# A first attempt at a Porter ......



## Spohaw (14/9/15)

Hello everyone

I have had a can of dark extract sitting around for a while and decided I wanted to have a crack at a porter

So I made a recipe but really have no idea about porter recipes
I want to make this today so some advice would be great

here she is

Sorter Porter

Recipe Specs
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Batch Size (L): 20.0
Total Grain (kg): 5.470
Total Hops (g): 35.60
Original Gravity (OG): 1.066 (°P): 16.1
Final Gravity (FG): 1.016 (°P): 4.1
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 6.56 %
Colour (SRM): 25.8 (EBC): 50.8
Bitterness (IBU): 24.1 (Average)

Grain Bill
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2.500 kg Maris Otter Malt (45.7%)
1.500 kg Liquid Malt Extract - Dark (27.42%)
0.500 kg Munich I (9.14%)
0.300 kg Chocolate (5.48%)
0.250 kg Wheat Malt (4.57%)
0.200 kg Crystal 15 (3.66%)
0.150 kg Lactose (2.74%)
0.070 kg Crystal 120 (1.28%)

Hop Bill
----------------
13.6 g East Kent Golding Pellet (6.4% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.7 g/L)
22.0 g Red Earth Leaf (5% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.1 g/L)

Misc Bill
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1.0 g Whirlfloc Tablet @ 10 Minutes (Boil) ....that's one tablet
4.0 g Yeast Nutrient @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
80.0 g Coffee Beans @ 0 Days (Primary)
4.0 g Vanilla @ 0 Days (Primary) .....

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 20°C with Mangrove Jacks Burton Union
​
Ill make a coffee with the coffee and vanilla beans and put it in the fermenter
I had to guess the AA% of Red Earth so the ibu's wont be spot on , Using up some left over EKG too
Ill be adding a couple grams of water hardener to the mash water as well

Should I add all the spec malts to the mash for the last 20-30 mins or should I put them in at the beginning or the mash ??

Would like some opinions on the grain bill too ....

Cheers Guys !


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## Ducatiboy stu (14/9/15)

I would up the IBU's. get it to about 35-40


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## Spohaw (14/9/15)

Wouldn't become too bitter with the coffee as well would it ? ... Wanted to keep the ibu lowish and have the coffee stand out sort of thing

I'd have to add some styrian goldings to bump up the ibu ...I am all out of EKG and I only had 22 gram of red earth flowers to begin with

Cheers Ducati


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## goatchop41 (16/9/15)

For the coffee - if you cold brew it and add just prior to bottling, you won't have issues with excessive bitterness. The other option is to use whole beans (soak in vodka for a few hours if paranoid about sanitisation) and just throw them straight into the fermenter for a day or two (depending on flavour) prior to bottling. If you decide to use the whole beans, make sure to taste it every 12-24 hours, and be ready to bottle as soon as the coffee flavour is where you want it - if you wait longer, the coffee will become bitter and overpower everything!

Vanilla beans - split them, scrape out the seeds, then chop the deseeded pods up. Throw all of it (seeds and chopped pods) into enough vodka to just cover them. Leave it for a week (I usually do this on the same day that I pitch the yeast), then throw it all in the fermenter and leave it for a week before bottling


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## Ducatiboy stu (16/9/15)

Porter is a great style to experiment with. It has such a wide range from Brown thru to Robust & Stout Porter

It has a wide range for SG ( 1040-1060 ish ), IBU's ( 20-45~50) and colour ( 20-40 srm )

There really isnt a standard porter recipe. 

Also lends itself to additions of chocolate , vanilla, coffee....

My best advice is to brew it and see how you go


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## Spohaw (16/9/15)

I might add some coffee 25 odd grams to the mash an the rest cold pressed onto secondary .... Also wouldn't mind not putting vodka in the beer so I'll add the vanilla into the whirlpool , I have cooked with vanilla and it hasn't changed flavour after boiling 

Mind you I have never fermented it so I will see how I go ..... 

Thanks for the replies guys


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## madpierre06 (16/9/15)

Echoing the points regarding coffee...if you're going to toss 'em straight in as whole bean, for the 20L batch you'd only want about 50gm, for no more than two days just prior to bottling. You could also do a coarse grind of 50gm steeped in 500ml cold water in the fridge, 12 - 18 hours is more than sufficient, then as already posted strain it and toss in just prior to bottling. Or you could do what I did when I did my imperial stout...split the batch (halving coffee quantities, of course) if you can, I added the whole beans to FV which had the trub, that way they could be tossed straight out with it, and the steeped brew into the other half of the split. The cold steeped added a lot more richness of flavour and body whereas the whole bean was more subdued, almost tea-like style of flavour in the beer. But very dangerous as it seemed to make it very sessionable.

Important...use fresh roasted beans, I would go to a specialty place and see if they'll do it for you if you don't have access to your own grinder, etc. A light to medium roast worked best for mine. I was fortunate in that I do all that at home myself.


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## Spohaw (17/9/15)

Brewing this today 





It's blacker than gangster rap 

Hope it's going to be a good one !

