Base Porter recipe to build on

[Reman]

Niz, you are correct. Mashing the grain will convert the starches to sugar, steeping will only release the simple sugars. A caveat is that the more kilning the malts get the more enzymes are destroyed, these enzymes are used to covert the starch to sugar during mashing. This is what's referred to as the diastatic power or Lintner of the grain. Higher kilned malts have a lower diastatic power which is why they can't be mashed alone, there aren't enough enzymes to convert the starches.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/11/17/brewing-beer-with-dark-grains-steeping-versus-mashing/
Suggests that the higher kilned malts, eg. chocolate, will have some starches coverted and the rest mostly destroyed so thats why you can mash or steep. They definitely have had all their enzymes destroyed so they can't be mashed by themselves.

So I spose the question is, how much starch was left in the brown malt I got? The answer is...? I think I might ask the malsters!

 

[Nizmoose]

Niz, you are correct. Mashing the grain will convert the starches to sugar, steeping will only release the simple sugars. A caveat is that the more kilning the malts get the more enzymes are destroyed, these enzymes are used to covert the starch to sugar during mashing. This is what's referred to as the diastatic power or Lintner of the grain. Higher kilned malts have a lower diastatic power which is why they can't be mashed alone, there aren't enough enzymes to convert the starches.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/11/17/brewing-beer-with-dark-grains-steeping-versus-mashing/
Suggests that the higher kilned malts, eg. chocolate, will have some starches coverted and the rest mostly destroyed so thats why you can mash or steep. They definitely have had all their enzymes destroyed so they can't be mashed by themselves.

So I spose the question is, how much starch was left in the brown malt I got? The answer is...? I think I might ask the malsters!

Ahh okay thanks for the info! So does that mean there's any sugar in the Malt? If no conversion has happened during the kilning process what do you extract during a steep of brown Malt? Sorry for all the questions but it is interesting!

 

[Reman]

Reply from Voyager

Voyager Craft Malt Hi Chris, sorry for the late reply, we've been flat or keeping up with orders of late.
Thanks for message, we love hearing from brewers who have developed beers using our range of malts.
All our malts are designed to be mashed. This is to cater for the processes used by most of the craft breweries we deal with. Whilst it certainly would impart more tannin and astringency, we've worked hard to develop our roast malts to keep this to a minimum. Lower temps and longer periods of time in our roaster(along with a few other special processes)have had a significant reduction in these characters at the end of our 90min congress mashes in the lab.
It's interesting that you say our brown malt is darker than most, one comment we regularly hear is that our malts appear lighter than others(this is due to the process we use, where essentially we are trying to roast the grain but not the husk.) So with our grains the husk is much lighter than most other malts, but inside that husk you will find its true colour, this has been key for us in keeping astringency low, but still imparting classic characters of the malt.
In the image attached it shows our pale malt, brown malt, chocolate malt, roast malt and roast barley.
The key to all our specialty malts is using them fresh.
Feel free to give me a buzz 0427683272 to discuss further.
If you like I can send you some of our brown malt to compare colours with the brown malt you have?
Voyager Craft Malt's photo.

So, short answer is mash it like a boss!

 

[Reman]

Tasted a sample out of the fermenter, it's pretty damn good. After a week it's dropped from 1.058 to 1.022, meant to be an FG of 1.015 so I wonder how close I'll get....

 

[Nizmoose]

Tasted a sample out of the fermenter, it's pretty damn good. After a week it's dropped from 1.058 to 1.022, meant to be an FG of 1.015 so I wonder how close I'll get....

Good to hear it's going well! I'd say you should hit 1.015. Also that response from the maltster is insanely good customer service imo

 

[Reman]

Famous last words, it spent a week at 1.020 or there abouts even after some agitation to try and get some more action. So it's been bottled, interesting to see how it turns out, non-carbed it's pretty nice.

My theory on stalling at 1.020 is the price of not mashing the brown malt and also mashing high at 68 degrees. (See http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/54793-mash-temperature-effect-on-final-gravity-formula/)

Here's hoping the 30 IBUs will be enough to balance out the extra sweetness

 

[Nizmoose]

Famous last words, it spent a week at 1.020 or there abouts even after some agitation to try and get some more action. So it's been bottled, interesting to see how it turns out, non-carbed it's pretty nice.

My theory on stalling at 1.020 is the price of not mashing the brown malt and also mashing high at 68 degrees. (See http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/54793-mash-temperature-effect-on-final-gravity-formula/)

Here's hoping the 30 IBUs will be enough to balance out the extra sweetness

1.020 is high but so was the mash so yeah see how it goes, let us know how it tastes carbed, my bulk priming sunk on this batch and so I have many uncarbonated porters, the first I tried by chance was a good one I'm hoping there's a few more carbed ones in there because it was a great beer!

 

[Reman]

This is how it turned out, I'm very pleased



Straight out of the fridge it's a little bland with a touch of roast bitterness, but let it warm up a bit and all the flavours come out to play - coffee, chocolate, a little bit of floral and earthiness from the hops and a touch of fruit from the yeast.

It's definitely a drink to savour and not drink too quickly, let it wash over your tongue and slip down your throat. There's a pleasant oiliness that coats your tongue after swallowing, which leaves residual flavours.

Improvements? I'm not sure, I think it would take more educated taste buds than mine!

Niz, I know our recipes differ slightly but I think they are close enough to each other And I think they will work as a great base for porters and variants.

 

[Nizmoose]

This is how it turned out, I'm very pleased

image.jpg

Straight out of the fridge it's a little bland with a touch of roast bitterness, but let it warm up a bit and all the flavours come out to play - coffee, chocolate, a little bit of floral and earthiness from the hops and a touch of fruit from the yeast.

It's definitely a drink to savour and not drink too quickly, let it wash over your tongue and slip down your throat. There's a pleasant oiliness that coats your tongue after swallowing, which leaves residual flavours.

Improvements? I'm not sure, I think it would take more educated taste buds than mine!

Niz, I know our recipes differ slightly but I think they are close enough to each other And I think they will work as a great base for porters and variants.

Awesome work it looks good! Glad to hear that it turned out a nice beer! When it comes to improvements I'm in the same boat, its a bit out of my league. All I can say is that since brewing this I have gone out of my way looking for porters to try to compare to my own and haven't really liked any of them as much as my own which is a nice feeling. How was the roast in yours Reman? Happy with the amount of roast? The one thing many commercial examples have is too much roast for me but that's a me thing, I'm slowly coming round to it. When this gets brewed next I'll add some coffee and cacao nibs and see where it goes. Good to hear yours has turned out well and I agree both very similar recipes and both seem to be great base porters!