English Brown Porter with Brett?

I brewed something similar to Fullers London Brown Porter a while ago and really love the taste of it. Today I was reading the BJCP descriptions of Brown Porters and noticed that historically they may have used Brett:

From BJCP 12A:

"Comments: Differs from a robust porter in that it usually has softer, sweeter and more caramelly flavors, lower gravities, and usually less alcohol. More substance and roast than a brown ale. Higher in gravity than a dark mild. Some versions are fermented with lager yeast. Balance tends toward malt more than hops. Usually has an “English” character. Historical versions with Brettanomyces, sourness, or smokiness should be entered in the Specialty Beer category (23). "

Has anyone tried this style with Brett, and what Brett did you use? What flavors did you get, and did it get sour?

I'd like to try a 10 gal batch of the brown porter this winter and split them into 2 - 5 gal batches. I'd ferment them both with WLP002 (I love that yeast). Then I'd try making my first Brett beer by adding Brett to 1 of the batches and aging it for a while.

Is there any info out there on how brown porters were made historically, and how the Brett was used?


JAN 16 2012 EDIT:

To make it easier to find, here's the recipe I ended up using for this brew. I kegged 5 gal of it after fermentation was complete, and the other 5 gal is in a glass carboy with Brett C where it will remain there for a few more months. The actual SG for me was 1.061 and the FG was 1.017 (I got higher than expected efficiency). Considering the higher gravity and ABV I had and the roasty, coffee finish I'm tasting I think this probably would fall into the Robust porter class instead of a Brown porter.

11 gal 80% Eff.
OG 1.057
FG 1.014
IBUs 36
SRM 27

17 lbs Maris Otter (Muntons) (3.5 SRM) Grain 5 81.0 %
3 lbs Brown Malt - Home Oven Toasted maris otter (375 degrees in oven for 45 minutes) (65.0 SRM) Grain 6 14.3 %
1 lbs Black Patent(Muntons) (500.0 SRM) Grain 7 4.8 %
3.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.90 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 26.7 IBUs
2.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.90 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 9 8.8 IBUs
1.0 pkg London Ale III (Wyeast Labs #1318) [124.21 ml] Yeast 12 -
1.0 pkg Brettanomyces Claussenii (White Labs #WLP645) [50.28 ml] [Add to Secondary]

Mash temp 154
Ferment at 68
Add Brett to 5 gal in secondary

Here's what the brew looks like - it's a tasty one. The London Ale III yeast left a pleasant, full bodied brew with smooth and a slightly dry coffee finish comes from the black patent. I plan to enter into a March competition, so I'll report back on the results:

I've never done a porter with brett, but considering how often I brew brown porters, this is definitely something I need to do ASAP.

There is surprisingly a good bit of info on historical porter recipes out there, thanks to ron (Shut up about Barclay Perkins) but I've haven't read much about how the brett interacted with the beer, if they wanted the brett character, how long it aged, and so forth. I would assume the brett of choice here would be Brett C, as it seems to have been the type found in aged English beers.

If you don't mind, I'll do some more research and post back here what I've found or how I'll approach this. This sounds like a fun project.

bierhaus15 said:

I've never done a porter with brett, but considering how often I brew brown porters, this is definitely something I need to do ASAP.

There is surprisingly a good bit of info on historical porter recipes out there, thanks to ron (Shut up about Barclay Perkins) but I've haven't read much about how the brett interacted with the beer, if they wanted the brett character, how long it aged, and so forth. I would assume the brett of choice here would be Brett C, as it seems to have been the type found in aged English beers.

If you don't mind, I'll do some more research and post back here what I've found or how I'll approach this. This sounds like a fun project.

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Cool, thanks bh, and thanks for the barclayperkins link. Now I'll have something to read when I'm at work today
I'll do some more research too, and if I come up with anything I'll post it here. I almost posted this in KingBrians British yeast thread, but didn't want to derail it with Brett discussions. I definitely want to try this, and if I could brew it with some historical authenticity it would be even cooler.

EDIT: Which Wyeast or WL # would have Brett C? The descriptions don't really say?

EDIT2: Nevermind - looks like WLP645 is it

WLP645 Brettanomyces claussenii
Low intensity Brett character. Originally isolated from strong English stock beer, in the early 20th century. The Brett flavors produced are more subtle than WLP650 and WLP653. More aroma than flavor contribution. Fruity, pineapple like aroma. B. claussenii is closely related to B. anomalus.

