Very interesting recipe help needed... with a reward!

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sleepystevenson

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I apologize in advance for the length of this post... but it is necessary to get the idea across!

So, my wife and I are having a big beer tasting in Sept to celebrate our wedding, with 250-300 guests. I am good buddies with a lot of local pro brewers, so we will have beer from about 6 breweries, along with beer from a couple of my homebrew buddies, and mine of course. Each beer will be paired with some sort of food. Will have a swing band - overall a great time, we hope!

Anyway, the centerpieces for the tables are glass vases filled (layered) with 3 different roasted/colored barleys - a light/med/dark. There will be hops and dried barley stuck into the top of the grain. She did a "mock up" and they look really great.

Naturally, I am in charge of procuring the grain and deciding what to get, etc. SO - my idea is to use 3 or 4 specialty grains (or 2/3 specialty grains and a base grain) in approximately equal amounts. After the party, I would like to dump all the grain into a container, mix it up, dole it out, and give it to my homebrew buddies with a recipe for a beer (recipe would be given in % of grain so they could make any size recipe they pleased). They would add their own base grain to the specialty grains from the centerpieces. Because she really wants to have a dark layer - this recipe will likely have to be a porter or a stout.

Originally, I was thinking a nice robust "Centerpiece Porter" - something along the lines of OhioBrewtus's Edmund Fitzgerald clone, as it is pretty close to what I am looking for in ratios of specialty grain. Here's a link to the full recipe:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f67/edmund-fitzgerald-clone-ag-46844/

And here's an excerpt showing the grains:

Amount Item Type % or IBU
21.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 86.00 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 4.00 %
1.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.00 %
1.00 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 4.00 %
0.50 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 2.00 %


Now, there is a small problem with this recipe for my purposes, and that is, it doesn't take much specialty grain in a batch, since the specialty grains only add up to 14% of the grain bill. Even for my one barrel (31 gal) batches, I would only need 10-12 lbs of the Crystal 60, Chocolate, Special B and Black patent combined. (at 85% efficiency).... I do have a bunch of buddies who brew, but still I am looking at a BUNCH of grain here...

So, I am looking to see if anyone else has some ideas.

And so, for the reward..... if I use your idea, I will send you, completely free of charge, your own "centerpiece porter" bag o' grains with recipe, etc! Doesn't matter if you make 5 or 10 gallon recipes - just let me know!

Thanks!!! :mug:
 
Thomas Fawcett Brown Malt? It's dark brown and would contrast nicely with a pale 2-row and an amber malt. It can be used in larger percentages than most dark malts, up to 50% for a traditional porter.
 
Hmmmm..... Neat idea, Ty. Maybe a simple British style brown, something like this:

78% marris otter
10% brown malt
10% C40
2% chocolate

And one of the layers could just be the MO.

Thanks, that's something else to think about....!
 
An English porter would be a great beer to serve, very tasty and who doesn't like a dark, chocolaty beer?! Also, most brown porters don't need a lot of time to condition before they are ready, a week or two in the keg and they taste great.

Your recipe looks fine, nearly identical to Fuller's London Porter, although when I brew it, I up the chocolate malt closer to 5%. Or lower the brown/crystal more to 8%. If that's the beer you're going with, I'd recommend Fuggles for bittering (20-25ibu) with a small flavor addition, and using 1968/wlp002 if the beer will be kegged. Party sounds nice, good luck!
 
How big are these vases? Also, here are some ideas.

Porter
1lb Choc Malt
.5lb-1lb C 85
1lb Munich (or victory, or biscuit, or 2 row)

Cascadian Dark/ India Black Ale
1lb Carafa III
1lb C 60
1lb Munich (or victory, or biscuit, or 2 row)

Brown Ale
1lb Brown Malt
1lb C 45L
1lb Munich (or victory, or biscuit, or 2 row)

Pale Ale/ Amber
1lb C 60
1lb Munich (or victory, or biscuit, or 2 row)
1lb Flaked Wheat

Am Pils
1lb Pils
1lb rice
1lb flaked maize


And what would be even cooler is if you convinced one of your brewer friends to throw all the vases into a one-off, taproom only batch of Nuptial Ale.
(add base malt as needed)
 
Great ideas, guys!

The vases vary in size - between 2 and 4 lbs of grain each.

I am looking at buying 3 full bags of the specialty malt.

Leaning towards a Brit brown ale or porter at this point.

Thats a cool idea to have one of my pro buddies make a one off batch.

I knew I'd get some good ideas from creative brewers minds!
 
If the vases are bigger than the amount of grain needed why don't you just add a filler into the center of the vases. Maybe a cylindrical piece of foam. And then pour your grain into the vase around the foam.
 
How about a hollow cylinder (cardboard may be?) down the center of the vase filled with base malt and then do the color layering on the outside perimeter between the glass and cylinder?
 
How about leaving the basemalt out of the centerpieces, and either have homebrewing friends provide their own, or give them a bag of the basemalt? With out the basemalt, it seems like the EF clone recipe would work well.
 
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