you any real sweetness. Its used for adding mouthfeel and some body.

Click to expand...

really? at 96% unfermantable, i would have thought it would be sweet?


thanks for all the suggestions!

-walker

Here's the label off of my pkg of Malto Dextrin

Malto Dextrin
Adds body & mouthfeel with very little flavor.

Click to expand...

El Pistolero said:

Here's the label off of my pkg of Malto Dextrin

Click to expand...

LOL...I nailed that one.

wow.. thanks. i would have surely misused it at some point.

-walker

ORRELSE said:

No harm using Cascades I wouldn't think, it just doesn't sound like a typical bittering hop for a porter. Most are probably Goldings or Fuggles. At any rate, it sounds quite intriguing. I'm no expert at recipes either by any means. Personally, If I had to use Cascade in a porter I'd use it for flavoring towards the end. Not bittering.

Click to expand...

Ok, I'll make a mental note of that. I am using The Complete Joy of Home Brewing as a reference guide, and Papazian has a chart with guidelines for different styles of beers. It says that for brown porters to use cascade, fuggles, willamette, vanguard, glacier, perle or NB for bittering.

Blindly following that, I chose cascade (because I have some left from a previous brew.)

I'll read up some more on the hop variants and put some more thought into a bittering hops choice. I'm definately going to use tettnanger for the aroma, though, based on the books description that is has an 'almost honeylike' sweet floral aroma.

I appreciate the responses.

-walker

Walker said:

Ok, I'll make a mental note of that. I am using The Complete Joy of Home Brewing as a reference guide, and Papazian has a chart with guidelines for different styles of beers. It says that for brown porters to use cascade, fuggles, willamette, vanguard, glacier, perle or NB for bittering.

Blindly following that, I chose cascade (because I have some left from a previous brew.)

I'll read up some more on the hop variants and put some more thought into a bittering hops choice. I'm definately going to use tettnanger for the aroma, though, based on the books description that is has an 'almost honeylike' sweet floral aroma.

I appreciate the responses.

-walker

Click to expand...

Like I said--I'm no recipe expert. Cascades is very intriguing to me, and I think it might work in this recipe.

cool. thanks again.

I talked with the wife about my options for sweetening, and she said to go for the lactose... As long as I can tolerate the effects it has on her.

-walker

If you can get this stuff in your neck of the woods, you might try an Avery New World Porter. An interesting hop selection, and they dry hopped it.

caramello porter brewed 9/18/05.

minor tweaks to the recipe:
- used 44 oz amber dutch DME & 3.3 lbs amber american LME
- added 1/3# brown sugar.
- whole cascades (not pellet)

very yummy smelling/looking/tasting. i could have sat and drank a pint of the wort if it weren't for the hop pellets floating around.

-walker

Walker,
I assume you have drunk, drank this by now. Do you remember it?

Have you brewed this again?

My home brew club has an Iron Brewer competition in November and I have been looking for a base Porter for a Woerther's Porter. I would swap the Lactose for Woerther's Originals.

CHEERS!

Wow...

I barely remember this batch and thread, but I do remember that I was in the midst of beating my head against a wall trying to create a good porter recipe.

This recipe here was not what I was looking for.

My porter recipe has evolved a lot and is finally what I had wanted all along (see me "holy grail" recipe).

So... I barely remember this, but I know I wasn't happy and never brewed it again.