First attempt at my own Porter

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Rustysocket

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Here's something I came up with. Let me know what you guys think.


Heated 1.5 gal of water to 170. 2lbs of Chocolate patent malt was then steeped in a grain sack at 150 for 45minutes. The grain sack was removed and the wort was brought to a boil.

I then added:

1lb Maltodextrin
3lb of Dark DME
3lb of Dark LME

This was boiled for 45minutes.

then added:

1 ounce of Cascade pellets
1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla
1 Tablespoon of Baking Chocolate

and boiled for an additional 15 minutes.

Brought it up to a final volume of 5.75g. Cooled to 75, added a pack of muntons dry yeast , waited 10min and stirred it all in. FG was 1.047.

After about 5 hrs it was bubbling away in my bucket fermenter and it smells nice. Hope it makes a nice Porter/Stout.

Anything obviously wrong? Comments?:rockin:
 
Nothing wrong per se, but boiling 1 oz of Cascade for 15 minutes will give mighty low IBUs, something in the range of <10, where the style calls for 20-40.
 
Sweet mother of Charlie Murphy!
Black Patent or Chocolate malt? Either way, 2lbs is a ton.
Porters aren't supposed to have a forward hop bitterness, but the late addition may not be nearly enough.
 
Porters are generally very forgiving when it comes to flavors melding. With that said I would bet yours should taste fine. Your 2# steeping of Cholate malt should work out OK because you didn't crush it. Had you added that amount to an all grain mash it can be considered "heavy" (but outside the box is better than in the box). I would agree that Cascade as a late add might not be enough to balance out the strong line-up of fermentables. I favor classic English hops for my porters such as Fuggles, Kent Goldings, or Willamette. Never hurst to add a snap of honey either.
my 2 cents.....
 
RandomSF said:
Nothing wrong per se, but boiling 1 oz of Cascade for 15 minutes will give mighty low IBUs, something in the range of <10, where the style calls for 20-40.
Click to expand...

Should I have used a different type of hops? or boiled longer?
 
northernlad said:
Sweet mother of Charlie Murphy!
Black Patent or Chocolate malt? Either way, 2lbs is a ton.
Porters aren't supposed to have a forward hop bitterness, but the late addition may not be nearly enough.
Click to expand...

I told the kid at the home brew shop what i was thinking of. He suggested 2#. I did crush the grain with a rolling pin lightly before steeping the grains.

It's possible I didn't hear him correctly as I usually wear hearing aids. After looking at other recipes today I see the amount of grain I used was much more than necessary.

Oh well, it will be beer.
 
I appreciate everyone's comments.

Porters are my favorite style of beer. I have never had one I didn't like. So this will be my focus for homebrew.

I am lucky to have a store nearby to purchase ingredients at reasonable prices and If I make a mistake or two it won't discourage me from trying my own recipes.

Thanks again for the comments.
 
That's eight times as much chocolate as I would normally use. Your IBUs are low, as noted. Not knowing the composition of the dark extracts makes it a tough call. Porters generally have some caramel in them for a sweet backbone.

What was the Lovibond of the chocolate malt?
 
All of the malt extracts were muntons dark. The dme were purchased in 1lb packages. The lme was bulk. I'm not sure of the brand, I will check next time I go to the lhbs.

I don't have any data on the malt.


Is there anything I should(can) do to balance this out at this point? or do I just let it go and chalk it up as a learning experience?
 
Rustysocket, your comment "Oh well, it will be beer." is a great attitude. Yes, maybe chalk this one up to experience but you'll still have beer at the end of it all. Only you will decide whether it is drinkable or not.

I just brewed a porter from my own made-up recipe but cruised the recipe archive here to figure out what the norms were for extracts, grains and hops. Wasn't terribly hard to do and we'll see where I end up. Following that (the same as yours) I'll figure out where to go. it may be a recipe that works or needs some tweaking. That will also be for you to figure out.

