Minimalist Porter Recipe

[dc59]

Hey everyone I've been away from brewing for a bit over 12 months now. Been meaning to get back into it for awhile and have finally managed it. Brewed a Pale Ale a couple of days ago and am now planning a brown porter.

My issue is this, I normally use base, medium crystal and chocolate in varying portions for the grain bill in a brown porter. Unfortunately I only have base malt, munich and chocolate. I need to brew tomorrow and wont get a chance to get any crystal.

What would you guys recomend? I haven't had much experience with the munich so not sure what to expect from it. I've got my hops sorted and yeast sorted.

Thanks for reading people, Dave.

 

[razz]

You won't get from Munich what you get from med crystal Dave, so push up the choc to give you the colour you want and use a good whack of munich for plenty of malt (and some colour)

 

[felten]

Maybe home roasting your grains? There has been a few threads here on that subject lately.

 

[dc59]

You won't get from Munich what you get from med crystal Dave, so push up the choc to give you the colour you want and use a good whack of munich for plenty of malt (and some colour)

Thanks Razz, I think that will probably be my plan of attack. Not sure what to expect of it, but part of the fun I guess.

I am going to try to get from work to the brewshop before they close, just have to wait and see.

 

[manticle]

Hey everyone I've been away from brewing for a bit over 12 months now. Been meaning to get back into it for awhile and have finally managed it. Brewed a Pale Ale a couple of days ago and am now planning a brown porter.

My issue is this, I normally use base, medium crystal and chocolate in varying portions for the grain bill in a brown porter. Unfortunately I only have base malt, munich and chocolate. I need to brew tomorrow and wont get a chance to get any crystal.

What would you guys recomend? I haven't had much experience with the munich so not sure what to expect from it. I've got my hops sorted and yeast sorted.

Thanks for reading people, Dave.

How much does the colour matter? You could still brew a nice malty UK style (assuming it's a UK porter you intended) but make it brown or amber. Munich gives a nice maltiness but if you want you could up the bittering to make an ESB or somesuch. Too much choc might give more roastiness than you intended (might also work well - up to you and what you want at the end).

 

[Fourstar]

Maybe home roasting your grains? There has been a few threads here on that subject lately.

You could try and make some brown malt from base but its recommended you leave it for a week before using.

You could also try caramelising a few L of the runnings to get some toffee/wort caramelisation into the beer. it wont nbe the same as crystal but it will add a hightened sweetness.

You could do something like

83-85% Base
10% Munich
5-7% Chocolate

Take 5L of middle runnings and oversparge your kettle by 5 L. Boil down until carmelised and viscous (sump oil) then add that back to the kettle in the last 5 mins of the boil

If you wanted to use brown malt if you made it, i'd dump in 10% subbed from the base malt%.

Cheers.