Bert Grant's Perfect Porter Clone

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humann_brewing said:
carbon111, I may have been a tad hasty in giving my tasting notes on such a young beer before. Now that this beer is 7 weeks old the flavor is getting very nice and think the peat malt was the right amount as it has mellowed a bit. It does need more chocolate though. I think I may have this nailed the next time.
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Good to know. Are you going to stick with US-04 for the next batch? I'm seriously considering it instead of Windsor.
 
humann will you repost your complete recipe with the updates of the peat malt and the chocolate malt. i want to try this recipe and just let it set till jan or feb.. thank you
 
tmongoose said:
humann will you repost your complete recipe with the updates of the peat malt and the chocolate malt. i want to try this recipe and just let it set till jan or feb.. thank you
Click to expand...

This is what I will be doing the next time. Small changes but it was fairly close the first time.

Don't mind all the odd amounts, this is converted from a 2.6 gallon recipe, just look at the percentages and don't mind the salts, this is based on my tap water.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.72 gal
Estimated OG: 1.048 SG
Estimated Color: 35.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 26.1 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 82.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
6.71 lb Great Western 2 Row (2.0 SRM) Grain 73.88 %
1.03 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 11.37 %
1.03 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 11.35 %
0.21 lb Black (Patent) Malt (560.0 SRM) Grain 2.27 %
0.10 lb Peat Smoked Malt (2.8 SRM) Grain 1.14 %
1.40 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 26.1 IBU
0.18 gm Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
0.37 gm Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
0.55 gm Chalk (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
3.67 gal Perfect Porter Mash Water
1 Pkg English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) [Starter Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 9.08 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 14.42 qt of water at 162.3 F 153.0 F
10 min Mash Out Add 7.26 qt of water at 201.2 F 168.0 F
 
I am brewing version 2 tomorrow. Pretty much what is above but am changing the ion additions a little to make sure my ph is where it is suppose to be.

I think I have a winner here.
 
Bert Grant's Perfect Porter is the beer that made me realize I love beer! It was great sitting in the Grant's pub in Yakima during my summers at home from college in the mid 1990s. The beers were fantastic, it was the only bar in town that didn't allow smoking, and the ladies serving the beer; well, I really miss them too.

I have been toying around with recreating the Perfect Porter recipe for several years now and always manage to get distracted. I can't wait to try your recipe. Thank you for your efforts and the memories they bring back. Tonight I'm raising a glass to Bert Grant.
 
DSV said:
... Tonight I'm raising a glass to Bert Grant.
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Me, too! Man, how did I miss this thread all this time?! Bert Grant's beers where some of the first I enjoyed when I first came to appreciate craft beer and when I first started brewing. I can't remember which one I first had, but my favorites were the IPA, Scotch Ale and, of course, PP. Reading this thread brings back memories!:D

I wish I could've made it out to his brewpub back in the 90's. Calling it a shame just doesn't justify how sad and appalling it was when he died. His brewery eventually sold to investors who knew not what they were doing, just looking to make a quick buck. They ran it into the ground in less than two years. :(

I really hope you nail this recipe dead-nuts on this time. Please keep us updated, as I would love to brew this ASAP. Thanks for all your work on it!
 
Great to hear the Grant fans coming to this thread now. I will raise a glass for Bert tonight as well :mug:

The other thing I read from Bert's writings is that he oaked perfect porter but he made it sound like they didn't do this after a while. I think I will be putting this batch on some oak before kegging.

What do you guys think, oak or no oak
 
As a side note, going through the web archive of the old site, I think I want to try a shot at his IPA too. I never really liked IPAs when I use to drink Grant's beers but would probably love it now.

The fact that Randy Mosher uses Bert Grant's IPA as a beer that defines the style, yet puts a side note that it is like a session IPA just points to the fact of how good it was. The site says that it was 11.5 Plato starting (1.046) and finished at 2.8 plato (1.011) and 50 IBUs. Granted (pun intended) it only have 50 IBUs in a IPA but it is only a 4.5% beer :mug:
 
DSV said:
Bert Grant's Perfect Porter is the beer that made me realize I love beer! It was great sitting in the Grant's pub in Yakima during my summers at home from college in the mid 1990s. The beers were fantastic, it was the only bar in town that didn't allow smoking, and the ladies serving the beer; well, I really miss them too.

I have been toying around with recreating the Perfect Porter recipe for several years now and always manage to get distracted. I can't wait to try your recipe. Thank you for your efforts and the memories they bring back. Tonight I'm raising a glass to Bert Grant.
Click to expand...

