Chocolate/caramel Porter, hopping + other questions

[Ke-Oz-Beer]

Hi guys,

What I will be using for my porter:

1.7 kg of Black Rock Dark Malt Extract
1.7 kg of Black Rock Light Malt Extract
500g of powedered Malt Extract - Light Malt Brew Improver
500g Chocolate Malt Grains (for steeping)
500g Crystal Dark Malt Grains (for steeping)
25g Goldings
25g Fuggles
Ale yeast

I will be making 19litres (~5 gal)

I aim to make a Chocolate caramel beer. (maybe with a hint of coffee, 4/5 beans for the next batch depending on how this one turns out)

My questions:
1. Should I boil the Malt Extract with the hops or just add them from the can/bag into the fermenter?
2. Hoppping:
2.1 . I was planning on using 12.5g of Goldings and 12.5 of fuggles at 30mins and the same at 2 mins
2.2 but, from my understanding I should boil the bittering hops for 60 mins - not sure when to put the rest.
Whats the difference between the two in terms of flavour and bitterness?
Any suggestions for hopping?

3. I only have a 10l pot for the boil, is it ok to do the boil with 10l (or less) of water and top the fermenter with filtered water?

Thanks.

 

[Alan_Tyson]

I think your hop choice is spot-on. Fuggles has a long tradition of making very good English-style porters and stouts, and while I've never used Goldings myself, their description sounds pretty good for what you're trying to accomplish. I would personally recommend using the Fuggles as your bittering hop, added about 5-10 minutes into the boil, and the Goldings as your aroma at about 10-15 minutes before the end of the boil (not sure how long of a boil you're going for, though I would recommend at least an hour and a half).

The reason I suggest adding the bittering hops so early is that, especially for a very sweet stout like you're making, you want to give the bittering hops as much "time" to work as you can, not to lessen the sweetness of the beer, but to keep it from becoming cloying or "sticky" on the palate. Fortunately, Fuggles is really good at this. I used it for my very first beer, a pumpkin brown ale bottled with maple syrup, and it worked like a charm.

As for the size of your pot -- I'll admit, I'm a little nervous about having so little space. If you were making a brown ale or something on the darker side of pale, maybe that wouldn't be so bad, but I think by topping it off so much with water, you risk losing that really strong dark color and thick mouthfeel that makes porters so lovely. Unfortunately, I don't really have a good solution, short of going out and getting a new brewpot. Possibly doing a longer boil (3 hours or so) might extract as much of the fermentables as possible, and that would help with the color/body, but I wouldn't bet your beer on it.