Advice on Porter recipe?

[b-radbrew]

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.

So I ended up doing a revamp of my original receipe and added brown malt. Holy crap what a difference! I went through and really focused on each ingredient and played with the percentages while incorporating the Brown malt. I backed off my Munich and Chocolate by a couple ounces each and took those quantities for my Brown addition. I don't have my recipe handy at the moment but this is sooooo much better than the first round which almost came out tasting like a Guiness so far. So glad I went with your recommendation on this malt. Just brewed a couple days ago and can't wait to see how it plays out. Thanks again, JKaranka!

 

[TandemTails]

So I ended up doing a revamp of my original receipe and added brown malt. Holy crap what a difference! I went through and really focused on each ingredient and played with the percentages while incorporating the Brown malt. I backed off my Munich and Chocolate by a couple ounces each and took those quantities for my Brown addition. I don't have my recipe handy at the moment but this is sooooo much better than the first round which almost came out tasting like a Guiness so far. So glad I went with your recommendation on this malt. Just brewed a couple days ago and can't wait to see how it plays out. Thanks again, JKaranka!

Do you mind posting your full recipe with the Brown malt addition?

I've been brewing cider and mead for a few months but am looking for a porter or stout as my first small batch beer experiment. Your 1.5gal batch looks perfect and I'd love to start with one that's had at least a little success.

Also, a few other random questions:

1. How long are you boiling the wort? 60 min?
2. Are you fermenting for the normal 7-10 days and then bottling?
3. What temperature are you mashing at?
4. Do you have the OG and estimated FG?
5. Is 1.5gal your post-boil wort amount? I have a 2 gallon fermentation bucket that I was planning on using so 1.5 gal post-boil would be perfect.

Thanks for posting this thread and finally convincing me to bite the bullet and brew my first beer!

 

[z-bob]

I want to brew a Baltic porter for my Christmas beer this year, and have been intrigued by brown malt. I was about to start a new thread to get comments about this recipe; I hope you don't mind if I piggyback here instead. Does this look okay? Porter is not a style I'm really familiar with...

Baltic Porter 2015 (4 gallons)

8 lbs pale ale malt
2 lbs UK brown malt
2 oz roasted barley (or midnight wheat, or black patent?)
1 lb Karo white corn syrup
2 oz Willamette, 4.5AA @ 60 minutes
S-33 or Windsor Ale yeast

It should end up with OG of about 1.075 and FG of 1.021 (7% ABV) and 37 IBU's. Or I could use a more attenuating yeast like S04 and dry it out a bit.

 

[Madash]

I really like this recipe for a porter. It is based on a clone of Black Butte Porter, which is an amazing beer and a crowd pleaser (see beeradvocate.com for confirmation )

- 7 lbs Light Liquid Malt Extract
- 6oz Chocolate Wheat Malt
- 12oz Dextrin Malt
- 10oz Crystal Malt
- 2oz Galena (60 mins)
- 1oz Tettnang (5 Mins)

I got this from a brew shop in Portland back in the day. They have since taken it off their website, but I saved what we used. I ended up adding more hops because I love something closer to a Black IPA (or, as we say in the Northwest, a CDA - Cascadian Dark Ale), but I think this is really close to the original.

 

[b-radbrew]

Do you mind posting your full recipe with the Brown malt addition?

I've been brewing cider and mead for a few months but am looking for a porter or stout as my first small batch beer experiment. Your 1.5gal batch looks perfect and I'd love to start with one that's had at least a little success.

Also, a few other random questions:

1. How long are you boiling the wort? 60 min?
2. Are you fermenting for the normal 7-10 days and then bottling?
3. What temperature are you mashing at?
4. Do you have the OG and estimated FG?
5. Is 1.5gal your post-boil wort amount? I have a 2 gallon fermentation bucket that I was planning on using so 1.5 gal post-boil would be perfect.

Thanks for posting this thread and finally convincing me to bite the bullet and brew my first beer!

If you would like, I'd give you the recipe after it ferments out and when I bottle. Like I said it tasted great on brew day but I don't rely on that to gauge if it turned out or not. I just don't want to throw it out there for you not completely knowing how it finishes. Just for example, the first run I did with no brown malt tasted really nice and roasty but after it went 2-1/2 weeks, that became a little more subtle and not what I thought it was going to be from that first taste. But for the time being:

1 - Yes, 60 min boil
2- Ferment for 2-1/2 to 3 weeks. The first 5-6 days I run at around 17*(S-04 yest) then I generally pull it out of the chamber and let it climb up to room temp and sit until bottling.
3 - This time I mashed at 156 for 60 min
4 - OG was 1.062 and I got 1.060. FG (estimated) came up at 1.017 I believe.
5 - I figure my post boil at around 2 gl. I leave about .5 in the kettle for trub so 1.5 into fermentor. I use 2 gl buckets for these batches also.

Probably in a couple of days here I'll have a better idea on the flavor and I can get you the recipe if you still want. Or I guess if you really want to try it anyways, I'll post it. Just let me know.

-Brad

 

[TandemTails]

If you would like, I'd give you the recipe after it ferments out and when I bottle. Like I said it tasted great on brew day but I don't rely on that to gauge if it turned out or not. I just don't want to throw it out there for you not completely knowing how it finishes. Just for example, the first run I did with no brown malt tasted really nice and roasty but after it went 2-1/2 weeks, that became a little more subtle and not what I thought it was going to be from that first taste. But for the time being:

1 - Yes, 60 min boil
2- Ferment for 2-1/2 to 3 weeks. The first 5-6 days I run at around 17*(S-04 yest) then I generally pull it out of the chamber and let it climb up to room temp and sit until bottling.
3 - This time I mashed at 156 for 60 min
4 - OG was 1.062 and I got 1.060. FG (estimated) came up at 1.017 I believe.
5 - I figure my post boil at around 2 gl. I leave about .5 in the kettle for trub so 1.5 into fermentor. I use 2 gl buckets for these batches also.

Probably in a couple of days here I'll have a better idea on the flavor and I can get you the recipe if you still want. Or I guess if you really want to try it anyways, I'll post it. Just let me know.

-Brad

Thanks for the info. If you'd rather wait until fermentation completes before sending the recipe, that's fine. I'm just looking to start a batch in the next week or so.

 

[rhys333]

I brewed the following porter a few weeks ago. I used Gordon Strong's cold-steep process for the chocolate malt. Packaging this weekend and really looking forward to the first taste.

PORTER:
55% MO
20% Wheat
10% Brown
10% C75
5% Chocolate

 

[JKaranka]

Have you been drinking it yet?

I bottled today and wow, it smelled and tasted amazing. I'm approaching now my personal favourite grist with something along the lines of 74% Maris Otter, 18% Brown Malt, 5% Amber Malt and 3% Patent Malt. Same grist for all strengths of porter and stout, just scaling up the weight. For stout I add a touch of brewers' caramel for colour correction as well.

 

[b-radbrew]

Have you been drinking it yet?

I bottled today and wow, it smelled and tasted amazing. I'm approaching now my personal favourite grist with something along the lines of 74% Maris Otter, 18% Brown Malt, 5% Amber Malt and 3% Patent Malt. Same grist for all strengths of porter and stout, just scaling up the weight. For stout I add a touch of brewers' caramel for colour correction as well.

With all the different recipes floating about in this thread, I wasn't sure if you're referring to me or not, but I'll answer anyways, lol. We tried a bottle last week after only 1 week. So far, it's a hit with the wife. I felt there is a slight "sweetness" to it, but at the same time, it may be because it's only a week old bottled. On Wednesday this week we'll try another at the 2 week mark to see how it's changed at all. I think next time though I'm going to do the exact same thing but use US-5 instead of S-04 and see what happens. It finished at 1.020 from 1.060 which I was hoping for a little lower. Closer to 1.014 or 1.012. Other than that, so far so good!