Living in Seattle, they use to sell 6-packs of Grant's seasonal at Trader Joes for $3.99. It was a must buy, great beer, great price :mug: Lazy days was a good beer, well I don't think there was a bad beer by Grant's IMO.
 
Well, I kinda screwed up on this one. I tried to setup a circulation mashout to raise the temp up at the end of the mash and it worked well for the most part but I didn't pay as much to the rest of the sparge and I overshot my boil volume by 1.25 gallons and had to boil for like 100 minutes or more, I pulled the hops out after 60 minutes but boiled for 30 minutes after that. Hopefully that won't mess things up too much.
 
It's funny you mention hops, one of the great Bert Grant stories I heard was from a friend who used to work for the Hop Union in Yakima. Grant was rather famous for walking in at the end of the hop processing season with burlap sacks and a scoop shovel. He would go clean out the corners and scoop up any residual hops on the floor. I think he bought them for something ridiculous like $5 a sack! He used them for bittering. I imagine the porter got a heavy dose of these! Not to say this is bad, as the hops running through Yakima are all pretty damn good, but the good scotsman was nothing if not frugal!

Humann, I'm looking forward to your results!
 
Started the crash cool last night. Will transfer onto some oak in a few days and leave for a week then keg!

Can't wait for the results on this one, should be really good. I will post my results.
 
I've been following this thread for awhile. As an old WA native I'm waiting till you guys nail this one and then it's on. Keep up the good work.
 
I never heard of Bert Grant before this thread, but reading the article linked earlier and all the raves from the other posts, it is a real shame that Bert Grant and the brewery is gone.

I am looking forward to seeing the results of your recipe humann.
 
brew hoperator said:
I never heard of Bert Grant before this thread, but reading the article linked earlier and all the raves from the other posts, it is a real shame that Bert Grant and the brewery is gone.

I am looking forward to seeing the results of your recipe humann.
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Thanks, is that the monkey from Three Sheets in your avatar?
 
Let me know how that tastes, Humann.

I still haven't done mine yet...I've had a few other things in the pipeline to use up the ingredients I've got on hand.

Here's my current thinking for my mini-mash version:

5.5 gallons total, 4 gallon boil.

3 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract (Briess)
3 lbs Two-row Pale (Maris Otter)
1 lb 4 oz Crystal 60L
12 oz Chocolate Malt
2 oz Black Patent
1 oz Peat Smoked

1.5 oz Willamette @ 60 min (4.8 AA)

I've decided to use Safale US-05 on this one - the estimated attenuation jibes with my current recipe and I've just got a weird gut feeling on this. I don't remember BGPP having much yeast "character" at all - so something ultra-clean like 05 might do it (for me, anyway).

I'll ferment at a straight 65F.
 
carbon111 said:
Let me know how that tastes, Humann.

I still haven't done mine yet...I've had a few other things in the pipeline to use up the ingredients I've got on hand.

Here's my current thinking for my mini-mash version:

5.5 gallons total, 4 gallon boil.

3 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract (Briess)
3 lbs Two-row Pale (Maris Otter)
1 lb 4 oz Crystal 60L
12 oz Chocolate Malt
2 oz Black Patent
1 oz Peat Smoked

1.5 oz Willamette @ 60 min (4.8 AA)

I've decided to use Safale US-05 on this one - the estimated attenuation jibes with my current recipe and I've just got a weird gut feeling on this. I don't remember BGPP having much yeast "character" at all - so something ultra-clean like 05 might do it (for me, anyway).

I'll ferment at a straight 65F.
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Yes, I don't remember a yeasty taste either, that is why I picked WLP002, a very high flocculating yeast with english notes and not a big attenuater. This beer went from 1047 to 1015, right in range of what I wanted. I transferred last night and had the sample gravity check and it was mighty tasty.

If you are going to use 05, make sure to mash high as I messed up on the first attempt by letting the gravity finish too low, this needs that residual sweetness to it.
 
It's been about three weeks since the crash cool, humann. What's the latest? I am very interested in this recipe.
 
teach said:
It's been about three weeks since the crash cool, humann. What's the latest? I am very interested in this recipe.
Click to expand...

It is a great beer, not quite to Bert's level though. I oaked it and I think the wood had a too much whiskey on them still. I only had them in 1 day because I could already smell it, very faint though, also the smokiness is pretty strong right now which came from the peat. This faded in the bottle conditioned first batch, this is in the keg and will take longer to fade I am guessing.