Ok, I'm pretty much going all in with this. I'll be to be making my own fire kilned brown malt this weekend - something I've wanted to do for a while now - and I've come across a few recipes that might be good for this type of thing. Something with Pale, brown, and black malt. Approaching the london-type vatted porters of the early/mid 1800's.

This is what I made previously, but I'd like to replace the Briess malts with some true English crystal and chocolate malts for the next batch.

Let me know what recipe you go with - I may copy you when I try this.

5.5 gal
OG 1.052
FG 1.014
IBUs 33
SRM 28

7 lbs Pale Ale (Crisp) (4.0 SRM) Grain 5 72.3 %
1 lbs Brown Malt (Crisp) (65.0 SRM) Grain 6 10.3 %
14.0 oz Caramel Malt - 60L (Briess) (60.0 SRM) Grain 7 9.0 %
12.0 oz Chocolate Organic (Briess) (350.0 SRM) Grain 8 7.7 %
1.75 oz Fuggles [4.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 10 24.2 IBUs
1.25 oz Fuggles [4.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 11 8.6 IBUs
1.0 pkg English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) [1500.00 ml] Yeast

Mash at 148
Pitch at 64, raise to 68 until fermentation is done, drop to 64 for a few days and then cold crash and keg

Very cool. I used a bunch more brown malt when I brewed a historic porter a few weeks back - sample tasted great. I didn't use any crystal (was told on this site it wasn't a big deal).

Subscribed to this thread to find out how it goes!

kyleobie said:

Very cool. I used a bunch more brown malt when I brewed a historic porter a few weeks back - sample tasted great. I didn't use any crystal (was told on this site it wasn't a big deal).

Subscribed to this thread to find out how it goes!

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That link was interesting - let us know how your batch turns out when its kegged/bottled.

I thinking of something like this for the next batch. I'd scale it up to 11 gal, and then add the Brett to half of it in secondary. I'd like the brew to have some hints of chocolate in it, but I'm not sure if I'd get that with the Crisp Chocolate since they kiln the crap out of it. But I think I'd like it more than black patent.

I think Pale, Brown, and Black Patent is more true to the historical recipe, so I guess I'm already off the rails if I want to stay authentic.

6 lbs Pale Ale (Crisp) (4.0 SRM) Grain 5 66.7 %
2 lbs Brown Malt (Crisp) (65.0 SRM) Grain 6 22.2 %
8.0 oz Chocolate (Crisp) (630.0 SRM) Grain 7 5.6 %
8.0 oz Crystal - 45L (Crisp) (45.0 SRM) Grain 8 5.6 %
1.25 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 9 20.2 IBUs
1.25 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 10 10.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) [1500.00 ml] Yeast 13 -
1.0 pkg Brettanomyces Claussenii (White Labs #WLP645) [50.28 ml] [Add to Secondary]

My understanding with Brett is that it will eat more of the complex sugars, so I was thinking of mashing higher than normal (153 or 154) to give the Brett something to munch on after the 002 is done. Does that sound right?

Recipes look good. I was thinking over the mash temps today and I still haven't settled on one or another. I like the idea of mashing high to leave some sugars for the brett, but I don't want to leave so much that the brett goes crazy and dries out the beer. In the 11-11-11 brew I'm pretty sure the brett we used was claussenii and it did take my FG of 1.018 down to 1.007 in the secondary. A bit too far for what I was looking for. I'd really like this beer to have some residual sweetness.

Also, I'll be going historical with my batch as I'd really like to try and make something that resembled the vatted porters of the time. The grist will look something like 80% pale (probably golden promise) 15-17% brown malt, and 3% black malt. I'll be kilning my brown malt over a hornbeam fire in a close approximation to how they made the malt back in the day. From what I have been reading, the brown malt around this time (1810-30's) was basically a somewhat smokey, charred malt that had a very unique flavor. Modern brown malt (which I love using) is supposedly just lightly roasted and quite different.

I've also been considering my yeast choices and I've narrowed it down to wy1968 and wy1318. I like the fullers strain, though I'm not to sure how the yeast will hold up with prolonged aging and how the esters will mix with the brett. I'm leaning more towards the 1318 as it is sufficiently malty and I think the natural yeast sweetness will hold up well to the brett character/acidity.

Looking forward to brewing this one!

can you throw out a recipe for extract with grain for me please....

palmm said:

can you throw out a recipe for extract with grain for me please....

