Need help with our porter

[Pondrat]

Hi Folks,

Just beginning to drink our porter and I've noticed what I can only describe as licorice. It's most prominent in the first few sips and mellows out to an acrid coffee, chickory kind of flavor. Some days, I love it. Some days, I wish it wasn't there. My question is, what do you think is giving my porter this flavor? Perhaps the black malt?

Thanks in advance for the advice.

Mike

Fermentables
Ingredient Amount % MCU When
Maris Otter 9.00 lb 81.1 % 5.4 In Mash/Steeped
US Chocolate Malt 1.00 lb 9.0 % 70.0 In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Biscuit Malt 0.50 lb 4.5 % 2.2 In Mash/Steeped
US Caramel 40L Malt 0.50 lb 4.5 % 4.0 In Mash/Steeped
US Black Malt 0.10 lb 0.9 % 10.0 In Mash/Steeped


Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
German Northern Brewer 8.5 % 1.00 oz 33.0 Loose Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
UK Golding 5.0 % 0.50 oz 4.8 Loose Pellet Hops 15 Min From End
UK Golding 5.0 % 0.50 oz 0.0 Loose Pellet Hops At turn off

Yeast
DCL S-04-SafAle

 

[mrk305]

I am thinking the pound of chocolate. I have never used it, but a pound of any dark specialty grain is a lot!

 

[Pondrat]

Thanks for the thought Mrk305. You made me think, "yeah, maybe that IS a lot of choco malt..." so I checked on some of the winning porter recipes and they all use between .5 and 1lb of choco, most toward the 1lb end.

And the more I think about it, that black patent malt is so tiny it probably doesn't do much at all, certainly not enough to cause that much of a flavor.

 

[Pondrat]

This thread has a lot of good ideas including chlorine from my tap water (which I always use):
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/all-my-beer-tastes-like-black-licorice-159504/

Also, in searching "licorice" on this site, it sounds like a lot of folks with this problem have been using SafAle, which we used for our porter. I'd hate to give up the SafAle as it has been good to us for so long but I'm beginning to see a pattern emerge...has anyone else noticed this with SafAle?

 

[dmfa200]

Pondrat,
I too have a licorice flavor that has developed in my porter.
The only similarities in my recipe are the Chocolate malt(.60 lb), and the use of Safale US-05

 

[Pondrat]

Our licorice flavor was strong at the beginning and is subsidin somewhat as time goes on. It sounds like those that have had this flavor in their beer and then attributed it to chlorines have said that it gets worse overtime. Can anyone confirm this?

Dmfa200 - you might want to try searching about licorice and chlorines. Some pretty good threads out there. If you figure anything out, please let me know!