Style guidelines are fine, and perhaps important, for a starting point but you may be on to something completely unique and tasty here. Let us know how it turns out.
 
Rustysocket said:
All of the malt extracts were muntons dark. The dme were purchased in 1lb packages. The lme was bulk. I'm not sure of the brand, I will check next time I go to the lhbs.

I don't have any data on the malt.


Is there anything I should(can) do to balance this out at this point? or do I just let it go and chalk it up as a learning experience?
Click to expand...

Well, I'm not sure how long you boiled the hops. It looks like they only were boiled for 15 minutes? that might mean a very sweet beer (since the hops need to boil for about an hour to extract any bitterness). But chocolate malt is very harsh to me, so maybe the bitterness from that will counteract some of the sweetness.

While I applaud making your own recipes, I think maybe following a recipe or two to get the technique down might be helpful. If you make another porter soon, I'd try something like this:

8 pounds pale LME
1 pound Munich LME

12 ounces chocolate malt
1 pound crystal 40L malt
.5 black patent

1.75 ounce Kent Goldings 60 minutes
.75 ounce fuggles 15 minutes
.75 ounce Kent Goldings 0 minutes

(That recipe is from Jamil Zainasheff, not my own, but I like it!)

You want to make sure you boil the hops for the full time, so you get the full bittering from them. At 15 minutes left in the boil, you add the fuggles. At 0 minutes, flame out, you add the second goldings.

Skip the maltodextrine, as that just makes beer "thick", and get a better quality yeast than Munton's. If you like dry yeast, nottingham is a good one for porters.
 
pcollins said:
Rustysocket, your comment "Oh well, it will be beer." is a great attitude. Yes, maybe chalk this one up to experience but you'll still have beer at the end of it all. Only you will decide whether it is drinkable or not.

I just brewed a porter from my own made-up recipe but cruised the recipe archive here to figure out what the norms were for extracts, grains and hops. Wasn't terribly hard to do and we'll see where I end up. Following that (the same as yours) I'll figure out where to go. it may be a recipe that works or needs some tweaking. That will also be for you to figure out.

Style guidelines are fine, and perhaps important, for a starting point but you may be on to something completely unique and tasty here. Let us know how it turns out.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll post up the results in a couple months.
 
YooperBrew said:
Well, I'm not sure how long you boiled the hops. It looks like they only were boiled for 15 minutes? that might mean a very sweet beer (since the hops need to boil for about an hour to extract any bitterness). But chocolate malt is very harsh to me, so maybe the bitterness from that will counteract some of the sweetness.

While I applaud making your own recipes, I think maybe following a recipe or two to get the technique down might be helpful. If you make another porter soon, I'd try something like this:

8 pounds pale LME
1 pound Munich LME

12 ounces chocolate malt
1 pound crystal 40L malt
.5 black patent

1.75 ounce Kent Goldings 60 minutes
.75 ounce fuggles 15 minutes
.75 ounce Kent Goldings 0 minutes

(That recipe is from Jamil Zainasheff, not my own, but I like it!)

You want to make sure you boil the hops for the full time, so you get the full bittering from them. At 15 minutes left in the boil, you add the fuggles. At 0 minutes, flame out, you add the second goldings.

Skip the maltodextrine, as that just makes beer "thick", and get a better quality yeast than Munton's. If you like dry yeast, nottingham is a good one for porters.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the recipe and the advice. My origional recipe came from a kit beer that I had made once and felt was a little weak. I look forward to trying some others as well. I'm not real big on hoppy/bitter beers so maybe this one will be ok. I'm drinking the kit porter right now and it is weak compared to a Dick's Porter or a Deschuttes porter, which is what I was shooting for with this batch.

Again, thanks for the comments and advice.
 
my last porter i used a combination of chinook for bittering and williamette for flavoring and aroma, turned out pretty well, ibus were around 45 which is right about where founders porter is.
 
I have checked gravity a couple of times now. It seems stuck at 1.020

Should I stir it? or just leave it alone?
 

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