English Porter recipe idea

[Miraculix]

Thanks, I'm not really familiarized with porters, but want to try it out. A last question: Can pale be substituted by Pilsen or definitely not?

Wouldn't be a problem at all.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Personally I wouldn't go crazy on things like roast barley, which is getting away from an English porter. A classic English porter of the mid-19th century would be

82-87% Chevallier pale malt
10-15% brown malt
3% black malt
1.055-1.060 OG

and that's all for the grist. Chevallier is a historic variety that is available in small quantities from Crisp, but you could substitute it with something like Maris Otter pale with a bit of crystal.

The benchmark for modern porter is Fuller's London Porter, which is amazing on cask but which translates better than most to bottle (and has reasonable distribution which should only improve after Asahi bought them recently). Typical clone recipes are along the lines of :

76% UK pale malt
12% brown malt
10% crystal
2% chocolate
1.053 OG

Historically porters could be hopped to 50-60 IBU and left to age with some Brettanomyces and whatever else was hanging around, modern ones would typically see 35IBU added at 60 or 90 minutes, and 0.5g/l of hops at 10 or 15 minutes. Fuggles would be the classic hop to use but any British hop would do, it's not that critical - or use Willamette or Styrian/Savinjski goldings if they're what you have locally.

They're full-bodied beers, so you want to mash fairly high and use the most characterful, low-attenuation yeast you can find - this is not a beer for Nottingham.

I'm not sure how pilsner would work, other than it would end up thinner and less flavourful than using European pale malt, let along a British pale malt (which gets cooked a bit more than the Continental equivalent, and is made from a more characterful grain to start with). This thread shows you the difference between Weyermann pilsner and their pale malt, a British pale malt would be a bit darker still. It's maybe not something to worry about for your first batch, pilsner will get you pretty close, I'd just pay particular attention to the mash and attenuation as above. One option would be to add maybe 3% Weyermann Carapils, another would be to cook it a little in the oven, I'm sure someone's worked out some timings somewhere.

According to the usual (not entirely reliable) charts, Carafa (Special) II is the closest equivalent to chocolate, and Caramunich III the closest to crystal 60.

Brown is the tough one that doesn't really have an equivalent - if you're in France then the charts suggest MFB Kiln Amber is close. Durden Park suggest the following schedule for making your own from UK pale malt :

30 minutes at 250 degrees Farenheit
30 minutes at 300 degrees
30 minutes at 350 degrees, stirring every 10 minutes to prevent scorching

Do try and find a bottle of the Fuller's London Porter if you want to get a good idea of what it's about. I guess the Meantime porter is the other one you're likely to see, I've not had it in a while but memory says it's not as good.

 

[Miraculix]

Personally I wouldn't go crazy on things like roast barley, which is getting away from an English porter. A classic English porter of the mid-19th century would be

82-87% Chevallier pale malt
10-15% brown malt
3% black malt
1.055-1.060 OG

and that's all for the grist. Chevallier is a historic variety that is available in small quantities from Crisp, but you could substitute it with something like Maris Otter pale with a bit of crystal.

The benchmark for modern porter is Fuller's London Porter, which is amazing on cask but which translates better than most to bottle (and has reasonable distribution which should only improve after Asahi bought them recently). Typical clone recipes are along the lines of :

76% UK pale malt
12% brown malt
10% crystal
2% chocolate
1.053 OG

Historically porters could be hopped to 50-60 IBU and left to age with some Brettanomyces and whatever else was hanging around, modern ones would typically see 35IBU added at 60 or 90 minutes, and 0.5g/l of hops at 10 or 15 minutes. Fuggles would be the classic hop to use but any British hop would do, it's not that critical - or use Willamette or Styrian/Savinjski goldings if they're what you have locally.

They're full-bodied beers, so you want to mash fairly high and use the most characterful, low-attenuation yeast you can find - this is not a beer for Nottingham.

I'm not sure how pilsner would work, other than it would end up thinner and less flavourful than using European pale malt, let along a British pale malt (which gets cooked a bit more than the Continental equivalent, and is made from a more characterful grain to start with). This thread shows you the difference between Weyermann pilsner and their pale malt, a British pale malt would be a bit darker still. It's maybe not something to worry about for your first batch, pilsner will get you pretty close, I'd just pay particular attention to the mash and attenuation as above. One option would be to add maybe 3% Weyermann Carapils, another would be to cook it a little in the oven, I'm sure someone's worked out some timings somewhere.

According to the usual (not entirely reliable) charts, Carafa (Special) II is the closest equivalent to chocolate, and Caramunich III the closest to crystal 60.

