Advice on Porter recipe?

[b-radbrew]

My wife is a porter fan and I've been trying to make something that she will really enjoy. I've done 2 1 gallon test batches so far and they turned out ok, but not quite what I'm looking for. Now a friend of ours asked if I could make a batch for her wedding next year so I've really got to get this down. I will be sticking with 1 gallon sizes until I'm confident with the recipe. Her and my wife will be the ones judging these as I make them so I can fine tune if needed. I usually make lighter ales so I'm not used to using some of these grains and would like some opinions on this recipe:

1.5 gl
OG 1.053
FG 1.013
IBU 33
S-04

2-row - 2.75 lbs 88%
Chocolate - 5 oz 10%
C-60 - .25 oz 0.5%
Roasted barley - .25 oz 0.5%
Carapils - 1 oz 1%

Hops (no-chill in the kettle which is why the times are what they are)

3 g Nugget @ 40 min/ 22 ibu
7g Eas Kent Goldings @ flameout / 11 ibu

Both my wife and friend are looking for something that gives a nice coffee and subtle roasted note. How is this looking so far?

 

[m00ps]

that looks pretty good but id up the crystal and roasted barley to like 1oz each or something. As it is, theres not even enough to really do antyhing

for more subtle coffee (not using actual coffee) try some coffee kiln malt. Its like in between chocolate and brown malt

 

[b-radbrew]

Ok so I'll do that and up those to an ounce.
Thanks for the input m00ps

 

[Gameface]

Porter needs brown malt, imo.

I think a little chocolate malt is fine, but I'd reduce it a bit and add brown malt to at least 10% up to around 20% of the malt bill.

 

[Calder]

That is for .5 gallons.

Not enough Chocolate in my opinion. I'd up it to 0.5 lbs, and drop the Roasted. The coffee will give some subtle roast flavor. A lot of people will disagree with removing the roast, but that is how I like them; lots of chocolate, but no roast or black. Makes it easier drinking IMO.

I'd also go C90 or 120 and have a couple of ounces.

.............. really difficult trying to scale to 1.5 gallons.

Mash low 150s. If you go my route, there will be a lot of speciality malts, so you need a lower mash temp to offset the unfermentable sugars from the speciality malts.

I like a little licorice in my Porters too. You can use Brewers licorice, Licorice root, or star anise to get the flavor.

 

[b-radbrew]

So, I couldn't take it anymore. Last time I brewed was at the end of April so I went into the brew room to see what I had around and came up with this little concoction:

1.5 gl batch
1.8lbs - 2row
12 Oz - Munich 10
6 Oz - chocolate
4 Oz - c10
4 Oz - carapils

5 gram - nugget @40 min

I figured what the hell it's worth a start. The 1.8 lbs of 2 row was all i had left which is why i threw the munich in there.I was a little high on my end boil volume but the sample was pretty good so far. Atlas it will give me something to elaborate on for the next go round.

 

[drays14]

Im making a porter recipe now, I've never used brown malt but I've heard other people say it should be in there. So the malts in using are

MO
Munich
Brown
Crystal 80
Chocolate
Black Malt

I don't have the exact figures yet but for a 5 gallon recipe I'm just going to add around 3-4oz of black malt to add complexity. Shouldn't add too much roast or bitterness but add a subtle taste to it.

 

[chickypad]

I tinkered around to get a porter that is more chocolate with some coffee and less straight roasted flavor and have settled on the recipe below. I think it's the brown plus pale chocolate that really does it. The 2% midnight wheat is mostly color, I've done it also with black malt and roasted barley and it doesn't change it too much at that small amount, but this is my favorite version. It's quite tasty:

64% base (I usually do MO if I have it, or MO plus some 2-row)
16% brown malt
7% pale chocolate
7% carastan
4% flaked barley
2% midnight wheat

 

[Gameface]

I tinkered around to get a porter that is more chocolate with some coffee and less straight roasted flavor and have settled on the recipe below. I think it's the brown plus pale chocolate that really does it. The 2% midnight wheat is mostly color, I've done it also with black malt and roasted barley and it doesn't change it too much at that small amount, but this is my favorite version. It's quite tasty:

64% base (I usually do MO if I have it, or MO plus some 2-row)
16% brown malt
7% pale chocolate
7% carastan
4% flaked barley
2% midnight wheat

That looks like a really solid porter recipe.