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I'm not very experienced in converting recipes to extract, but you could probably take the first recipe I posted and swap out the Pale malt for around 7.5 pounds of pale liquid malt extract (Muntons or something like that). Use the same caramel and chocolate malt amounts, and maybe add in 1 oz of roast barley in place of the brown malt (Brewsmith suggests to do that). Steep the specialty grains and maybe bump the hop amounts up by 10 percent if you are doing a partial boil.

bierhaus15 said:

Recipes look good. I was thinking over the mash temps today and I still haven't settled on one or another. I like the idea of mashing high to leave some sugars for the brett, but I don't want to leave so much that the brett goes crazy and dries out the beer. In the 11-11-11 brew I'm pretty sure the brett we used was claussenii and it did take my FG of 1.018 down to 1.007 in the secondary. A bit too far for what I was looking for. I'd really like this beer to have some residual sweetness.

Also, I'll be going historical with my batch as I'd really like to try and make something that resembled the vatted porters of the time. The grist will look something like 80% pale (probably golden promise) 15-17% brown malt, and 3% black malt. I'll be kilning my brown malt over a hornbeam fire in a close approximation to how they made the malt back in the day. From what I have been reading, the brown malt around this time (1810-30's) was basically a somewhat smokey, charred malt that had a very unique flavor. Modern brown malt (which I love using) is supposedly just lightly roasted and quite different.

I've also been considering my yeast choices and I've narrowed it down to wy1968 and wy1318. I like the fullers strain, though I'm not to sure how the yeast will hold up with prolonged aging and how the esters will mix with the brett. I'm leaning more towards the 1318 as it is sufficiently malty and I think the natural yeast sweetness will hold up well to the brett character/acidity.

Looking forward to brewing this one!

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Wow, you really are going all in. I had to look up what hornbeam is - where does one get hornbeam firewood? Is there anything comparable, and can you explain how you'd roast the grain over a fire?

You've got me rethinking my plan now - I could go with some maris otter and toast some of it over a fire like you or else in the oven until it's brown malt, and throw in some black patent into the recipe for color and roastiness. You definitely know more about English yeast than me, so maybe I'll try some 1318 as well. I've been wanting to try some English yeasts other than 002 and 007, so this would be a good chance to do it.

Well, I'm off to brew a dopplebock today. Time to heat some strike water.

bierhaus15 said:

Also, I'll be going historical with my batch as I'd really like to try and make something that resembled the vatted porters of the time. The grist will look something like 80% pale (probably golden promise) 15-17% brown malt, and 3% black malt. I'll be kilning my brown malt over a hornbeam fire in a close approximation to how they made the malt back in the day. From what I have been reading, the brown malt around this time (1810-30's) was basically a somewhat smokey, charred malt that had a very unique flavor. Modern brown malt (which I love using) is supposedly just lightly roasted and quite different.

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Sounds awesome, dude! Post some pics up here or somewhere. I'd love to see them, having just made one of these myself.

Ugh, I just got done kilning my brown malt, seven hours of standing over a fire in the miserably cold (28F) and windy weather. Once I get all the smoke out my lungs and thaw out, I'll sit down and post the whole shebang on my blog (prob be up sometime tomorrow).

One thing I will say, is the stuff turned out really nice. Much better than I expected. I made one batch with hornbeam (traditional) and another with cherry wood.

Seven hours of work for 2.5lbs of brown malt...

bierhaus15 said:

Ugh, I just got done kilning my brown malt, seven hours of standing over a fire in the miserably cold (28F) and windy weather. Once I get all the smoke out my lungs and thaw out, I'll sit down and post the whole shebang on my blog (prob be up sometime tomorrow).

One thing I will say, is the stuff turned out really nice. Much better than I expected. I made one batch with hornbeam (traditional) and another with cherry wood.

Seven hours of work for 2.5lbs of brown malt...

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I read through your blog post from yesterday - it looks like it turned out OK despite the weather and other problems. I might try roasting some grain over a firepit at my buddies house - I don't know where to get hornbeam but I could just try it over some hardwood coals. I was thinking about using a large baking pan on some bricks, or using a steel screen resting across a BBQ rack.
I mentioned this experiment to my brewclub and one of the guys suggested a yeast that might work good for this.

Wyeast 9097-PC Old Ale Blend
Beer Styles: English Barleywine, English Strong Ale, Old Ale
Profile: To bring you a bit of English brewing heritage we developed the “Old Ale” blend, including an attenuative ale strain and a Brettanomyces strain, which will ferment well in dark worts and produce beers with nice fruitiness. Complex estery characters will emerge with age. Pie cherry and sourness will evolve from the Brettanomyces along with distinct horsey characteristics.