Brown is the tough one that doesn't really have an equivalent - if you're in France then the charts suggest MFB Kiln Amber is close. Durden Park suggest the following schedule for making your own from UK pale malt :

30 minutes at 250 degrees Farenheit
30 minutes at 300 degrees
30 minutes at 350 degrees, stirring every 10 minutes to prevent scorching

Do try and find a bottle of the Fuller's London Porter if you want to get a good idea of what it's about. I guess the Meantime porter is the other one you're likely to see, I've not had it in a while but memory says it's not as good.

Based on my own trials, I strongly disagree regarding using brown malt. I brewed something with about 20 ibus, ten percent brown, rest pale for investigative purposes.

Brew and fermentation went as planned and the result was horribly astringent. It was undrinkable. After half a year of aging, it turned into something nice, but it really needed this long, I had one or two in between, they were bad. Better than the first, but still bad.

The historically used brown malt has not much in common with the modern one (I know that you know, just for people who don't), therefore historical porter recipes are hard to handle as there simply is no modern brown malt that equals the one from back in the days.
I suspect that the Fuller's porter has a unique "brown malt" inside, created according to their own needs, if there is something like brown malt inside at all.

If I would want to go for something "light brown" with not too much of an impact regarding licorice chocolate malt flavour but also wouldn't want the strong roast that roast barley can impart, I would go with chocolate spelt. This gives a nice porter, not dark as the night colour at ten percent and is taste wise not as strong as chocolate malt but goes a bit in the same direction.

Regarding base make, you are certainly right about the pilsener, but as you said, doesn't really matter much in a dark recipe like this

 

[Appcr4sh]

Ok, I believe that I'll try to go with a pale malt or pilsner, chocolate, cara malt and give it a try. Thanks guys. Based on the results I'll post here.

But now it comes another question: I've been watching some youtube videos and some guys use the darker malts after the white ones. Like, they put on the pale malt and later, sometimes a few minutes to the end the dark malts. That is necessary? Thanks!

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I recently brewed a Porter with 14% Brown Malt (Crisp English Brown Malt, 60-70L) and the flavor turned out quite nice. I had some other issues with my mash (high temp and low pH). This is definitely going to be my core Porter recipe, but I might scale the Brown Malt back to 10% or so. I tried to come up with my own recipe for a Porter back in Dec and it was just so-so. A friend that has won some competitions with his Porter said "Brown Malt is the key".

For the most part my last recipe was from this article: https://byo.com/article/brown-malt/ It is VERY similar to the Brown/English Porter recipe that is in Brewing Classic Styles. The biggest difference is 1.5 lbs of Brown Malt vs 1.0 lbs.

Note that I think some "Brown Malt" is up in the 150L range.

 

[Appcr4sh]

I recently brewed a Porter with 14% Brown Malt (Crisp English Brown Malt, 60-70L) and the flavor turned out quite nice. I had some other issues with my mash (high temp and low pH). This is definitely going to be my core Porter recipe, but I might scale the Brown Malt back to 10% or so. I tried to come up with my own recipe for a Porter back in Dec and it was just so-so. A friend that has won some competitions with his Porter said "Brown Malt is the key".

For the most part my last recipe was from this article: https://byo.com/article/brown-malt/ It is VERY similar to the Brown/English Porter recipe that is in Brewing Classic Styles. The biggest difference is 1.5 lbs of Brown Malt vs 1.0 lbs.

Note that I think some "Brown Malt" is up in the 150L range.

My problem is that I don't have access to Brown malt, and everybody says that is no substitute to him. So I'm going to make a porter with another malts, as recommended previously.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

But now it comes another question: I've been watching some youtube videos and some guys use the darker malts after the white ones. Like, they put on the pale malt and later, sometimes a few minutes to the end the dark malts. That is necessary? Thanks!

I have not played with this, but some people will add dark grains either at the end of the mash, during the sparge, or will cold steep and add the liquid. The claim (which I believe to be true) is that it reduces some of the astringency/harshness. Some people like the resulting character and some people think it takes away from the character of dark malts. I have thought about playing around with this to avoid dropping my mash pH too low for dark beers...though I am not positive if this is a good idea.

My problem is that I don't have access to Brown malt, and everybody says that is no substitute to him. So I'm going to make a porter with another malts, as recommended previously.

All good!

 

[Miraculix]

Ok, I believe that I'll try to go with a pale malt or pilsner, chocolate, cara malt and give it a try. Thanks guys. Based on the results I'll post here.

But now it comes another question: I've been watching some youtube videos and some guys use the darker malts after the white ones. Like, they put on the pale malt and later, sometimes a few minutes to the end the dark malts. That is necessary? Thanks!

It might be that my brown malt was an unusual one? I think it was Thomas Facet, but I'm not entirely sure, brewed this quite some time ago.

Also keep in mind that @Northern_Brewer is certainly one of the most knowledgeable persons regarding British styles here in the forum, and I am only speaking from experience from one single batch.

