Brown porter critique

[Br3w4u]

I have never made a brown porter and I don’t think I have had one either so not sure if this will be right. So 1. Should I change anything in my recipe? 2. Should I change the beer style?

5 gallon batch
1.049 OG - 1.014 FG 19 IBU
9# marris otter
1# golden naked oats
8 oz. crystal 60
8 oz. carafa 3
4 oz. victory

1 oz. EKG @ 60 min.
Fermenting with WLP013

I have never used golden naked oats before but I thought this would be a good place to try them. I am unsure if I want to use C60 or C40. Also my EKG are pretty old, not sure how old but they have been in a freezer for at least 2 years. Should I up the hops a bit? Thanks for any advice.

 

[Steveruch]

I think a brown porter needs some chocolate and/or brown malt.

 

[Br3w4u]

I can’t get any brown malt.

 

[kevin58]

A classic brown porter from a London brewery would have a grist something like 50% pale malt... 40% brown malt and 10% amber malt. Hops would almost always be EKG. I'm curious why you can't get brown malt? Just order some online.

 

[divrack]

A classic brown porter from a London brewery would have a grist something like 50% pale malt... 40% brown malt and 10% amber malt. Hops would almost always be EKG. I'm curious why you can't get brown malt? Just order some online.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/fermentables/united-kingdom-amber/

40% brown malt! Shyeeeeet that sounds craycray. I'm not saying its not true Im not even sure I know what brown porter is exactly, but I reserve the right to be baffled.
Simpsons says up to 10 percent for brown malt..

 

[OswaldvW]

The brown malt from centuries past had diastatic power. Brown malt today does not and is a completely different malt. My advice is to use it sparingly. My favorite recipes using brown malt have me leaning over the mash tun whispering “brown malt.” That’s the usual amount I like adding.

 

[Br3w4u]

A classic brown porter from a London brewery would have a grist something like 50% pale malt... 40% brown malt and 10% amber malt. Hops would almost always be EKG. I'm curious why you can't get brown malt? Just order some online.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/fermentables/united-kingdom-amber/

If I were to order a pound of brown malt at the lowest shipping I can find of 7.99 then it would cost $11 for 1 pound. I would rather find a suitable replacement.

 

[dstockwell]

I have a recipe yet to make for a Brown ale, only 6.5% Brown malt. Do you have any chocolate malt or roasted barley for the brown.

 

[tennesseean_87]

I've used home-toasted brown malt before (and amber malt) to good effect. I've never done a side-by-side, but it's made good beer that's been well received by others. Look at the instructions on barleypopmaker or whatever it's called. Note that you should not use his names, but the color ratings to guide you, since IIRC, what he calls brown malt is not the right color for the commercial varieties.

 

[corax]

If I were to order a pound of brown malt at the lowest shipping I can find of 7.99 then it would cost $11 for 1 pound. I would rather find a suitable replacement.

Chocolate malt is a suitable replacement. For your recipe, I'd use a half pound, and drop the oats, carafa, and victory. Make up the lost gravity points with extra Maris Otter.

 

[fizzix]

I always refer to Brewer's Association { https://www.brewersassociation.org/resources/brewers-association-beer-style-guidelines/#18 } for different styles.
It's what my Beer Club uses.


Brown Porter

• Color: Dark brown to very dark. May have red tint.
• Clarity: Beer color may be too dark to perceive clarity. When clarity is perceivable, chill haze is acceptable at low temperatures.
• Perceived Malt Aroma & Flavor: Low to medium malt sweetness. Caramel and chocolate character is acceptable. Strong roast barley or strong burnt or black malt character should not be perceived.
• Perceived Hop Aroma & Flavor: Very low to medium
• Perceived Bitterness: Medium
• Fermentation Characteristics: Fruity-estery flavors are acceptable. Diacetyl should not be perceived.
• Body: Low to medium

Original Gravity (°Plato) 1.040-1.050(10-12.4 °Plato) • Apparent Extract/Final Gravity (°Plato) 1.006-1.014(1.5-3.6 °Plato) • Alcohol by Weight (Volume) 3.5%-4.7%(4.4%-6.0%) • Bitterness (IBU) 20-30 • Color SRM (EBC) 20-35(40-70 EBC)

 

[Northern_Brewer]

No need to refer to guidelines these days, when thanks to the likes of Ron Pattinson you can now find recipes direct from the brewers on his blog, he's even written an entire book on the subject. (buy it! Or as an e-book) So you've no excuse. The 40% brown was an early thing, by the heyday of the style in the mid-19th century it was typically 80-85% pale malt, 10-15% brown and up to 5% black malt. As usual, homebrewers try to complicate things.... Or just find a recipe for Fuller's London Porter, there's several kicking around the web.