Alc. Tolerance 12%
Flocculation medium
Attenuation 75-80%
Temperature Range 68-75°F (20-24°C)

I only see it being available in Jan - March of 2009 as their private collection yeast blend, but my friend in the club swears he got it last winter, and he thinks they offer it every winter from Jan - March. I emailed Wyeast to see if it would be available in Jan - if so I might wait a couple weeks to start this.

bier - Have you tried this blend before?

bigljd said:

bier - Have you tried this blend before?

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Yeah, that's the one we used for the 11-11-11 brew. It definitely has the cherry pie and slight horse-blanket quality going for it, but to be honest I wasn't that impressed with the overall flavor it gave the beer. As I said before, the brett really dried the beer out and the malt profile was overshadowed by the brett flavor. The final beer is actually very nice, though it doesn't scream 'Old Ale' to me.

I'm pretty set on using wy1318 and then adding the brett in secondary. I talked to Ben (fuggledog) about this type of brown malt and he mentioned that while the malt doesn't smell or taste smokey (for the hornbeam) dry, it developed a strong smokiness once fermented. If this is the case with my batch, I'd like to try and keep some sugars in the beer so the brett doesn't make the beer finish really dry and make the smoke character seem too strong. I've had homebrewed rauchbiers that finished really low and without a solid malt backbone, they taste awful.

I think 1968 would be a great choice too. I'm tempted to use one of my slants of 1882 thames valley II if I end up making a second batch. Also, give the brown malt a whirl if you get a chance.

Hey, slightly off topic but great writeup. I thought about creating my own brown malt for an 1850s porter I just brewed but didn't. Feeling inspired for a future project.

Ok, I've shifted back to making a more historical porter, so here's the new 11 gal recipe. I'll probably brew next weekend, either the 23rd or 26th.

11 gal 80% Eff.
OG 1.057
FG 1.014
IBUs 36
SRM 27

17 lbs Maris Otter (Muntons) (3.5 SRM) Grain 5 81.0 %
3 lbs Brown Malt - Home Oven Roasted MO (65.0 SRM) Grain 6 14.3 %
1 lbs Black Patent(Muntons) (500.0 SRM) Grain 7 4.8 %
3.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.90 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 26.7 IBUs
2.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.90 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 9 8.8 IBUs
1.0 pkg London Ale III (Wyeast Labs #1318) [124.21 ml] Yeast 12 -
1.0 pkg Brettanomyces Claussenii (White Labs #WLP645) [50.28 ml] [Add to Secondary]

Mash temp 152
Ferment at 68
Add Brett to 5 gal in secondary

As I type this I am roasting my own brown malt in the oven (the house is smelling great). Since most commercial brown malt is around 65 SRM, I'm following a guide I found online that says to roast the grain at 375 for 40 minutes to get a deep amber (brown?) malt at 65 SRM. Maybe this is not historically correct, but this is what I'm going with for this brew. I'm using Munton's Marris Otter, since that's what my brew shop has. Next time I'd like to try a fire roasted malt, but I don't have time for that right now.

I have to order the WY1318 and WLP645 yet, but I'm excited to brew this up next weekend!

Edit: Here's a pic of the first batch of home roasted malt (I split it into 2 1.5lb batches). I may roast the second batch a little longer, but the first batch definitely has a roasty, toasty flavor that's not in the normal Maris Otter.

bigljd said:

Ok, I've shifted back to making a more historical porter, so here's the new 11 gal recipe... As I type this I am roasting my own brown malt in the oven (the house is smelling great). Since most commercial brown malt is around 65 SRM, I'm following a guide I found online that says to roast the grain at 375 for 40 minutes to get a deep amber (brown?) malt at 65 SRM. Maybe this is not historically correct, but this is what I'm going with for this brew. I'm using Munton's Marris Otter, since that's what my brew shop has. Next time I'd like to try a fire roasted malt, but I don't have time for that right now.

I have to order the WY1318 and WLP645 yet, but I'm excited to brew this up next weekend!

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Looks good! Having made homemade brown malt before, I'm sure you'll be very happy with the results. That stuff is damn tasty.