But that one certainly was not nice, before aging.

For the first try I would really keep it simple, no late additions, no fancy malts, create a solid baseline from which you can judge further development easily.

I personally really like s04 in stouts and porters, just to keep it even more simple, but yeast choice certainly is very personal.

 

[Appcr4sh]

It might be that my brown malt was an unusual one? I think it was Thomas Facet, but I'm not entirely sure, brewed this quite some time ago.

Also keep in mind that @Northern_Brewer is certainly one of the most knowledgeable persons regarding British styles here in the forum, and I am only speaking from experience from one single batch.

But that one certainly was not nice, before aging.

For the first try I would really keep it simple, no late additions, no fancy malts, create a solid baseline from which you can judge further development easily.

I personally really like s04 in stouts and porters, just to keep it even more simple, but yeast choice certainly is very personal.

So, I'm using s-04, Thinking in do with pilsen, caraaroma and chocolate. What would you suggest me to go for hop? Styrian Golding or Nugget? If you have more ideas please let me know.

 

[Miraculix]

So, I'm using s-04, Thinking in do with pilsen, caraaroma and chocolate. What would you suggest me to go for hop? Styrian Golding or Nugget? If you have more ideas please let me know.

I never used either of them, just make sure it's not a typical American citrus bomb variety and use 60 min bittering additions only.

 

[Soulshine2]

Yes i have beersmith and thanks for the feedback. I wasnt sure what exactly went into a porter, just a hunch. So before playing with the numbers wanted to make sure i at least get the ingredients right. I was hoping the maris otter would give it that english style taste/feel.

Designing Great Beers is a great book to keep by your brewing area. Gives water profiles, origins and not a recipe per se of beer styles as such but give a list of probable ingredients and their proportions of beers in 2nd round competitions. Porter is a wide scope of a style that is really often misunderstood . Color can vary from dark brown to black as night .

 

[Appcr4sh]

So, I've find here a Target hop as it is english. Could It be good using it at 60'? How much would i use to 20L?
some guy says it is too bitter, is it?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

The historically used brown malt has not much in common with the modern one (I know that you know, just for people who don't), therefore historical porter recipes are hard to handle as there simply is no modern brown malt that equals the one from back in the days.
I suspect that the Fuller's porter has a unique "brown malt" inside, created according to their own needs, if there is something like brown malt inside at all.

The big change was from diastatic brown to non-diastatic brown during the Napoleonic Wars(-ish) I suspect you're thinking of the diastatic malts of the 18th century? The brown malts at the time of porter's peak in the mid-19th century were non-diastatic and so not so different to modern ones, although not identical (as it's not dried over wood fire). Goose Island made a nice video about their attempt to recreate a mid-19th century London porter with Ron Pattinson, blending old and new beer - there's about 2 minutes just on recreating 19th-century brown malt. But even so it's still closer to modern brown malt than the 18th century stuff.

As it happens Ron posted a few recipes the other day from the dying days of London porter in the 1920s when the recipe was largely dictated by the other components of the partigyle, but you'll see that most of them still still have 10%-ish of what would be rather more "modern" brown malt. I don't pretend to be a particular porter expert, but I don't recognise what you're seeing with brown. Can't remember what I've used in the past, suspect it was probably the Warminster brown from BrewUK.

You might also be interested in a recent webinar by Ron on porter :
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/bjcp_study_groups-ron_pattinson-porter (free registration needed)

My problem is that I don't have access to Brown malt, and everybody says that is no substitute to him. So I'm going to make a porter with another malts, as recommended previously.

If you have access to pale malt and an oven, then you have access to brown malt, as above....

It would help if you put your country in your profile, it would help people give you better answers and maybe come up with a source in your country that you don't know about.

So, I'm using s-04, Thinking in do with pilsen, caraaroma and chocolate. What would you suggest me to go for hop? Styrian Golding or Nugget? If you have more ideas please let me know.

S-04 is OK, but if you're going dry then S-33 or Windsor would give you more appropriate attenuation, although they don't flocc as well.

Personally if you're going with that grist then I'd be careful with the chocolate (and pale chocolate would be better).

The hop for bittering isn't so important, Nugget would be OK, I guess Target would be more appropriate but you could use just about anything that wasn't too high in alpha acids. Yes Target has a relatively harsh bitterness - some people like it, some people don't. I suspect it won't make a huge difference given that you're using chocolate malt etc.

Target typically has around 10% alpha acids but it can really vary - my usual shop has 2017 pellets at 8.2% and 2018 leaf at 14.4%. Since you're aiming for 30-35 IBU, that would mean using 26g of the 2017 pellets or 15g of the 2018 cones in 20 litres, you have to adjust the amount you use depending on how much alpha acid it has, as per the label.

Styrian would be great for the late addition - it's a Fuggle derivative.