Jovial Monk's Robust Porter

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Boots

Well-Known Member
Joined
6/12/02
Messages
649
Reaction score
3
Bottled this 2 weeks ago, pulled one out of the cupboard yesterday, in the fridge for 5 minutes then into a warm glass.

Bloody Beautiful. Really complex (almost like a Belgian Dark) (Note to self: get a guide on beer tasting / reviewing - anyone got one?)

I think I left it on the secondary yeast cake too long coz it's got a strong yeasty (not sure if you can smell the results of autolysis??). But it's reasonably high in alcohol (6.8), and a high FG (1020 - need to start doing decent Yeast starters for stuff this big i guess), so you don't really notice it that much. It may even decrease with a bit of time in a fridge.

Summary: a great beer, nice work on the recipe JM.
 
Glad you liked it java script:emoticon(':D')

Created the recipe from research into the Robust Porter style, rather than trying to clone a specific recipe. Sounds like what I read about adding a small amount of black grain to the chocolate malt is spot on.


If your beer tastes yeasty, the yeast should settle and the beer flavor clean up. There is enough malt and hops to carry the beer for several months, and it should improve quite a bit.

Hmmm FG of 1020? I calculated an Fg of 1016, but the beer should self prime for a while and consequently dry out a bit.



I might get in some Galazy malt (very high diastatic power) and brew an old-time porter of 25% Galaxy, 73% brown malt and 2% smoked malt sometime next year




Jovial Monk
 
mmm black malt.
I did a porter with no choc only black(170g). It was un'freaking'real.
I did one 230g choc and 110g black last week and its not tasting as good, yet anyway.

Would you say the old timer one would take quite a lot longer to condition J.M?

Jayse
 
I would imagine so. the old time brewers vatted their porters for quite some time. i would also like the brown malt bite to smooth out a bit.


Hmmmm, since I was just talking about cereal mashes, anybody should be able to stovetop mash 500g brown malt and a kilo pale (the boiling step not needed here) and add some authenticity to their next porter






LJ
 
I would but I haven't the room for aging beer for a while, unless I get out the bottles, not that keen at the moment to bottle.
The brewery is shifting premises so its all hands on deck in a couple weeks hopefully with the coolroom running then 1/3 pale/brown/amber malt it is for a porter.

Jayse
 
ummmm

haven't got the Stouts and Porters book here

is 1/3 pale/brown/amber mash diastatic enough?

With Galaxy malt it very likely has







Jovial Monk
 
1/3 pale/brown/amber WILL need amylase enzyme added, though maybe not with the Galaxy

JM
 
The reference I have the guy who wrote it says 1/3 pale is enough. He uses 1/3 marris otter so I pressume 1/3 each would be fine.

Cheers 'recently converted to malt head, Jayse'
 
Well, I would make the pale Galaxy high DP malt

I have the Durden Park Beer Circle book "old English Beers and How to Make Them" also the Stouts and Porters book (all from CAMRA0 and I doubt the 1/3 pale/brown/amber would work

Does your guy roast his own brown malt?


Oh, and the choc/black grains mixes

try 500g choc, 50g roast barley or even 1K choc, 75g roast barley



Jovial Monk
 
Here is something on retaining diastatic activity when roasting for amber malt, from http://hbd.org/brewery/Library.html#Malt. I haven't tried it yet though, so I can't say if it works or not.

The following has not made it into the the appendix yet but .... For those who are interested in retaining diastatic activity, subsequent (informed) experiments have shown that a longer time drying the grain at a lower temperature helps protect the enzymes. The following will produce a diastatic Pale Amber.
Set the oven at 70-75 C (160-170 F) and put in the tray of grain (the grain bed can be a little deeper - up to 1.5 inches, say) and leave for 2 hours to dry out the grain. Raise the temperature to 88-94 C (190-200 F) for 30 mins then to 110-115 C (230-240 F) for a further 30 mins. Check the colour as above. If insufficient colour, then check at 15 min intervals. If after 1 hour at this temperature, colour has not been achieved, raise to 120-125 C (250-260 F) and continue to check at 15 min intervals. The resultant Pale Amber should be able to mash itself.

For Amber malt, after the grain has spent 1 hour at 110-115 C (230-240 F) raise the temperature to 127-132 C (260-270 F) and check colour every 15 mins.

*** And note: these diastatic darker grains will be more acidic than normal pale malt and if large proportions are used in a mash you might have to make an allowance in you water treatment.
 
J.M the reference iam refering to is a B.Y.O magazine. He gives details for making yor own amber and brown.
But the recipe uses brought malt such marris otter/ muntons amber/ crisp brown.
He does a fair bit of raving about the recipe.


With the choc/ roast i'll try that soon aswell.


Jayse 'I love porter' :)
 
Ah, you didn't mention home roasted malt

I have read something similar in the Durden Park book, and roasted 100% Pale Amber Grist for use in the Strong Amber I brewed at the mash demo here.

Bottled that Fri early am, it is incredible already, thos bottles will go into the cellar tonight for 2 months ageing



Thank you for the BYO link, I will print the article out and keep it with the book



Jovial Monk
 
Back
Top