I've finally settled on a recipe - Shut up about Barclay Perkins: Let's Brew Wednesday - 1834 St. Stephen's Porter and will be brewing it this sunday. Can't wait. However, I am starting to wonder how much smoke character my brown malt (hornbeam) is going to impart to the brew. I figure I'll only do a 3 gallon batch in case this beer is going to need a year to age out.

How's your porter coming along, Bier? I finally brewed mine today (nice way to spend Christmas afternoon). The wort tasted fantastic - I used the recipe from a couple posts back, and actually got a little better efficiency than usual (85%) so my OG is 1.061.

I only have room to ferment 5 gal at a time, so I drained 5 gal into a no-chill container at 190* and sealed it up, and then cooled the other 5 gal and pitched some 1318 yeast. When the 1st batch is done I'll rack it to secondary with the Brett C yeast, and then use part of the yeast cake from the first batch to ferment out the 2nd 5 gal batch which will get kegged and drank when it's ready. The Brett C batch will age for 6 months or until I think it's ready.

I can't wait to try it!

bigljd said:

How's your porter coming along, Bier?

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It is coming along nicely. I ended up using some freshly washed wy1469 yeast and the fermentation took off within 12 hours. I kept the ferment temp around 62-63F for the first 5 days and it went from 1.060 to 1.015 as of yesterday. The sample tasted good, albiet a bit yeasty and was similar to a lightly smokey strong coffee. It looks promising.

My efficiency with this batch was horrible though - I used 20% brown malt in the recipe and got 65% eff. I guess my brown malt isn't as diastatic as I originally thought, even though I did mash for 2 hours. I really need to test the stuff properly. As of now I still plan to bottle a gallon of the beer and then age the remaining in a secondary for a good 8 months or so with brett C.

If I can find the time and an extra carboy, I'd like to brew a second batch of this beer with my cherry wood brown malt and try out a different brett strain. Looking forward to drinking these beers when done though!

So I brewed the porter 2 days ago and pitched a healthy starter of WY1318 into 5 gal, and the other 5 gal is in a no-chill container waiting for the first batch to finish so that I could use part of the yeast cake of the first batch to ferment the second batch.

Well, when I got home from work the first batch fermentation was already slowing down considerably so I thought I'd do a quick gravity check to see where it was at. When I opened the lid I learned what a true top cropping yeast looks like - there was a thick, 3/4" layer of yeast and krausen on the surface of the yeast. It was almost pure yeast on the surface of the beer.

I did the gravity check and it read 1.020 - my target FG is 1.015 so it's nearly finished. Then I started to think - why should I wait for the 1st batch to finish to harvest some yeast cake when I have all this viable yeast sitting there on the surface just waiting to be re-used? I've never harvested yeast via top cropping before, so I didn't know how much I'd get so I decided to scoop the yeast off into my 2000ml starter flask and make a starter with it to see if it's viable and healthy. So I scooped the yeast off into the sanitized flask, added a quart of sterile, canned wort and threw it on a stir plate.

While that was spinning I pulled the first batch out of the fermentation fridge and put it on my seedling heat mat I use to help warm up beers in the winter so they attenuate out fully and clean up. It warms them to 72-74 degrees. By the time I came back to check on the yeast starter I had just made, the starter was already starting to krausen. If left alone I think the starter would have exploded all over the top of my stir plate - the yeast were ready for business! So I sanitized another fermenting bucket, poured the wort from the no-chill container into it and pitched the yeast starter and now a few hours later it's already started bubbling thru my blowoff tube. I like this yeast - it doesn't f* around!

The gravity sample tasted really good too, even though it's not finished yet. I'll give a taste description when it's finished.

Here's a couple pics of the yeast I collected off the surface of the 1st batch, and the starter taking off about 20 minutes later. 5 minutes after that picture the krausen was about an inch higher.

Very cool.

Top cropping 1318 is the way to go if you intend on reusing the yeast. This strain can be a beast at first, although make sure to give it plenty of time to completely flocculate - usually by two weeks - although the krausen will stick around a lot longer. It typically hits FG within a few days of pitching though.

From my limited experience top-cropping English strains, I would say you did not need to even think about a starter. I don't think the best starter approaches the liveliness of freshly top-cropped yeast. It's like magic.

Lately I've been thinking about ditching my beloved Better Bottles in favor of buckets just for top-cropping.

bierhaus15 said:

Very cool.

Top cropping 1318 is the way to go if you intend on reusing the yeast. This strain can be a beast at first, although make sure to give it plenty of time to completely flocculate - usually by two weeks - although the krausen will stick around a lot longer. It typically hits FG within a few days of pitching though.

