"Portentous Porter" - Another Critique Thread

I haven't yet made a porter and I have some Pacman on hand that I need to use up soon, so I've been planning my recipe out tonight and I wanted to get a little bit of feedback on it.

7.0 lbs light LME
0.5 lbs Chocolate Malt - British or Domestic, undecided (does it matter?)
0.5 lbs Special B
0.5 lbs Crystal 150L
0.5 lbs Honey Malt
0.5 lbs Belgian Special Coffee Roast 150L
0.5 lbs Melanoidin
0.5 lbs Special Roast 50L

Bittering hops 2.0 oz Northern Brewer 9.9% AA 60 minutes
Aromatic/finishing hops Saaz 1.0/1.0 oz 10/1 minutes

Additionals - Vanilla beans (4, cut and scraped) and licorice root(1.0 oz, cut) steeped in a pint of brandy (is cheap good enough or should it be good s**t?) for the length of fermentation, and then added to the brew at kegging time.

It's my 6th brew ever so there is clearly much I do not know, but if I could get any feedback on the grain bill or how to better utilize the spice additions it would be majorly appreciated. I don't want something overly hoppy because I want the malts and licorice and vanilla to shine through, but is the grain bill over-complicated? Is there redundancy in some of those choices or will they all contribute enough of a uniqueness to be worthwhile? I also want something that is very light bodied, so I was hoping the Pacman would be able to devour any longer sugars that might get extracted from an overnight cold steep of the specialty grains.

If you really tear me a new one when critiquing this, whether for my ingredients or my process, I might end up with something that people OTHER than myself will enjoy drinking! :rockin:

I think you've got too many things going on for one beer. When you add too many ingredients the beer often ends up with a flavor that is less complex. I'd cut the honey malt, melanoidin, and either the C150 or Special B. Especially if you want a lighter/thinner beer the crystal and honey malts will add sweetness.

.5-.75 lbs of sugar, either unrefined, or caramelized can be a good addition to a porter in place of some of the malt extract. This will help to thin out the beer since sugar is highly fermentable.

I’d tend to drop the aroma hops in a spiced beer since it may not blend well with the other additions. I might also reduce the bittering hops, how many IBUs are you looking at? I’d probably aim to keep it under 35 IBUs.

4 vanilla beans is a lot, you may want to only add some of the brandy "extract" at kegging. I’ve had good luck adding licorice root to the boil, it takes 15-20 minutes of boiling to really extract the flavors. A moderate brandy would be a good idea, nothing aged 15 years, but something you could stand drinking.

Hope that helps, good luck.

You're probably right...I made some changes and here is what I actually ended up purchasing, based on your advice and what LHBS had available

7.0 lbs LLME
0.5 lbs Special B 250L
0.5 lbs Domestic Chocolate 350L
0.25 lbs Light Roasted Barley 350L
0.25 lbs Belgian Special Coffee 175L
0.15 lbs Honey 25L

1.0 oz Licorice root

I decided to skip the brandy and vanilla, I'll save that for a strong pale or something else.

I'm also going to cut the bittering hops down to 1.0 oz Northern Brewer, since I'm not doing a full boil it should come out under 35 IBUs and I have maybe 0.25 oz of some other hop (couldn't see the label on the bag in the freezer) that I will throw in for finishing just to give it a touch of nose. Is the licorice the kind of thing I may want to add a half oz at say 40 minutes and the other half at 20 minutes? I don't want to drive off any of the licorice aromatics with too long of a boil though.

Thank you Oldsock for your input!

I would say just add it all at 20 mins. I think you would lose the properties of licorice at a 40 min addition.

Looks good to me.

Is it actual licorice root or the concentrated “brewer's” licorice? I used actual licorice root, which adds more sweetness than the flavor people usually associate with licorice. I used 3/8 oz in 3.5 gallons, it was below threshold for me, but a couple people picked it out unprompted. If you want “licorice” flavor/aroma you could also add some anise.

It's one ounce of chopped up licorice root, on the package it says it adds sweetness and head retention, so maybe between that and the partial boil I'll step the bittering hops up to 1.25 oz?

Are those ingredients not more representative of a Stout than a Porter?
No Black Patent?

40watt said:

Are those ingredients not more representative of a Stout than a Porter?
No Black Patent?

Click to expand...

There are plenty of porters that don't have black patent (Sierra Nevada's for example). In general stouts tend to be darker/roastier than porters, but there are plenty of exceptions. With only .5 lb of dark malt I think porter is a good classification for this one, but in the end who really cares what you call it?

Truth...look up the origins of the names. It's a porter 'cause I want it to be a porter If I was making a stout then I'd step down the Special B and step up the roasted barley, and use 500L instead of 350L, and skip the licorice and hop it up. Hey, I can at least *pretend* to know what I'm doing! Honestly though, BJCP i'nt s**t to me, I throw in what sounds good and make it how I like to drink it! :rockin: