Back To School Porter

[signpost]

Well, this week has been my first week back in school as a student in a long time. I'm starting work on my Master's degree and feel like celebrating. So, I threw together a beer recipe and began to prepare to fix my problem of empty primary fermenters.

I aimed for a porter of some sort, and landed pretty well within the style guidelines for a Robust Porter (according to BrewPal). It's a partial mash recipe for a 5.25 gallon batch. I figured I'd include the Maris Otter LME that Northern Brewer just came out with. So, here it is:

Fermentables:
6 lbs. Maris Otter LME - 55.8%
3 lbs. Maris Otter malt - 27.9%
1 lbs. Biscuit malt - 9.3%
12 oz. Chocolate malt - 7.0%

Hop Schedule:
1 oz. UK Phoenix - 12% AA - 60 min.
1 oz. Fuggles - 5% AA - 15 min.
1 oz. UK Kent Goldings - 5% AA - 5 min.

1 oz. UK Kent Goldings - 5% AA - dry-hop for 7 days

Yeast:
Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley Ale - probably a 1L starter or something appropriately calculated on yeastcalc.com or mrmalty.com

Brewpal calculations (assuming 75% efficiency):

OG = 1.061
FG = 1.014 (predicted)
6.2% abv
40 IBU
26°L

I have not brewed a porter before. I have also not researched porter recipes yet. I have no idea if dry-hopping is appropriate for this style. I have no idea if the biscuit malt is appropriate for the style. I briefly thought of including something specifically to get a fuller mouthfeel, but I wasn't sure if that would be appropriate for the style.

I assume you kind of understand where I'm at with this recipe right now. Any thoughts, critiques or bits of encouragement?

 

[signpost]

Cool. I'll take that silence to mean that this is the most perfect porter recipe ever and it must've been sent directly to me from God on high. And one of you is probably brewing it as we speak in order to claim that it is your own and will soon conquer the world with the fortune it makes for you.

 

[DrHop]

Cool. I'll take that silence to mean that this is the most perfect porter recipe ever and it must've been sent directly to me from God on high. And one of you is probably brewing it as we speak in order to claim that it is your own and will soon conquer the world with the fortune it makes for you.

Porters can have anything and everything in them. I might do a more neutral yeast but it could work well with that yeast. Just try to get as big of a starter as you can and control the fermenter temp.

 

[DuckiesRevenge]

I don't think I'm one to talk about hops, but I think the grain profile looks good. A recent porter that I did and my friends loved was
6# gold LME
.75# chocolate malt
.25# pale chocolate malt
.5 # carapils

It was a good chocolate / coffee flavor. But I think with what you are doing the biscuit malt will add some good flavor and complement the MO malt.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[daksin]

OK- since you're looking for constructive criticism:

Maris otter is a fairly biscuity/bready base malt. Adding biscuit malt to that will just increase that flavor. It's not out of place in a porter but it will be intense. If you're familiar with Fat Tire, the biscuit character will be about 3X of that.

Literally everything else looks great. Quite good, though I prefer low gravity porters myself, that does not mean that a stronger one will be less excellent.

 

[signpost]

Porters can have anything and everything in them. I might do a more neutral yeast but it could work well with that yeast. Just try to get as big of a starter as you can and control the fermenter temp.

Cool. I was just reading a bit about yeast for this recipe this morning. I picked the Thames Valley, just because I had used it before and didn't realize the fruitiness might get in the way of things a bit. I am starting to think about doing an English Mild and then following with this porter on the same yeast. And I think I've decided to go with the Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale yeast instead.

OK- since you're looking for constructive criticism:

Maris otter is a fairly biscuity/bready base malt. Adding biscuit malt to that will just increase that flavor. It's not out of place in a porter but it will be intense. If you're familiar with Fat Tire, the biscuit character will be about 3X of that.

Literally everything else looks great. Quite good, though I prefer low gravity porters myself, that does not mean that a stronger one will be less excellent.

Thanks. That comparison is really helpful. I love the biscuit character of Fat Tire, but multiplying that by 3 might be a bit too much. I'll definitely have to think about that.

The other thing I'm vacillating on is the dry-hopping. I might drop that.