Is NO crystal in porter advisable?

[mrphillips]

Have you made a porter without crystal malt? Can/should it be done?

Basically, I'm wanting to make a robust porter I can drink all night - meaning a chocolate beer that's light in body. I decided last minute to cut out 1 lb. of crystal 80 and throw .5 lb. midnight wheat into my grain bill. Right now I'm working with...

(5.5 gal.)
7 lbs. extra light dme
2 lbs. munich
1 lb. chocolate malt
.5 lb. midnight wheat
.25 lb. roasted barley

1.5 oz. challenger hops @ 90
.5 oz challenger @ 20

S-05 yeast

Mash High @ 158
Boil 90 min.
Predicted OG 1.070
Predicted FG 1.015
Predicted ABV ~7%

In your experience, does this recipe lend itself to the thin bodied quaffable pint I've described? Thank you for any help you can provide.

 

[jlinz]

No. You will need some crystal, I would think. 120 would be nice. If not, 40 and black patent will work as well. It's in a recipe I'm using.

On the other hand, you can do whatever the hell you want.

 

[cshamilton]

The DME might have a small amount of C10 or 20 in it depending on manufacturer. You've got a lot going on there, so you could give it a shot. The original porters didn’t use crystal malt, since it didn’t really exist.

 

[thehaze]

Light body means little to no residual sugar left in the beer and a high sulphate water, to accentuate the dryness in the final beer. Mash at 149F, low OG, low FG. I can see you want to mash at 158F. That will not yield the " light " body porter you are after.

I would definitely drop the roasted barley and the chocolate malt. I would use Brown malt instead, which is kinda of a stample for porters, but no longer used, nor required with all these new malt varieties we have available.

You can skip the crystal malt, but you will not end up with a porter. I think... ( I like them full bodied, lots of caramel and a bit of roastness )

You can try to make a porter without any crystal malt, by using some alternative dark malts, such as Weyermann Chocolate Wheat, Weyermann Chocolate Rye and Chocolate Spelt, which are dark ( not as dark as say roasted barley ), lack the deep, astringent roastiness, are far less acrid and much, much smoother in a dark beer. This could probably work... but I have never tried. I also think you would want less IBUs to counter the bitterness from the roasted malts and lack of crystal. I would make sure that my mash pH is in the 5.4-5.6 range, to smoothen out the beer.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Seconding the low mash temperature. Also consider something like honey malt that will add some perceived sweetness but not a lot of body, if you really want to cut out crystal. I used 12oz of C120 in my session oatmeal stout recently and it's certainly drinkable.

 

[thehaze]

I forgot to mention that I have used all 3 Weyermann Chocolate varieties and they ROCK.

Chocolate Wheat and Rye I usually use in my Black IPAs, stouts and porters. They work extremely well in Black IPAs, where they give a smooth roast character to the beer. I really like them.

 

[mrphillips]

Thank you for the input. I agree with many the things you've all said. I've used brown malt in a porter before, but I had to order it online and I try to support my LHBS whenever I brew. I've also used midnight wheat once and loved it, and I was hoping that it would fill in some body to the beer without adding the sweetness of crystal malt. I wouldn't mind a little body to my porter, I was just trying to avoid a FG of 1.020 or something like that.

 

[corkybstewart]

Porter is about the only beer I use any crystal in anymore, and I use just a little C60. But I do use Black Patent and dark chocolate with some brown malt.

 

[z-bob]

Hmm, I'm planning to do a strong brown porter soon with a bunch of brown malt in it and a little light chocolate malt (the rest is 2-row) No crystal. Would I be better off substituting Special B for the light chocolate? Or keep what I have and add a little C60? (I have Special B and C60 already) Or just leave it alone.

I thought the brown malt added a lot of dextrin for body. And I'm using a low-attenuating yeast, T-58, so it won't be too dry.

 

[McKnuckle]

To me, porter is one of the most wide open styles out there. You have historical brown porter with nothing but pale, amber, and brown malts. Then you have porters with chocolate, roasted barley, crystal, flaked grains, flavorings, and all kinds of gravity levels. So it's really up to you and where you want to go with a porter recipe.

Personally I prefer a balance of roast and crystal, as I feel those elements are Yin/Yang in a very dark beer. I like my porter to be a little viscous, a little sweet, and have some tang on the finish, plus the ever-present roastiness. Coffee is nice. Chocolate is nice (the flavors, not necessarily the literal ingredients). Oats add a suppleness that is enjoyable, and a little aroma too.

But to answer the original question; yes I have made porter with no crystal (1804 Barclay Perkins TT Porter from Ron Pattinson's book).

 

[McKnuckle]

Would I be better off substituting Special B for the light chocolate?

Special B is a dark crystal malt with a raisiny flavor, definitely not like pale chocolate, which has a strong burnt toast crust flavor (it's not chocolately at all to me).

