Your favourite 18th century porter recipe is.... ?

[Miraculix]

Fellow brewers and brewerettes,

What is your favourite historical UK (London?) porter recipe from the Victorian era that you have successfully brewed?

I need some inspiration.

Thank you very much.

M

 

[kevin58]

This one has been sitting in my historic recipe folder for a long time. I made it once but it was so long ago I don't recall how it turned out and didn't bother to make notes. It would be rather difficult if not impossible to recreate one of these with any accuracy since they would have been made with 100% brown malt which would have been completely different than what is called brown malt today.

 

[Miraculix]

This one has been sitting in my historic recipe folder for a long time. I made it once but it was so long ago I don't recall how it turned out and didn't bother to make notes. It would be rather difficult if not impossible to recreate one of these with any accuracy since they would have been made with 100% brown malt which would have been completely different than what is called brown malt today.

I think there is now a modern recreation available, called Imperial malt or something like this.

Edit: It is available from Simpsons.

 

[Airborneguy]

Here’s my take on the style:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/atonement-brown-porter-2011-hbt-gold-category-12.238714/

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

Some threads with recipes for inspiration:

1859 Barclay Perkins EI

Victorian Porter

 

[Miraculix]

I decided to give the import from UK another go and bought 10kg chevallier and six kg of Simpsons imperial. Will be probably around 30/70 in the mix plus 50 ibus from UK hops. Og around 1.08 and imperial yeast pub plus maybe some Nottingham for attenuation, but maybe not.

 

[DBhomebrew]

I think there is now a modern recreation available, called Imperial malt or something like this.

Edit: It is available from Simpsons.

I believe Ron has described Simpson's Imperial as a good sub for high dried malt. A diastatic amber.

 

[505-Brewer]

I think there is now a modern recreation available, called Imperial malt or something like this.

Edit: It is available from Simpsons.

Interested. Is this supposed to be modern day brown malt? I need to dig more into this.

https://www.simpsonsmalt.co.uk/our-malts/imperial-malt/

 

[505-Brewer]

I believe Ron has described Simpson's Imperial as a good sub for high dried malt. A diastatic amber.

Sounds like an amber biscuit malt not a brown malt........

 

[hout17]

Sounds like an amber biscuit malt not a brown malt........

You pretty much have to malt your own to get something like the brown malt of old. Something I plan to try someday. I've heard there are some mixes that can get you in the ballpark though.

 

[Miraculix]

Sounds like an amber biscuit malt not a brown malt........

How do you know that this is not exactly what the old days brown malt was? AFAIK, it didn't have much in common with modern brown malt, except the colour.

 

[hout17]

I'm going to have to dig in to historical docs and learn more about the old world brown malt. Most of what I know has been read on forums and I'm not sure if the information is solid or not.

 

[505-Brewer]

I dont. Going off the Ron Pattinson comment in this thread. Doesnt sound like something Id want to use as a base malt just yet. Need to learn more.

From what i recall Brown malt varies a lot in color today w TFawcett on the lighter color and others much darker and roastier. Do we know what color historical brown malt provided?

 

[Miraculix]

I dont. Going off the Ron Pattinson comment in this thread. Doesnt sound like something Id want to use as a base malt just yet. Need to learn more.

From what i recall Brown malt varies a lot in color today w TFawcett on the lighter color and others much darker and roastier. Do we know what color historical brown malt provided?

AFAIK, I don't know anything .

Honestly, the only thing that seems to be validated is that the old school brown malt was brown in colour (or the resulting beer was brown) and it was diastatic.

Maybe dark Munich is actually the closest form of modern malt? But I think dark Munich has not much diastatic power left.

So in my head, it makes sense to think that brown colour plus diastatic power equals a close match to the old school brown malt. But I obviously might be completely wrong. Can you point me to Ron's comments?

 

[505-Brewer]

i was referring to the post above. Post #7.

Y some sort of dark toasty grain.

 

[hout17]

Here's an older blog entry from 2008 on Ron's Website. Sounds like brown malt might have not have been the most pleasant thing in some parts lol.

 

[madscientist451]

Brewing Porter has been my thing lately, its hard to find in the stores where the shelves are dominated by IPA's and Hard Seltzer.
I really can't get too interested in historical brews though, I have very limited brewing time, if I'm going to brew something it better be something special, I can't get the authentic historical ingredients and honestly, the historical brews I have done in the past weren't all that great.
Since my offering is I'll apologize first.
My latest porter was inspired by Breckenridge Brewery Vanilla Porter. I seldom re-brew the same recipe, but I'm thinking I'll do this again and may actually try to keep it on tap all the time.
If anyone is interested I'll include the details.