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corncob said:

From my limited experience top-cropping English strains, I would say you did not need to even think about a starter. I don't think the best starter approaches the liveliness of freshly top-cropped yeast. It's like magic.

Lately I've been thinking about ditching my beloved Better Bottles in favor of buckets just for top-cropping.

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I'll definitely give it a couple weeks to finish - when I use a new yeast I like to check on it regularly to see how it performs, so far I like this one a lot.

I've made a few slants of 1318 for future use, but if I want to harvest some by top cropping, how would I store that? I do quite a bit of yeast washing - could I just take a pint mason jar about 1/2 full of sterile water and skim the yeast off into the sterile water and refrigerate it? It would be like washing the yeast, but the yeast has already separated itself from the hops and trub.

bigljd said:

I've made a few slants of 1318 for future use, but if I want to harvest some by top cropping, how would I store that? I do quite a bit of yeast washing - could I just take a pint mason jar about 1/2 full of sterile water and skim the yeast off into the sterile water and refrigerate it? It would be like washing the yeast, but the yeast has already separated itself from the hops and trub.

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Yep. If you aren't going to use the harvested yeast right away, you can store it (refrigerated) in jar with sanitized, distilled water for a month or two with no problems.

The real key, however, is to make sure you are harveting the 'second rise/head' after the initial krausen (called the "dirt skim") subsides. If you harvest too soon (12-36hrs) you won't be getting very healthy yeast and lots of hop gunk and trub (with more % of bacteria). For me, it is right around the 48-60 hour mark where I'll skim the second rise yeast. I was also told to never save top cropped yeast if the beer had not yet fermented more than 50% of the starting gravity. If the first krausen sticks around too long - as in the dirt stays at the top - you can beat it down into the beer and force the second krausen. Generally speaking, you don't want to top crop much later than a week into fermentation. It looks like you harvested at the right time.

Also, I got to learn how to properly make slants. There are a few strains I would love to keep around for more than 3 months or so. How much of an investment is it? Easy to find all the materials?

bierhaus15 said:

Also, I got to learn how to properly make slants. There are a few strains I would love to keep around for more than 3 months or so. How much of an investment is it? Easy to find all the materials?

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Thanks for the info on top cropping - it's something I'd never thought to try before, but it's so easy that I'm sure I'll be doing more of when the yeast allows for it.

I started slanting last summer after getting some barely usable yeast packs shipped to me in the 1000 degree heat here in the South (I didn't want to rely on suppliers for yeast anymore). There a little bit of an upfront cost required for a pressure canner, some vials, and mason jars, but once you have that it costs next to nothing to make the slants.

I learned by following the sticky in the Yeast forum (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/slanting-yeast-133103/). Sach does a good job of describing the process, and lists the equipment he got from Cynmar (I ordered from there as well). I got the pressure canner from Sprawlmart last summer - it's a 20 qt canner that fits 7 qt jars in it, or a bunch of pint and 8oz jars. I use it to can wort and sterilize slants, and also to can stewed tomatoes from my garden in the summer. The stewed tomatoes are great in chili in the winter. You might have to get the canner from Amazon this time of year.

The agar/agar mix can be a little tricky to find locally - some Asian grocery stores will have it. I was lucky to find it at an Asian market about 3 miles from my house for about $2 for a 25g packet. Else you can get it online. Sach mentions using gelatin, but I don't think that will work as well.

To step up a slant, I'll start about 4 days before I'm going to brew. I'll crack open an 8oz mason jar with sterile wort in it, and fill the slant vial about 3/4 full with sterile wort from the jar (I use a sanitized glass wine thief to add the wort to the vial). I'll shake it for a minute to mix some of the yeast from the slant into the wort and to aerate it, then leave it overnight. The next day I'll shake it again and then pour it back into the 8oz jar with the remaining wort, add a stir bar and let it spin for a couple days with the jar lid on loosely. Then the day before I brew I'll step it up to a 1000 - 1500ml starter and it will be ready to use on brew day for an average OG brew.

Dunk or spray everything you touch into starsan (vials, jars), and use an alcohol flame to sanitize your loop. I make the slants directly from the White labs or Wyeast yeast pack right after I open it to make a starter for the next day's brew.

To save money on wort for starters, just run a couple extra gallons of sparge water thru your grain on a brew day where you are making a low SRM brew. This will give you a couple gallons of 1.010 - 1.020 wort to start with. You won't have to add as much extract to get to 1.040, and then can it in qt mason jars so it will be ready to use whenever you want it.

