Baltic Porter Recipe with limited ingredients

[elgrindio]

I'm hoping you guys can critique this recipe for me. I was envisioning a really strong/big bodied Porter, with Caraaroma flavors. After investigating I realized that what I was imagining was (close to?) a Baltic Porter.

I live in South America, so that ingredients you see in my recipe are the ones I have. They still don't have local homebrew supply stores here yet. Therefore any suggestions should take that into account (i.e.,don't tell me to add .5lb of black patent! ;-)

Recipe for 5gal batch:

11lb Weyermann Pale Ale
8oz. Caramunich 1
10oz Caraaroma
1lb Carafa 1
2lb Table sugar/Raw cane sugar

Yeast Wil be a starter made from Safale 05. I expect it to end up around 8-8.5%abv.

I have several different hops, including Columbus, U. S. Golding, Nugget, and Willamette. I'm hoping to get about 40 IBU's using any of the above. As far as I've seen, this style is best without any finishing/aroma hops.

I would mash at around 155°f.

Do you think the amounts of crystal are reasonable for this recipe? I thought they might normally be a bit high, but I think the sugar might balance it out. I also have Caraamber (about 23 srm) but I don't see a use for that in this recipe. Please let me know if you think this might work, or any changes you would make. Thanks ahead of time for your help!

Edit: I was also thinking about putting a couple pounds of the base malt in the oven for 15 minutes. I read somewhere that that would approximate Munich Malt. Any opinions?

 

[giraffe]

That looks fine in general. Traditionally they are lagers, but i dont know if you have the capability. Also traditionally pils/munich for the base malt, but hey, the crystal malts will make up for some of it. I think youd get too much toast out of toasting pale malt.

Id skip the sugar, add more basemalt and mash at 147. But thats a quibble.

Nugget is fine. 40 IBU is fine. Theres no great need for finishing hops.

 

[elgrindio]

Giraffe, thanks for the specific recommendations. You're right, I don't have lager capabilities, so ale it is! Just a question: why the lower mashing temp? Would that be to make a thinner beer, to more resemble a lager?

 

[giraffe]

At like 1.090 a heavy body is likely, which will hurt drinkability. You can do a couple of things to avoid that. Add sugar. Lower the mash temp, use an attenuative, alcohol tolerant yeast (like us-05). You were adding sugar, I was thinking mash lower and get more base malt flavor in the beer. Both are valid.

 

[elgrindio]

Perfect! That let's me know I'm on the right track. Even with the sugar, I think I will lower my mash temp as you recommended.