 

[Yooper]

I tinkered around to get a porter that is more chocolate with some coffee and less straight roasted flavor and have settled on the recipe below. I think it's the brown plus pale chocolate that really does it. The 2% midnight wheat is mostly color, I've done it also with black malt and roasted barley and it doesn't change it too much at that small amount, but this is my favorite version. It's quite tasty:

64% base (I usually do MO if I have it, or MO plus some 2-row)
16% brown malt
7% pale chocolate
7% carastan
4% flaked barley
2% midnight wheat

That looks awesome!

I always think of the the difference between stout and porter is that a porter doesn't have roasted barley, while a stout does. I love the looks of that porter, as it's got the brown malt and chocolate, and some cara, as well as the color from the midnight wheat- and I love flaked barley for body and head. I may have to make a porter now.

 

[chickypad]

Okay all this porter talk made me thirsty, so here's a pic to go with the recipe. I highly recommend it on nitro. It's a little early here on the left coast, but I'm getting ready to call in on a long distance fantasy football draft and I'm sure everyone else is already drinking so I don't feel too guilty.

sorry OP a little off topic

 

[JKaranka]

I love the look of that brown malted recipe.

 

[signpost]

I definitely agree that brown malt is good. Somewhere around 4 to 8 ounces in a one gallon batch is probably good

Also 10% chocolate malt is way too much for me, although I know some people go for that much. I generally think of porters being richer than stouts, so I love the extra maltiness of some Munich and little Crystal malt without overdoing the coffee/roasty notes you can get with too much chocolate malt.

 

[ChelisHubby]

You might want to try Beir Munchers BLACK PEARL porter. It is smooth and easy drinking my bet is your wife would like it.

 

[b-radbrew]

After a week of fermenting I drew a gravity sample tonight. I thought it was pretty good so far. Nice roasted/coffee flavor that wasn't too overwhelming. The wife tried it and thought the same. Now I'm wondering though, after reading some of the other replies, what does the brown malt bring to the flavor profile? I think the next go round I'll back off the chocolate and Munich a little then replace it with brown?

 

[joshesmusica]

That looks awesome!

I always think of the the difference between stout and porter is that a porter doesn't have roasted barley, while a stout does. I love the looks of that porter, as it's got the brown malt and chocolate, and some cara, as well as the color from the midnight wheat- and I love flaked barley for body and head. I may have to make a porter now.

i agree. i feel like a porter should have a bit more pronounced chocolate flavor over the roasted coffee, while a stout should be the other way around.

i got a christmas porter 5 days into fermentation now. i didn't end up with any brown malt in it, and it ended up slightly lighter than i wanted it (when i got to the lhbs they were out of some of the ingredients, even though their website said they had it in, so i had to change it up a bit). even just during the vigorous part of fermenation it filled the ferment chamber with lots of chocolatey, malty aroma:

82.5% MO
6.2% caramel (30 ebc)
6.2% chocolate (690 ebc)
3.7% flaked barley
1.2% carafa special II (818 ebc)

18 IBUs from northern brewer 60 min
12 IBUs from nb 30 min

"dry spice" with:
5 vanilla beans
5 cinnamon sticks
60g cocao nibs

 

[JKaranka]

After a week of fermenting I drew a gravity sample tonight. I thought it was pretty good so far. Nice roasted/coffee flavor that wasn't too overwhelming. The wife tried it and thought the same. Now I'm wondering though, after reading some of the other replies, what does the brown malt bring to the flavor profile? I think the next go round I'll back off the chocolate and Munich a little then replace it with brown?