You can checkout some pictures on my slant process by clicking the Little Shed Brewery link in my sig and then click on the Yeast Propagation category link. The first time I made slants I put way too much agar mix in it and it came out way to thick. It's basically the same as Sach's tutorial, but with my own spin on it.

Once you try slanting one time you'll realize it's pretty easy to do and wonder why you haven't been doing it all along. The slants will last from 6-12 months in the fridge. If they get old, just re-slant the yeast into a new vial, let the yeast re-grow for a couple days and it'll be good for another 6-12 months in the fridge.

I just did my first slants last night from the same directions in the sticky mentioned. Yes, it was VERY easy. I did tilt mine a bit more than 45 degrees so as to have more surface area and looking forward tonight to opening a Wyeast Munich Lager pack to save some yeast for the future!

As to the original post/recipes mentioned in this thread -- thanks! I have been interested in seeing how others do some more traditional porters as in the future I want to try something similar.

Update: I racked my porter into the secondary today and pitched the brett C. The beer finished at 1.014 and I suspect the bugs will take the gravity down another 5-6 points over the next few months.

So far the flavor profile shows promise; the aroma is light fruit esters and the flavor is a somewhat smokey coffee and burnt sugar-toffee type of thing. I think the toffee flavors are coming from the malts that were crystalized over the fire. I couldn't drink a full glass of it as is, but I think it will mellow pretty well. The color is a dark brown-black and unfortunately the yeast (1469) did not completely flocculate.

I will be trying my hand at slanting here soon. Thanks for the info. My buddy will be happy now that I won't have to ask him to make slants for me!

Update on the porter: It's been about 3 weeks since brew day (brewed on Christmas), and I left 5 gal on the yeast for 2 weeks (I hit my FG after about 3 days) and then kegged it and it's been sitting and carbing for a week. The other 5 gal was racked to a glass carboy after it finished and I added the White Labs Brett C vial to it - it will remain there for a few months and then I'll start sampling it to see how it tastes. So far there's no pellicle or anything exciting going on with that one so I didn't bother with a pic.

I pulled my first glass of the kegged batch tonight, and have a pic below. Both batches finished around 1.017, so it was slightly higher than yours, Bier. The abv is around 5.8%, and it is tasting good! It is a very balanced brew, with a fairly big mouthfeel. It has a pleasant aroma that I believe is derived from the London Ale III yeast, and it has a big, rich flavor from the yeast, black patent and toasted Maris Otter. The finish is smooth but rich, with a slightly dry, coffee finish to it. I am very happy with this recipe and brew. I'll plan to enter it in the Shamrock open in Raleigh in March, so we'll see how it does. This recipe will definitely be in my cold weather brew rotation. I'll update this thread as the Brett C batch progresses, and probably throw the recipe in the HBT Porter recipe database when it's all said and done.

On a related note, I still love this London Ale III yeast. Since top cropping the first batch of porter to ferment the second, I've top cropped it again to brew a special bitter. Then I top cropped that and used it in a bourbon barrel imperial stout recipe where I previously had used WLP007 (this brew will be bottled and aged until next winter). The bitter and stout are both still in primary, but the gravity samples are tasting good. I top cropped the imperial stout brew too, and plan to use that in an Irish stout in place of Irish ale yeast for brew I'm doing in a few weeks for a local club competition. Top cropping is so much easier than yeast washing and these yeast just keep churning out 1 great brew after another.

Hey, nice looking pint! Glad to hear the 1318 is working out for you too.

My second historical porter is going well (w.1318) and tastes very nice so far. The dark roasted brown malt is really some special stuff. It's got this whole lightly smoked, dark coffee flavor going on that is really quite smooth. I'm tempted to just keg it and enjoy as is. The first batch is just starting to get a small pellicle from the brett c.

Thanks Bier! I'm hoping to get a pellicle since I've never seen one before.

I'm not sure what sub-category to enter this brew into next month. Since I over shot my OG and FG a bit, Beersmith ranges put the brew into the Robust porter range. I originally meant it to be a Brown porter, but technically it's not.

I know some people's robust porters will be a lot bigger than mine so I'm worried it would get lost in the mix - if I put mine in as a brown porter it would probably be a bigger brew than most and might get noticed more? But, mine has more roasty, toasty flavors I think than what a brown porter might have so it may fit the robust description better. Hmm, not sure what to do.