 

[mrphillips]

How did that no-crystal porter turn out, Mcknuckle? Could you give a flavor profile of it?

 

[kh54s10]

I just looked at 2 of my Porters and neither of them had any crystal. They were both very good.

 

[stz]

Recently brewed one without crystal. Very toasty, little thin for my tastes and would have preferred it with crystal, but it is what it is. It got a dry hop and the thinking was thinner body would carry the flavour better, to which I wondered about the amount of roast character it'd have to compete with (toast/roast flavour blew everything else out of the water) but hey ho democracy. The thinness makes it more sessionable, while I agree that the style is all over the place at the moment a sessionable quality lends an air of authenticity (despite it being full of random malts!).

71% pale malt
8% munich
8% chocolate
8% flaked oat
3% black malt
2% special carafe III

My preferred grist is ..

68% pale
10% chocolate
10% crystal
10% flaked oat
1.5% black malt
0.5% roasted barley

We use light crystal, but I would prefer to sub some of it out for dark and will maybe do so next time. I've brewed ones with up to 25% crystal and they've not been very good. Same cannot be said for ones with up to 20% chocolate which have been very good and I might scale back the crystal and oat in favour of more chocolate especially if I use dark crystal next time.

Sugar is very British if you are looking to dry it out a little, bring up the abv or brew ridiculous volumes that won't fit in the mash tun or copper. I've used brown sugar to good effect before though too much imparts a sharp flavour which haunts me thus I'd keep it way under 5% (2-3%).

I usually hop 0.7 of SG with a lower alpha trad hop at 60m. Which one I choose is basically dependent on what we've got open (like willamette, fuggles), and the alpha because the leaf needs to create the filter bed. I sometimes work out a 15 or 10 minute addition as a finishing hop, especially if medium alpha (like brewers gold) but I've been shying away from that recently because I can hardly detect it. One thing I have dropped is knock out additions because I find hop aroma disagreeable (wow such rich malt flavours and characters and oh, floral?) and while these beers age quite well the aroma does not and quite a lot of the wort is destined for splits, cocoa, vanilla, lactose, oak, bourbon, coffee, raspberries and so on and I don't need hop aroma.

End of the day though as has been said you can do almost what you like with the style. I personally like them thick and sweet with high abv and detectable, but not high roast character balanced with quite high hopping as a dessert beer.

 

[Rush]

I love crystal in my porters. My favorite porter is a Edmund Fitzgerald clone I found which has a pound of crystal (.5 60 and .5 Special B).


Fermentables

Amount Fermentable PPG °L Bill %
11 lb American - Pale 2-Row 37 1.8 84.6%
0.5 lb American - Caramel / Crystal 60L 34 60 3.8%
0.5 lb American - Chocolate 29 350 3.8%
0.5 lb Belgian - Special B 34 115 3.8%
0.25 lb United Kingdom - Black Patent 27 525 1.9%
0.25 lb United Kingdom - Pale Chocolate 33 207 1.9%
13 lb Total


Hops

Amount Variety Type AA Use Time IBU
1 oz Centennial Pellet 10 Boil 60 min 35.48
0.5 oz Willamette Pellet 4.5 Boil 15 min 3.96
0.5 oz Willamette Pellet 4.5 Boil 5 min 1.59

Absolutely delicious. The small amount of Black patent brings out a wonderful character that is lacking in most porters.

 

[McKnuckle]

How did that no-crystal porter turn out, Mcknuckle? Could you give a flavor profile of it?

It was a historical recipe, so a bit extreme but also close to what the original style may have been like. It was roughly 40% pale malt, 46% brown malt, and 14% amber malt. It was 1.055 OG and finished around 1.020, so it had good body and some residual sweetness, despite having no crystal malts.

The beer had a very prominent coffee roast flavor and aroma. I used Crisp brown malt which tends to overwhelm just about any beer, especially at such a high percentage of the grist.

It took quite a while to mellow but was enjoyable when it did. While young, it was a bit too sharp and roasty. Part of that was my water profile - I brewed it before I had any clue about that stuff. I'd soften the profile considerably now, and make sure to include some sodium. But anyway... worth trying for sure.

 

[mrphillips]

Well as it all shook out, the FG was 1.066, and ended at 1.020. I mashed high because I was worried I'd end up with an abv too high for my liking. The added body without added sweetness from the higher mash made for a delicious, 6% beer. The chocolate flavor came through in spades after a couple weeks in the keg. I'm not sure if I'd change anything next time I make it. Thanks again for the input!

 

[Miraculix]

What was your final recipe?

 

[JKaranka]

You definitively don't need crystal in a porter. Porter and stout are the styles I brew most often and I think I only used crystal malt once, for a recipe with an OG below 1.040. For regular porter, 15% brown malt, 2-3% patent and the rest pale malt makes a great start. There is some body and plenty of chocolate, cake and biscuit from the brown malt, the finish is fairly dry and the patent provides a lot of colour and just a hint of coffee.