Brown malt brings the party straight to your mouth! It's a strange malt in the way that it's not quite a speciality malt and therefore you can vary the proportion quite a bit (I've seen all the way from 2% to 50% of the grist). I was doing some comparisons of porters made with two malts: pale plus any other, and matching the resulting SRM (to around 25-30). Brown malt was the best by far as all the others (patent, chocolate) were quite unidimensional. Where black patent provides a clear roast, burnt, coffee note, brown malt brings instead layers of coffee, toast, nuts, slightly burnt cake, and some sweetness. In small quantities it's nutty and toasty, but when you bring it to 20% of the grist and above it's a bit like a big, deep instrumental section compared to the single, loud solo guitar of patent malt. It's pretty much *the* porter malt and it blends well with other roast malts (that can balance the toast and bring in more colour and deeper and sharper coffee / chocolate notes). It also has a good place in any stout (specially stronger ones) as far as your definition of stout is not a Guinness clone.

 

[Ambrozyne]

I don't mean to hijack this thread but hope to get some advice on what will be my own first porter! Reading this thread I put together a basic malt bill but still have 1 or 2 questions.
the grain bill:
65% pale ale malt
10 % munich
15% brown malt(can't get that here so I'll have to roast some pale malt myself)
5% pale chocolate

For the last 5% I intend to add some caramel malt. Now, would you suggest a 60-80 EBC or a darker one like cara aroma or special B?
Also what about hops.? I have EKG, Willamette and Magnum. could anyone suggest a hop schedule with those suitable for a porter? Again, it will be my first and I haven' t really a clue!
many thanks!

 

[joshesmusica]

I don't mean to hijack this thread but hope to get some advice on what will be my own first porter! Reading this thread I put together a basic malt bill but still have 1 or 2 questions.
the grain bill:
65% pale ale malt
10 % munich
15% brown malt(can't get that here so I'll have to roast some pale malt myself)
5% pale chocolate

For the last 5% I intend to add some caramel malt. Now, would you suggest a 60-80 EBC or a darker one like cara aroma or special B?
Also what about hops.? I have EKG, Willamette and Magnum. could anyone suggest a hop schedule with those suitable for a porter? Again, it will be my first and I haven' t really a clue!
many thanks!

you basically want enough IBUs to take this out of the "fermented roast chocolate" category, but not so much that it's entering into the stout category, and especially not getting into the black ipa arena. typically an english style hop goes well in a porter. out of those three i would choose ekg.

to figure out how much bitterness compared to gravity points (a calculation that will give you an idea of the balance), i use this calculator:

http://www.madalchemist.com/rbr_calculator.html

but you need to know your expected bu:gu ratio (IBUs:OG), but also your expected apparent attenuation percentage (OG-FG /OG = X%). so in mine i had a bu:gu ratio of .468. i have 30 ibus and OG of 1.065. expected apparent attenuation is 75.1%, which gives me a relative bitterness ratio of .461. i then went here:

http://www.madalchemist.com/chart_bitterness_corrected.html

clicked on robust porter, brown porter, and baltic porter, and figured out that mine will pretty much be right in the middle between brown and baltic. which is exactly where i wanted it. (actually i did it the other way around and adjusted my recipe to get it between those two).

that's a lot of info, but i think it really helps to get that balance for each style.

 

[Ambrozyne]

Right! Had to chew on that for a while. I guess with an OG of 1.047 and apparent attn. of 74% I should be good with about 27 IBUs for a brown porter. Would those be all bittering hops at 60 mins or should there be aby late hops as well?
I plan on pitching s04 yeast. Also have us05 but I guess an English ale yeast would fit a porter better.
Any comments on the grain bill ? How about those caramel malts? Would you go for the lighter or darker ones? Thanks again anyone for your suugestions.

 

[joshesmusica]

Right! Had to chew on that for a while. I guess with an OG of 1.047 and apparent attn. of 74% I should be good with about 27 IBUs for a brown porter. Would those be all bittering hops at 60 mins or should there be aby late hops as well?
I plan on pitching s04 yeast. Also have us05 but I guess an English ale yeast would fit a porter better.
Any comments on the grain bill ? How about those caramel malts? Would you go for the lighter or darker ones? Thanks again anyone for your suugestions.

Mine are split up between additions at 60 (18 ibus) and 30 (12 ibus), but that's because I'm not really wanting a ton of hop flavors and aromas because I'm using some spices that I want to shine instead. But if I was just doing this without those spices I would prolly do about 20 ibus at 60 and 10 ibus at 15.