Looks and sounds awesome. Don't be surprised if you see me with glass in hand tonight

Gave my two historical porters a quick sample tonight and they are coming along very well. The first batch, the St. Stephens porter, is aging with brett C and is getting mighty tasty. There brett character is starting to develop with a light fruity funk and some of the vinous flavors that I was hoping for. Amazingly, the smoke character has really subsided in the past 21 days. It has developed a very nice bitter chocolate flavor. I am actually somewhat disappointed that the smoke flavor isn't as strong. We'll see how it tastes with another 5 months of aging...

The other batch is still in the primary (11 days now) and shows promise. This one used my cherry wood kilned brown malt and again I was expecting more smoke character. Other than the lack of smokiness, I have high hopes for it. Probably will bottle 1/2 without bugs and brett the other half.

How's yours coming along bigljd?

bierhaus15 said:

How's yours coming along bigljd?

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I've probably polished off half the keg of the non-Brett batch of porter - it's a really tasty beer. I brought a bottle of it to share at a club brew session and it got very good reviews. I've got some bottles of it that will be entered into the Shamrock competition in Raleigh in early March.

I haven't sampled the Brett batch yet - I think next week I'll pull some out and check the gravity and give it a taste. There's no pellicle or anything noticeable going on with it. I have it sitting on my seedling heat pad to hold it at around 72.

I'll post back next week when I try the Brett batch. Sorry the smokiness is missing in yours. Mine came out toastier than I expected (it's a good thing), presumably from the oven toasted grain. I'm going to try toasting 2lbs of rye for a rye IPA that I plan to make in a couple weeks. Hope it turns out as good as the toasted maris otter.

My Brett C batch has a pellicle starting and the gravity has dropped a couple points in gravity. I drank the sample and it's starting to get a little funk to it, but not much yet. I think it's got few more months to go, but so far, so good.

Update: I pulled a sample of the brett version for some friends last night and it is really tasty. The brett is still just a light funk, but the beer is starting to take on some of those aged, vineous flavors I was hoping for. Not a lot, but some. Also, the smoke character from my homemade brown malt has decided to show up again. Crazy stuff.

The second batch I made (with the cherry wood brown malt) has been in the bottle for 45 days now and it is really nice. The beer has a pleasant dark coffee-licorice flavor with a slight wood-aged character. Looking forward to trying it when it has some age on it.

Lastly, I'll be brewing another batch of this soon - though I think I'm going to do the Imperial route. I think a big, 10% brett'd porter/stout would be really something special. And with the weather getting better, I'll start kilning brown malt again.

Cool! My non-brett batch is mostly gone, there's probably a couple pints left in the keg. I liked this beer better fresh - I think I underhopped it a little bit and it was great at first but has gotten a bit bland as the hops have faded.

The brett C batch is looking really cool - I added about .75oz medium toasted oak about 6 weeks ago, and the brett has formed a funky, bubbly pellicle on top. The last time I tried it a week ago it was developing some oaky flavors that complimented the porter pretty nicely. The brett character was still pretty mild, but it was there in the background. I'll try to get a picture of it posted in the next couple days. When my Irish stout that I kegged recently is finished in a month or so I'll probably keg the brett porter and put in the keggle lineup.

It's a little tough getting a good picture of a pellicle, but it's a pretty cool, bubbly, spider web looking thing I've got growing on my porter. I plan to keg this thing in time for it to be ready for a local homebrew competition in the beginning of May.

Hey nice pics! The pellicle on my first batch isn't quite as extensive as yours, still a bit splotchy in parts. I have a small 1 gallon of the second batch aging with brett and lacto and it's looking mighty funky.

Did you ever get a chance to submit your first batch into the you march competition you had mentioned before? I'm thinking I'll submit my bottles for a comp next month.

bierhaus15 said:

Hey nice pics! The pellicle on my first batch isn't quite as extensive as yours, still a bit splotchy in parts. I have a small 1 gallon of the second batch aging with brett and lacto and it's looking mighty funky.

Did you ever get a chance to submit your first batch into the you march competition you had mentioned before? I'm thinking I'll submit my bottles for a comp next month.

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I did enter it in the Shamrock Open last weekend in Raleigh - it didn't ribbon but I haven't got the score sheets back so I'm not sure how it scored. I did take first place for a chocolate stout I entered, and got an HM for a Helles lager, so that was cool. I'll get the score sheets in a couple weeks at our next club meeting, so I'll post the results then.