Porter help needed--water profile and mash temps

[mongoose33]

My son is coming home tonite and we're going to do a brew day tomorrow. He's the guy that got me into brewing, and we've never done a brew day together. We're going to brew a Porter to which I'll add some vanilla extract after fermentation is complete.

We're going to try Biermuncher's recipe here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=24243

I have all the ingredients, but what I do not have is a clear idea how to create a good water profile for this. I've looked through Brunwater, and I can't be sure I'm doing it correctly.

I have 13 gallons of RO water ready to do this, and what I need is to know how to amend that water to a proper Porter water profile. What do I need to add to RO to do this? I have all kinds of minerals and such to do that, from Calcium Chloride and Epsom Salts to Pickling lime and Lactic Acid and gypsum.

I also am a little confused by the mashing temp instructions. I understand the desire to mash at a high temp to bring out the malty character, but the sparge water seems very hot to me. I thought that it was important to keep sparge water under 170 in order to avoid the extraction of tannins.

So--I have a starter going with Wyeast 1028, and we're hoping to do this tomorrow. Given the recipe above, what do I do for water, and could someone explain the mash temps?

FWIW, I have all four books, Water, Malt, Hops, and Yeast, and I've read them. I also have Beersmith, which I figured on to help me figure this out, BUT I have a new computer and no CD drive and no way to load Beersmith on the new computer. I'd appreciate greatly any help.

 

[mongoose33]

My son and I were talking, and given that Biermuncher's recipe only has 1 ounce of Fuggle hops, 1/2 at 60 minutes, and 1/2 at 2 minutes, there's almost no bittering.

The sparge water is listed at 206 degrees, which almost certainly should pull out some tannins. My son's question/theory is whether that is substituting for the very tiny amount of bittering hops.

I also can't figure out how the water, at 6.5 gallons for an all-grain brew, is going to result in 5.5 gallons.

On a strange note, the Wyeast pack I used for the starter did not puff up after 3.5 hours. I ran it into the starter wort anyway, but I'm not sure I have viable yeast. Might have to switch to S-05 or S-04.

 

[cshamilton]

Those IBUs do seem low. I'd guess about half of what you need. I'd recommend you do the calcs and increase the hop amount.

If you want to add minerals you could try the London profile here: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewing-water-target-profiles