How To Brew A Good Porter?

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Daveee

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Hi All, after aquiring some more bottles it's time for more brewing. :chug:

I want to attempt a Porter. Well actually what I want to attempt is...

There is a beer called the Old Admiral at the Lord Nelson in Sydney. I'd like to try and copy it. I don't have much info except that it was a dark beer, a dogbolter in fact (whatever that is!? i don't know my dark beers!), it was quite malty but still had a lightish taste. (ie. not overpowering) and it was 6.7%! It was a great drinking beer.

Does anyone have any idea what to use to try replicate this or something similar? Just using kit stuff? (although I can steep grain... I think)

Also any other more "exciting" beers I could brew rather than the boring "normal" home brew stuff?
 
daveee

dogdolter is a dark lager.so a dark to almost black beer with a lager yeast.
personally i would stick to making a porter first.
the key would be use a can of light extract and then steeped 400-500g dark crystal malt and 200 g black malt.depends how robust you want it as to how much black malt but between 100-200.you good use chocolate malt aswell its all about getting to know your malt.chocolate you could use around 230g and no black malt or 100g of each.
i really like the black malt by itself and recomend you do that first.

the real key in a good porter is in the malting and mashing of the grains so i am just speculating at a extract and steeped grain recipe.originally i think they would have only used mashing grains to come up with the first porter.ie no roasted malt or crystal malt.just a few different pale malts kilned differently like brown malt amber malt and pale malt.they would have had to use the pale malt because the other malts have not got the enzymme power which the pale has got.but they would all need mashing.
sorry about the lengthy history bulldust.since you want to do a extract but its good to know where the beer is coming from sort of thing.

with the lager version i think they may use german type hops.but for your porter you can stick with using kent goldings for everything some people would use fuggles but fuggles are a dirty word on this forum.30 ibu kent goldings.and 1/2 oz at ten minutes and fiveminutes.

you won't really get much from the last minute additions. the real stuf is in the black malt.
also use london ale yeast if you can.you want a really clean ferment.so becarefull with this yeast you want to give it prime conditions.thats proberly why some breweries are going for cold fermenting yeasts to get the real clean ferment.

anyway hope that helps.
 
hey there davee:

i can probably give you a recipe for a porter, but i want to see how it turns out first, (its just about finished its time in secondary) so in a few weeks i'll know :)

incidentally, porters (as opposed to stouts) use chocolate malt to get their darkness more than black malt (roasty flavours are supposed to be subtle) i steeped 450g of chocolate in mine...
 
Davee,

don't be put off by Jayse's remarks regarding Fuggles. Fuggles are perfect for porter. Use them for bittering and flavour, combined with East Kent Goldings for flavour and aroma. I used fuggles in my Kilkenny copy and they are so perfect.

For porter recipes, check out
www.byo.com
http://hbd.org/recipator/
http://www.beertools.com/html/articles.php

Cheers - Snow
 
good points about the roasty notes in porter from gsrman.
i find the black malt at no more than 230g gives it the perfect chocolate and coffee notes with little roastiness.but this is for a very robust version which i love.as i said its all about getting to know your malt etc.
with mine i use quite a bit of munich malt aswell which adds to the malty complexity.this my be seen as cheating a little by the purists.i also make mine with a 0.g over 1.050.


and as snow mentioned fuggles are good for these beers.the hops from the late additions don't really come through that much.
i only mentioned the fuggles thing because a few here would prefer not to use them.but fuggles are actually the favourite hop of many a brewer.
 

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