This is before I added the dark lme


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## yankinoz (20/9/15)

Coffee adds a little astringency. The amount of astringency you'll get from the grains is pH dependent, though rarely excessive at 66 C.

Do you have a water analysis? Have your previous mashes been lighter-coloured beers?

No sparge? If you do sparge make sure the pH stays down.

BIAB or mash tun?

Ordinarily, mash the specialty grains with the base malts from the beginning.

Re the grain bill, it would take a very sensitiive palate to detect any effect from wheat malt or crystal 15 with all those heavy hitters in the mix, but the wheat should help with head retention. The crystal 15 seems pointless.

In most partials I have gone over to adding extract late in the boil, but in a porter that probably makes little difference.


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## Spohaw (21/9/15)

Hey yank , 

I dont have a water analysis ... I use rain water , I want to do a side by side comparison with a brew made from rain water and one made with town water just to see the difference 

Yeah most of the beers I have made so far have been lighter coloured 

I do sparge ... Sometimes batch sparge and sometime I just run 70 odd degree water through it ... 
I have never worried about the ph before but now I think I will 

I just use a pot on the stove with a temp gauge and a false bottom so it's a mash tun but also my brew kettle 

Thanks for the things to think about Yank !


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## yankinoz (22/9/15)

Spohaw said:


> Hey yank ,
> 
> I dont have a water analysis ... I use rain water , I want to do a side by side comparison with a brew made from rain water and one made with town water just to see the difference
> 
> ...


Dark malts are more acidic than light ones. Rainwater that works well on light-coloured beers is no the best bet for darker brews. The main problem with using rainwater on a porter is lilkely to be a pH that is too low to get good conversion of starches to sugars, thought it won't affect the extraction of most flavours. Astringency won't likely be a problem if your sparge water temps below 75.

For good mash efficiency with that malt bill, I'd stir into the mash at least a rounded tsp of chalk.


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## Ducatiboy stu (22/9/15)

I used to brew port and stout with rain water and get 78% efficiency easly


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## Spohaw (22/9/15)

Think it worked out to be around 70% eff this brew 

I used some water hardener that I got from the lhbs .... Don't know what it is exactly but I put in a teaspoon into the mash water .... None into the sparge water but 

I added all of the darker malt 30 mins into the mash 

I will have to read up on water 

Where do you get your chalk from ? 

Also when do you do a diacetyl rest 
I am going to start measuring the gravity and doing it at a certain point ... For this beer would be around 1.020 ? Aiming for 1.014 fg 
Does that sound about right ? 

Cheers for the info yank !


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## Spohaw (1/10/15)

Tested gravity today an it's at 1.014 so I soaked some coarsely ground coffee beans in some glenfiddich in the hope of sterilising them (????) and added it into the primary along with some more vanilla extract because that wasn't as strong as I'd like 

I'll leave it for a few days then cold crash it then I'll keg it .... See how it goes


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## Barge (2/10/15)

Sounds like a winner. My first attempt at a porter was the Choc Mahogany Porter can that Cascade brought out. Looked more like an amber ale in primary so I steeped 200 grams each of choc, caraaroma and cara pils and added a kg of morgans caramalt. 

Safe to say yours will shit all over that.


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## Ducatiboy stu (2/10/15)

I did a choc mahogany porter when they first came out

Nothing like a Porter


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## Spohaw (2/10/15)

Made a brew with spicy ghost draught can from cascade last year 

I'll never use a cascade can again 

Hope it's better than a cascade brew kit haha .... It is only a first attempt though


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## Barge (2/10/15)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> I did a choc mahogany porter when they first came out
> 
> Nothing like a Porter


This was 10 years ago. I could tell it wasn't going to be right so I had a go at salvaging it. Wasn't too bad IIRC.

I'm surprised they're still making them.


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## Spohaw (6/10/15)

Kegged and got a little sample out .... Not to shabby 

I'll carb it then have a proper sample in a few days 

Hopefully the diacetyl rest did it's job


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## warra48 (6/10/15)

Brewed this one on Sunday arvo.
Danny Fav 50 yeast harvested from previous US Amber Ale batch.
It'll be kegged and served at the Bitter & Twisted Festival at The Old Maitland Gaol in November.
Can't beat Brown Malt in a Porter. A non negotiable vital ingredient.
I also really like Chocolate Wheat rather than Choc Barley. I find it gives a smoother coffee/chocolate flavour without the bitterness.
Excessive bitterness should be reserved for Stouts, not Porters, which should be smooth, in my humble opinion.


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## Spohaw (6/10/15)

Cheers for the advice warra 

I'll get some brown malt for my next batch .... I will be doing an all grain one next so I'll have to look into how to replace that with grains 

I like the idea of using 2 kg of Munich in it so I might just try subbing the lme for some brown and more Munich 

Choc wheat sounds better but I'll wait until I use up my choc barley before I get some ... Pretty big fan of the flavour of wheat so is imagine the choc wheat would be nicer 

What ibu was your porter ? 
The sample I tried was very smooth and can see my self making another one very soon


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## warra48 (7/10/15)

26 IBU from 60 min
5 IBU from 10 min

total IBU 31


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