Suggestions on fixing my Robust Porter-ish recipe

[worldzfree]

So I tried to craft my first all-grain recipe. Needless to say the flavor is just off. I taste less malt and more of the specialty specifically the Black Patent. While ideally I wish I could feedback by having everyone taste the beer but I don't think virtual computer beer drinking has made it that far yet. This is rough break-down. I wasn't trying to be exact on style. Just experimenting.

Update: I also didn't perform any type of water/PH modification. I know my water is sort of soft in Seattle but just haven't moved to the next level of modifying the water.

Style: Robust Porter-ish
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.062 SG
Estimated Color: 33.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 39.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
11.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 85.3 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3.9 %
0.50 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 3.9 %
0.50 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 3.9 %
0.40 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 3.1 %
0.60 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [17.70%] (60 min) Hops 33.6 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [5.50%] (15 min) Hops 4.3 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [5.50%] (5 min) Hops 1.7 IBU
0.50 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
5.00 gal Seattle, WA Water
1 Pkgs Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007) [StarYeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body
Total Grain Weight: 12.90 lb
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Mash In Add 16.13 qt of water at 174.9 F 158.0 F 45 min
Mash Out Add 6.45 qt of water at 198.3 F 168.0 F 10 min

Any comments would be welcomed.

 

[Malticulous]

Chocolate and black malts seem to vary a lot in intencity of flavor from maltster to maltster. Most of my robust porters use 4 oz black and 8 oz Chocolate malt to 5.5 gallons. Your recipe looks pretty good to me.

I think it might be your water. Add calcium. I use calcium chloride in mine.

 

[pernox]

% LB OZ Malt or Fermentable ppg °L

80% 9 0 American Two-row Pale 37 1
9% 1 0 American Crystal 60L 34 60
4% 0 8 Cara-Pils/Dextrine 33 2
4% 0 8 Chocolate Malt (UK) 34 450
2% 0 4 Black (Patent) Malt 25 500

-edit- Hope this comes out formatted logically... This is my recipe - very tasty example of a porter - I'm actually drinking a pint right now. It looks very similar to your recipe. Is your porter perhaps very young? Mine gets good right at a month or so.

-edit again- What's your FG? Did it attenuate fully?

 

[RM-MN]

My robust porter from an extract kit took over 2 months to get good. You may be sampling too soon.

 

[worldzfree]

thanks all for the feedback! well i did another attempt at a porter. not this recipe. this time i massaged my water mineral levels. i just started the cold crash but the sample tasted like a porter. i am thinking of trying a mini-remake of my recipe above but with mineral adjustments to see if that was the culprit. i'll post back my results. cheers.

 

[jfowler1]

Chocolate and black malts seem to vary a lot in intencity of flavor from maltster to maltster. Most of my robust porters use 4 oz black and 8 oz Chocolate malt to 5.5 gallons. Your recipe looks pretty good to me.

This was a great post. OP, do not overlook it because it answers a big part of your question.

I have also found that roasted malts (be it chocolate, roasted barley, black, carafa, etc.) vary so much from maltster to maltster, and HBS to HBS. An ounce or two in 5 gallons makes or breaks your recipe. Mike McDole talks about how the key to Janet's Brown is getting your chocolate malt dialed in, because you never really know what you have on hand. It is really a product that needs to go through trial and error. I say buy a big enough bag, and learn how the malt you have in hand effects your recipes.

My friend brews the best Porter I have ever tasted (and yes - I am including commercial Porters in that statement). He uses Jamil's recipe, but if I remember correctly, he cut the Black Malt in 1/2, and kept everything else the same. The original recipe was very acrid (which I think has 8 oz Black Malt), and took almost a year for the over roasted flavors to drop out. His recipe change resulted in an incredibly chocolate-ey porter. It is just awesome.

I kind of went a different route, and substituded the Black and Chocolate with UK Pale chocolate and Chocolate. I think it makes it more of an English style Robust Porter.

....but I still prefer my friend's beer.

Joe

 

[LexusChris]

You may also want to look at some other yeast strains known for a more malt forward profile: Edinburgh (WLP028), Irish (WLP004), London (WLP013), etc.

WLP007 is pretty attenutive...

Also, some base malts like Vienna/Munich, Amber/Brown, can also lend some nice malty character to a porter... Swap out a pound or two of your 2-row with one of those, and it should lend some nice malty complexity...

Good luck!
--LexusChris