 

[Miraculix]

Brewing Porter has been my thing lately, its hard to find in the stores where the shelves are dominated by IPA's and Hard Seltzer.
I really can't get too interested in historical brews though, I have very limited brewing time, if I'm going to brew something it better be something special, I can't get the authentic historical ingredients and honestly, the historical brews I have done in the past weren't all that great.
Since my offering is I'll apologize first.
My latest porter was inspired by Breckenridge Brewery Vanilla Porter. I seldom re-brew the same recipe, but I'm thinking I'll do this again and may actually try to keep it on tap all the time.
If anyone is interested I'll include the details.

Sure, why not?

 

[Miraculix]

Here's an older blog entry from 2008 on Ron's Website. Sounds like brown malt might have not have been the most pleasant thing in some parts lol.

That sounds to me like adding some black patent to the imperial plus a little bit of base malt would probably hit the spot.

 

[madscientist451]

Inspired by a Breckenridge Vanilla Clone recipe:

I slightly altered the original as found somewhere on Google.

2.5 gallons

4.5 lbs. Rahr and Viking 2-row
12 oz Briess C-40
8 oz Crisp Pale Chocolate
6 oz Weyermann Carfa II
2oz Munich light

Mash at 154F

Hops:
.125 ounce Chinook at 60 min.
.3 ounce Saaz at 30 min.
.25 ounce Chinook at 15 min.
.25 ounce EKG at 0 min.

When kegging, added 1.5 ounce bourbon that had been in a jar with Jack Daniel's Barrell chips for a few months
and 1 oz Vanilla extract.

This brew came out very good with a nice mixture of subtle flavors.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

I have no idea what an 18th century porter tasted like so I wouldn't know how to go about making one because copying recipes isnt possible with modern ingredients, I fear.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't use old recipes and see what happens of course. But I've focused my brewing on working out how to make beers that suit my tastes with the ingredients I can get hold of today. I don't go for low bitterness beers so I tend to increase the IBUs in some styles, like porter.

18th century brewing will have been a very inconsistent, and localised, affair. Think about the farmhouse brewers encountered by Lars Garshol in Scandinavia and East Europe. Random yeasts, bacteria, tree branches, home malted and kilned grains. Different kilning methods. Different mashing and boil ing capabilities.

Black patent malt appeared in the late 18th century I think and was used to improve efficiencies alongside pale malt. Did beer suddenly change at that point? Or was there so much variety that it was just another variation, and the cost reduction gave it dominance?

I wouldn't want to kid myself I was making an 18th century beer and i doubt anybody else here does either. It's fun to look into the past and to use what we find to inform what we do.

The first porter I brewed was the published recipe for Fullers London Porter and it was great. I tend to brew porters along those lines with a combination of crystal, brown and roast malt. I use different crystal and roast malts. Choc or black usually, but I've also used choc rye and choc wheat. I like what brown malt brings. I've put amber malt in too. I think black malt, crystal and modern brown malt were created to be used with pale malt to sort of mimic what historic brewing malt was like, approximately. So I don't tend to use things like Chevallier in a porter as it will be masked to a considerable degree. I've done it though and it's a fine thing to do. For me a single malt beer with Chevallier is very like a beer made with pale malt and crystal so why not use pale and crystal in a dark beer instead?

I'm just thinking out loud, I find this stuff interesting but I'm just an amateur home brewer with no specific knowledge.

 

[Steveruch]

I plan to bottle over the weekend.

 

[Miraculix]

I plan to bottle over the weekend.

Looks good! How long are are going to age it?

 

[Oleson M.D.]

Fullers London Porter.
Took home a Bronze with this one.

 

[Drewch]

From Pattinson:

Brown malt is a tricky devil to pin down. It has been made in many different ways and had many different characters over the years.

In the eighteenth century, it was diastatic; that is, the grains contained sufficient enzymes to convert their starch into sugar, and it was regularly used as a base malt. The earliest porters and stouts were brewed from 100 percent brown malt. London brewers usually purchased their malt from Hertfordshire, just north of London. There, it was the custom to use straw as a fuel in the final stage of the kilning, where the temperature was increased dramatically. In other areas, different fuels were used, and these had a big impact on the flavor of the malt.

Do you think a darker Munich would be a reasonable sub?

 

[Miraculix]

From Pattinson:

Do you think a darker Munich would be a reasonable sub?

Probably not. At least not alone.

 

[Drewch]

Probably not. At least not alone.

Can you elaborate?

(There was likely a smokey quality that would be lacking, but what apart from that?)

 

[Airborneguy]

Why not just use english brown?

 

[dmtaylor]

From Pattinson:

Do you think a darker Munich would be a reasonable sub?

Brown malt is darker than the darkest Munich. There might be some similarities, but it probably won't be "similar enough".

 

[DBhomebrew]

Why not just use english brown?

The goal is a 18th century brown malt. Modern brown malt has little to do with the former.