First Recipe - Porter

[Loweface]

This is my first attempt to come up with a recipe, but I have already ordered the ingredients so not likly to make massive changes (but I'll still ask anyway... )

Is it a mini mash or am I steeping grains????

1.5 Kg Amber Liquid Malt Extract (3.3lbs)
1.5 Kg Pale Liquid Malt Extract (3.3 lbs)

250g Crystal malt (~8.8oz)
250g Black malt (~8.8oz)
125g Pale Chocolate malt (~4.5oz)

60min hop addition 10g(1/3oz) Pioneer & 15g=(1/2oz) Cascade
30min hop addition 10g(1/3oz) Pioneer & 15g=(1/2oz) Cascade
0 min hop additon 5g(1/6oz) Pioneer & 14g(1/2oz) Cascade

Should I pitch Safeale S-04 or S-05?

I admit that some of this is designed to use up hops and grain I had/need for different brews....

If it looks totally off I'll listen to ye, but its worth noting that I will have more pioneer hops but not cascade and more chocolate or black grains but not crystal...

Thanks for the help.

 

[McGarnigle]

No need to mini-mash this. You could have gone with all pale extract given the specialty grains you're using. I made a porter recently and more or less just flipped your amounts of chocolate and black patent. Also, I had English hops and S-04.

Should you use s-05 because of the American Cascade hops? I'll let someone else suggest.

 

[Loweface]

Thanks for the quick input. The two LME's were the same price so it was more an opportunity to see the amber LME they sell

 

[goplayoutside]

Should be an interesting beer combining british and american hops. I like my porters a bit on the dry roasty side so I'd ferment w/ the us-05 (I used this in a porter recently that turned out wonderfully). Mini-mashing will probably add 1.5 hrs to your brew time, and will take you from a target OG of .49 to .54 (or abv of 4.7 to 5.15). I probably wouldn't do the mini-mash because those grains can all be steeped and there's nothing special in there that you can't get from extract (i.e. you are not going to be using marris otter or anything). If you are doing a partial boil I would do a late extract addition (add half your LME, either the amber or pale, at the start of the boil, and the other half 15 min. before the end). This will help you avoid caramelization, although that's no biggie in a porter, and more importantly will give you better hop utilization (you'll be able to get bittering much closer to what you'd get for a full boil)

 

[big supper]

I think that you would need some base malt to do a mini-mash.

That being said, I think that it should be a tasty project! Either yeast should work fine.