Out of those two, def choose s-04. I personally went with an Irish ale yeast from white labs.

For the malts I feel like you've already got a ton of malt characteristics going on, so I would prolly just up the pale malt by that 5%. But if I had to choose I would go with something lighter, maybe a 20L, since you've already got some darker characteristics happening.

 

[Ambrozyne]

Thanks a lot! That's all the info I needed!

 

[JKaranka]

I go for around 1/3 of the IBU at the 20m mark. I usually skip crystal malts in porter but I can see some medium crystal going into porters with OG below 1.050. I'm keen on trying to brew one of those WW2 porters with an OG of 1.030! Brown malt contributes somewhat to body and can come across as fairly malty.

 

[Ambrozyne]

Thanks Karanka! I might skip the caramel malts and add part of the hops at 20 min.
I always wondered, maybe you can explain, how do you avoid a thin or watery beer with a low og like 1030?
One more question came up: how many ppg does brown malt add? I know crystal malt don't add any fermentable sugars, but do they add points to the og?

 

[JKaranka]

Crystal malt does contribute fermentable sugars as the enzymes from the pale malt will chew them up, it just has more sugars that won't get chewed (there's an article on the front page about this). Brown malt should be around 32PPG or so?

 

[Yooper]

Thanks Karanka! I might skip the caramel malts and add part of the hops at 20 min.
I always wondered, maybe you can explain, how do you avoid a thin or watery beer with a low og like 1030?
One more question came up: how many ppg does brown malt add? I know crystal malt don't add any fermentable sugars, but do they add points to the og?

Caramel/crystal malt does add fermentable sugars, as well as dextrines (nonfermentable) for body. And they add points to the OG as well.

 

[JKaranka]

Thanks Karanka! I might skip the caramel malts and add part of the hops at 20 min.
I always wondered, maybe you can explain, how do you avoid a thin or watery beer with a low og like 1030?
One more question came up: how many ppg does brown malt add? I know crystal malt don't add any fermentable sugars, but do they add points to the og?

Just dug out the recipe for Whitbread Porter from 1940:

3.75lb Pale malt
0.35lb Brown Malt
0.35lb Chocolate Malt
0.5lb Invert sugar syrup (2/3)
2oz Oats

Mash at 150F, underlet and sparge at 170F.

The hops where a blend of the last 4 years (including fresh ones), mainly EKG but pretty much anything goes. They would have been kept cold.

90m boil, 1oz of hops at 90, 1/2oz at 30m, 1/2oz at 15m. ABV of 2.8% with an OG of 1.029 and an FG of 1.007. It would have had some brewers' caramel to make it darker.

To be fair, if I did something similar I'd have 2lb Brown malt and another of Crystal in it for some more body, but would be interesting to brew something like the one above. I'm quite surprised it had any sugar in it considering war time rationing (sugar is a lot more useful than barley!).

 

[Ambrozyne]

Sorry, my mistake! Just checked How to Brew and he typical malt yield chart shows clearly crystal malts add gravity points too.
But this leads me to the next question: if part of these sugars are fermentable and part not, how do you calculate an estimated final gravity of a beer that contains crystal malts? Can you? Or is it an educated guess?

 

[Yooper]

Sorry, my mistake! Just checked How to Brew and he typical malt yield chart shows clearly crystal malts add gravity points too.
But this leads me to the next question: if part of these sugars are fermentable and part not, how do you calculate an estimated final gravity of a beer that contains crystal malts? Can you? Or is it an educated guess?

It's all an educated guess, crystal malts or no. Attenuation depends on recipe, mash temperature, and yeast strain primarily. Some yeast strains are highly attenuative, some are not. A mash temperature of 160F will give you a different fermentability than 147F. Lactose is non-fermentable, and will add both to the OG and FG. Crystal malts, or lack of, play a small part.

 

[Ambrozyne]

Thank you! I'm not one for very precise recipe calculations anyway so that's all fine with me. An educated guess and if I'm roughly in the ballpark I'm OK with it. Out of 40 batches only one I thought was mweh, so it works for me. It's true, beer is very forgiving!