For next batch, my changes would be:

.75% peat instead of 1.1%
hit the gravity numbers better, I was 1.047 > 1.017, should be 1.048 > 1.014
no oak on next batch
 
i've been watching this as well.

how's the peat at 1.1%? I don't like peat much at all. what do you think about switching it to regular smoked malt?
 
motobrewer said:
i've been watching this as well.

how's the peat at 1.1%? I don't like peat much at all. what do you think about switching it to regular smoked malt?
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I am trying to stick as close to the original as possible and I know Bert used Peat. I do think that 1.1% is a tad too much that is why I am bringing it down to .75% next time.

This beer is still really young so time will tell but being such a light beer, I think it will be prime later this month.
 
I am thinking of dropping the black patent in half on the next batch too. Also not sure if the C60 and Choc should be the same amount. Currently the choc is overpowered by the peat so that is definitely going down next time.
 
So I was able to talk to one of the brewers that brewed for Bert and will hopefully be getting more info in the near future but one thing he mentioned was to use Vanilla extract, the kind with alchohol in it and use C40 instead of 60.

So it looks like there will be a v3 coming soon but we will get this down one of these days.
 
Yeah, the brewer has started another brewery in the same town and is actually using Berts old 120G copper kettle and mash. I was able to check out the brewery, pretty cool, they are just using one of those instant hot water heater for their strike and sparge water and they have the whole glycyl system going with their fermentors, kinda nice to see on the small scale.
 
Back with more info from the source or at least what they can remember.

At that time, this was probably a step mash starting with a thicker mash around 127f. The final rest would have been around 158f. It would have been at least an hour mash, total time.



The malt bill would have looked something like this:



Pale Malt 76%
Chocolate Malt 11%
C-40 10%
Peated Malt 2%
Black Malt 1%



For the hop, obviously this is not a focus for the style. The original boil time would have likely been 90 min., but that would have been to caramelize sugar, which isn’t something you can do as easily without copper. So, you may want to consider a 60 min. boil.



If you go with 90, your first addition would be at 90 min., and your last should be late, with 15 min. to go. Use either Willamette or Cascade, and you’ll want to shoot for around 25 or so IBU.



For yeast, I think it was probably a fairly clean strain, so you could go Chico. But, if I were doing this, I would go with White Lab’s Edinburgh (WLP028); that should add a nice roundness.



…don’t forget the alcohol-based Vanilla extract. Good luck,
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So there will definitely be a version 3 coming up and with the info above, I think we are extremely close.
 
Me and a buddy from Yakima are going to give this a shot Jan.2. I went to college in the Yakima valley and he grew up outside of Yakima so we are both very familiar with Grant's Brewery.

Cheers
 
humann_brewing said:
So I was able to talk to one of the brewers that brewed for Bert and will hopefully be getting more info in the near future but one thing he mentioned was to use Vanilla extract, the kind with alchohol in it and use C40 instead of 60.
Click to expand...

A new brewery in Yakima!? That is great news! Do they have a name and/or website yet?

Also, nice work on data gathering for the perfect porter. I'm going to give the recipe a whirl after the new year.
 
DSV said:
A new brewery in Yakima!? That is great news! Do they have a name and/or website yet?

Also, nice work on data gathering for the perfect porter. I'm going to give the recipe a whirl after the new year.
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Sure, it's http://www.yakimacraftbrewing.com/

They have some good beers so far, I had a sample of the 1982 at the brewery and was fantastic, a tribute to the early beers of Yakima by Bert and they call it a mid hopped amber but with 45 IBUs it tastes pretty hoppy to me and their other amber is 60 IBUs, their simple 1.060 IPA has 102 IBUs :cross: These boys like their hops :)
 
I have been following this quietly, and it has been great to see the developments throughout... just checked your last edit to the recipe, and looks good. One question about your mash schedule though: a 30 minute protein rest at 127 seems a bit long. Was there a source/recommendation that I am forgetting about from earlier in this thread that suggested such a long protein rest?

Thanks, and tremendous work on this!

:mug:
 
cyberbackpacker said:
I have been following this quietly, and it has been great to see the developments throughout... just checked your last edit to the recipe, and looks good. One question about your mash schedule though: a 30 minute protein rest at 127 seems a bit long. Was there a source/recommendation that I am forgetting about from earlier in this thread that suggested such a long protein rest?

Thanks, and tremendous work on this!

:mug:
Click to expand...

That was just the default that beersmith used when I selected a 2 step mash. I changed it to 20 minutes. In some info above, the brewer said that it should be around an hour for the whole mash.
 
humann_brewing said:
That was just the default that beersmith used when I selected a 2 step mash. I changed it to 20 minutes. In some info above, the brewer said that it should be around an hour for the whole mash.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that makes sense. I had seen the old brewer for Bert mention the hour mash time (or 90 for kettle carmelization from the copper).

Thanks again!

:mug:
 

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