As an aside, brown porter is not a thing - at least not in the UK. If you're into guidelines, the 2015 BJCP renamed it to 13C English Porter, which at least makes a bit more sense.

 

[Br3w4u]

Isn’t carafa 3 the same as chocolate malt but less bitter? So I take it that I should scrap this recipe entirely and go with a known recipe.

 

[corax]

Carafa 3 is more about adding color than roasted flavor. And porter is all about roasted flavor.

Your original recipe might well make a delicious dark beer, it just wouldn't be much like a porter.

If you want to keep the recipe and are just looking for something to call it, you might get away with "brown ale".

 

[kevin58]

40% brown malt! Shyeeeeet that sounds craycray. I'm not saying its not true Im not even sure I know what brown porter is exactly, but I reserve the right to be baffled.
Simpsons says up to 10 percent for brown malt..

The key to that statement is "classic" brown porter. When London brewers were turning out more porter than any other beer the grists were 100% brown malt. That's because the brown malt back then was much different than what we get today. It had 100% diastatic power.

 

[kevin58]

I always refer to Brewer's Association { https://www.brewersassociation.org/resources/brewers-association-beer-style-guidelines/#18 } for different styles.
It's what my Beer Club uses.


Brown Porter

• Color: Dark brown to very dark. May have red tint.
• Clarity: Beer color may be too dark to perceive clarity. When clarity is perceivable, chill haze is acceptable at low temperatures.
• Perceived Malt Aroma & Flavor: Low to medium malt sweetness. Caramel and chocolate character is acceptable. Strong roast barley or strong burnt or black malt character should not be perceived.
• Perceived Hop Aroma & Flavor: Very low to medium
• Perceived Bitterness: Medium
• Fermentation Characteristics: Fruity-estery flavors are acceptable. Diacetyl should not be perceived.
• Body: Low to medium

Original Gravity (°Plato) 1.040-1.050(10-12.4 °Plato) • Apparent Extract/Final Gravity (°Plato) 1.006-1.014(1.5-3.6 °Plato) • Alcohol by Weight (Volume) 3.5%-4.7%(4.4%-6.0%) • Bitterness (IBU) 20-30 • Color SRM (EBC) 20-35(40-70 EBC)

Did you know that even though we all believe that India Pale Ale was highly hopped and higher ABV to survive the ocean voyage to British settlements and soldier in India... that there was actually more porter shipped to India? And that those porters were hopped to the same level and had the same (sometimes higher) ABV than the IPA's? Just throwing that out as a point of curiosity.

 

[Br3w4u]

Sooo...what if I take out the victory and use chocolate instead of carafa? It really doesn’t matter what style it turns out as. I’m not entering this in a competition. I just didn’t know what to classify my original recipe as and wasn’t sure if it was a good recipe. I might just scrap the whole idea and do something else.

 

[Staylow]

Sooo...what if I take out the victory and use chocolate instead of carafa? It really doesn’t matter what style it turns out as. I’m not entering this in a competition. I just didn’t know what to classify my original recipe as and wasn’t sure if it was a good recipe. I might just scrap the whole idea and do something else.

The recipe looks like it will make a fine beer...call it whatever you want and dont worry about styles.

 

[corax]

Agreed -- brew it as-is and judge it for yourself. Call it "dark ale". No one could argue with that.

 

[Br3w4u]

Well I did it. My wort tastes like black coffee. That’s the good thing about experimenting though is you can sift out the BS you hear and read about brewing. Carafa is not chocolate like at all. I believe it must get its name for resembling a carafe of coffee but now I know. It might not be too bad though, just hoping it’s not a dumper .

 

[Staylow]

That's odd. I get a pretty strong chocolate flavor from Carafa II when using just 4 oz in 5 gallons. That was in combination with a lot of Munich though, so maybe that has an impact.

 

[Br3w4u]

Well it might come out in the final product. I will post an update when it’s done.

 

[Br3w4u]

Ok I got it carbed up and tried it this weekend and it’s actually a pretty good beer. It has a full body and is very roasty. It’s smooth, a little sweet, and not bitter or harsh at all. I would have liked some chocolate and that would be the only thing I would change in this recipe. I didn’t use the victory that I had originally planned on. It’s kind of somewhere between an oatmeal stout and a roasty porter.