Help on a Porter Recipe

[Rank_Amateur]

Hi Guys... 1st post!

I'm planning my next brew which is going to be something of a porter style.

I'm going to use a Bock kit, along with a tin of Dark Extract (1.7kg and 1.5Kg respectively). I also have half a kilo of dark spray malt to up the gravity if needed (shooting for about 1.055 - 1.060 but am not worried if out comes out a bit more) I also have a Kilo of Roasted Barley, Dark Crystal and Rauchmalt each. I was to produce a porter with a small hint of smoke (as in just noticeable but definitely muted as I plan on a secondary with bourbon barrel chips and vanilla beans). So I was planning to steep 200gm of the Crystal and 150gm of the Roasted Barely...

Then I discovered that Rauchmalt needs to be mashed. So... my plan is now thus:

mash 400gm Rauchmalt (too much?) for 30 mins, (in 2 litres of water) then top up with an additional 1l water to get the temp back up to 65C and steep the remaining grains for a further 30 mins and then sparge with 2 litres to give me 5 litres of wort (have a 7l stock pot for a boil) and then dilute or add the dark DME to get to a gravity of 1.040 and then carry out a boil...

I would love some feedback on this. I am pretty new having mostly done Kit and Kilo's (and dry hopped those). But am keen to try steeping grains and coming up with something a bit different.

 

[Double_D]

You wouldn't necessarily have to mash the Rauchmalt. It will still flavor the wort just like if you were steeping any other character malt. Mashing would only be required if you were doing all grain or partial mashes so you could convert starch to sugar.

Since you're using extract for sugar don't worry about it. I'd go ahead with the original plan. But I'd cut down on the rauchmalt especially if you want it to be a background flavor. I didn't see what volume you're planning to produce but as an example, I made 10 gallons of brown and used 1 pound. I think it's 450 grams roughly. It was noticeable but very good.

 

[Hernando]

I think it would be better if you stuck with a light extract. Use steeping grains or Partial Mash to give you the color, flavor and control for your porter. With the darker extracts, you have no control on their flavor profile or the knowledge of what went in it.

 

[Rank_Amateur]

Cheers for the help guys...

I think I will try mashing the Rauchmalt to stop it contributing too much starch into the wort (and lets face it some additional fermentables ain't a bad thing), but might cut it down to 250gm.

My brews are 23 Litres (i think about 6 US Gallons at a guess).

At the moment I'm quite happy experimenting as so far none of my efforts have been anything other than quite drinkable, so I wont lose a lot of sleep if one is a bit bunk. I am keeping a diary of each brew so if it goes good or bad I can start there and figure out what I need to change to make it better...

 

[Rank_Amateur]

Also thanks for the advice on the Light DME - I'm going to start to move away from kits and move into "purer" extract brewing so I will definitely keep that in mind for future brews