 

[Ambrozyne]

Just for the record, I have started drinking my first porter as well. It came out great!Everyone who tasted it loved it.
I went with
66% pale ale
14% brown malt (oven roasted)
9.5% munich
4.7 % carafa special I (pale chocolate dehusked)
2.4 % light caramel and
2.8 % flaked barley

S-04 took it from 1.052 to 1.015. Magnum for bittering and some EKG at 20 minutes.
It's got a great but not overwhelming roasty flavor. Tasting from de bottling bucket was pure coffee! I happen to like coffee so very happy with the results. I'm sure to brew this again when I run out.
Everyone who chimed in, thanks for your suggestions! Found a new love. Porter!

 

[rhys333]

Have you been drinking it yet?

Unsure if you meant me, but I'll chime in too since your post was right after mine. My porter is about a month old right now and I'm really happy with the grain bill posted above. Strong chocolate aroma and the brown/wheat combo works really well. I do detect a slight astringency, but thats down to mash pH and will be corrected in the next batch. This'll be my go-to base recipe for porters.

 

[JKaranka]

I originally meant b-radbrew but it's better still to hear from everyone!

 

[JKaranka]

I just tried the 33cl tester that I leave hanging around for checking how things go half way through conditioning. Very tasty, but still some sweetness from the priming sugar. Mild roast flavour but mainly plenty of cocoa and malt. Very drinkable as I was expecting. The grist had ~18% Brown Malt, 5% Amber Malt and ~3% Black Patent Malt. Works at around a 6.5% beer (OG around 1.056 and FG 1.008), can't quite recall from memory. I'm fairly satisfied with understanding porter / stout grists now, but it's taken a year of sticking to brewing only dark beers (except one bitter and one saison).

On the positive side, now I only stock four malts (pale, amber, brown and black) and a couple of hops. I can put in one order a year and it seems me through the seasons.

 

[rhys333]

I'm fairly satisfied with understanding porter / stout grists now, but it's taken a year of sticking to brewing only dark beers (except one bitter and one saison).

JKaranka, can you explain how you treat your water for porters and stouts? I brew with RO water and salts, but struggle with astringency in dark beers. Lights beers are spot on, but I find predictions for dark srm grists harder to nail down.

 

[JKaranka]

JKaranka, can you explain how you treat your water for porters and stouts? I brew with RO water and salts, but struggle with astringency in dark beers. Lights beers are spot on, but I find predictions for dark srm grists harder to nail down.

I don't get any astringency here. The tap water is fairly soft, so I compensate upwards by adding gypsum. With dark beers I don't need any acidity correction, but I do add around 6-10g of Gypsum for a 6 US gallon beer. For pale beers I have to add ~2g of lactic acid. I did all the calculations last year, came up with some standards and since then I just keep a log of the water additions.

 

[rhys333]

I don't get any astringency here. The tap water is fairly soft, so I compensate upwards by adding gypsum. With dark beers I don't need any acidity correction, but I do add around 6-10g of Gypsum for a 6 US gallon beer. For pale beers I have to add ~2g of lactic acid. I did all the calculations last year, came up with some standards and since then I just keep a log of the water additions.

Thanks JK. Do you know what you're working with in terms of carbonate/residual alkalinity levels?

 

[JKaranka]

Can't quite remember but the tap water here had very little of everything. Less than 20ppm of either sulphur or calcium. I top up to 120ppm sulphur onwards.

 

[rhys333]

Can't quite remember but the tap water here had very little of everything. Less than 20ppm of either sulphur or calcium. I top up to 120ppm sulphur onwards.

Okay thanks JK. And from your descriptions above I gather you aren't adding carbonate to increase pH.

 

[JKaranka]

No, nothing to bring the pH upwards. Only downwards for paler beers. Seems to suit my water here.

 

[rhys333]

No, nothing to bring the pH upwards. Only downwards for paler beers. Seems to suit my water here.

Okay thanks. This backs up what I've been thinking lately.

 

[chickypad]

JKaranka, can you explain how you treat your water for porters and stouts? I brew with RO water and salts, but struggle with astringency in dark beers. Lights beers are spot on, but I find predictions for dark srm grists harder to nail down.

Are you measuring pH? I have basically RO water out of the tap, it's so low in minerals and alkalinity. I do have to add a touch of baking soda on some dark beers.