Critique: Robust Porter recipe

[CthulhuDreaming]

I'm wanting to do a robust porter similar to Black Butte Porter. Here's my first crack at it -

5lb 12oz light LME
12oz chocolate malt
12oz cara-pils malt
8oz crystal 80L malt

0.75 oz Galena @ 90 min
1.00 oz Cascade @ 30 min
1.00 oz Tettnang @ 5 min

1 whirlfloc tablet @ 15 min

2.5 gallon partial boil, cool and top up to 5 gallons.

Wyeast 1098 (British Ale)

Estimated OG 1.053 / FG 1.014 / ABV 5.2 / SRM 32 / 32.8 IBU

Comments?

 

[sketerbuck]

It could use some Black patent malt. I like to put some chocolate wheat in my porters for a nice head retention. I think you should move your bittering hops (Galena) to 60 min.

 

[CthulhuDreaming]

Black Butte Porter doesn't use black patent malt. The 90 minute boil is as recommended by Deschutes Brewery.

I know what ingredients are used and the boil time (from the brewer), what I don't know is the proportions and schedule - and unsurprisingly, they won't say.

 

[sketerbuck]

It needs something to make it robust. A 90 min boil does not mean 90 min hop addition. I am not familiar with that beer so I'm just going by style. Good luck on your brew.

 

[CthulhuDreaming]

Thanks for the tips - its not a style I'm familiar with brewing. If you haven't tried black butte, I highly recommend it. It's very highly regarded and widely available.

 

[wailingguitar]

That would make a beer fitting the "robust porter" style, the only issue I see is that cara-pils has to be mashed with another malt that has a relatively high diastatic power.

 

[sketerbuck]

I thought "Cara" malts do not need to be mashed. The starch has already been converted in the malting process.

 

[wailingguitar]

Cara-pils is only a mildly converted malt, unlike other crystal malts and carastan. It is very starchy and requires diastatic assistance to convert those starches into unfermentable dextrin. The resulting dextrin is the product we are looking for in the use of carapils, it is responsible for the body added by the use of the malt as well as the head retention properties associated with it.