Porter Grainbill

[Airgead]

Hi Folks

I'll dredge up an old topic here as I'm looking at brewing a porter (brown rather than robust) as my winter brew. At the moment I've got a real keep it simple thing going so I'm trying to minimise the number of ingredients (do more with less as my boss loves to say).

At the moment my recipe is looking like this (for 25l) -

4kg JW ale malt
500g JW Chocolate
400g JW Dark Crystal
50g Black malt for a bit of extra colour

25IBU using northern brewer for bittering plus 40g EKG at 20 min for a bit of flavour (or 50/50 EKG and fuggles)

I'm looking at an OG of around 45. Ferment using WLP005 (brittish ale).

What do you guys think? I'm not sure about that amount of dark crystal. I may cut it to 200g and bump up the black grain by 10-15g to compensate for the lost colour. I don't want too much burnt/roasty flavour though as thats starting to drift into stout...

Any suggestions?

Cheers
Dave

 

[stephen]

Hi Folks

I'll dredge up an old topic here as I'm looking at brewing a porter (brown rather than robust) as my winter brew. At the moment I've got a real keep it simple thing going so I'm trying to minimise the number of ingredients (do more with less as my boss loves to say).

At the moment my recipe is looking like this (for 25l) -

4kg JW ale malt
500g JW Chocolate
400g JW Dark Crystal
50g Black malt for a bit of extra colour

25IBU using northern brewer for bittering plus 40g EKG at 20 min for a bit of flavour (or 50/50 EKG and fuggles)

I'm looking at an OG of around 45. Ferment using WLP005 (brittish ale).

What do you guys think? I'm not sure about that amount of dark crystal. I may cut it to 200g and bump up the black grain by 10-15g to compensate for the lost colour. I don't want too much burnt/roasty flavour though as thats starting to drift into stout...

Any suggestions?

Cheers
Dave

Dave

I am planning on making an Arcener Stout from "Brew Classic Beers at Home." The grain bill for this has no crystal and only 385 gm of chocolate malt: With a final EBC of 150. So if you want to not have the roasty flavour prominent you could quite easily forego the black malt and can quite easily reduce the Crystal. I just played witht the recipe in Pro-mash, selecting brown porter as the BJCP style and the recipe without the black malt and halving the crystal will result in a beer that fits well within style.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Trent]

Airgead
My porter for last years xmas case swap was technically a brown porter, and it seemed to be well enjoyed, though I start mine at around 1050, so ya can adjust the base malt to suit
for 23L

4.5kg Maris Otter
600g Carapils
600g Pale chocolate (approx 5-600EBC)

30g Northern Brewer @ 45 mins for about 25IBU

I have always found that my beers are pretty close to black, and therefore dont need the extra dash of black malt (plus, I feel my recipe was even a little too roasty to qualify as a brown porter, so extra roastiness isnt needed IMO). I find that my beers are fairly tasty with just the bittering addition, and never use flavour/aroma in my porter (unless its a robust), but that may differ for your tastes.
Its just a slightly bastardised version of the porter recipe given to me by Bonk to start my AG career, and I love it (thanks again, Bonk!). If it helps, I never use any crystal in mine, especially dark crystal, though the lads at the BJCP on the weekend reckoned it needs a little bit of crystal in there to give it a more caramel quality, but all rated it better than James Squires (maybe cause it was fresher?). To be honest, the few I put crystal in, I didnt enjoy. I reckon if ya keep it simple, ya cant go wrong.
Hope this helps a little
All the best
Trent

EDIT - Steve just beat me to it, and managed to say it in less than half what I did! Drop the black, and halve the crystal! I would change it to carapils, though Steve felt (at the BJCP) some crystal would have been better in mine

 

[stephen]

Airgead
My porter for last years xmas case swap was technically a brown porter, and it seemed to be well enjoyed, though I start mine at around 1050, so ya can adjust the base malt to suit
for 23L

4.5kg Maris Otter
600g Carapils
600g Pale chocolate (approx 5-600EBC)

30g Northern Brewer @ 45 mins for about 25IBU

I have always found that my beers are pretty close to black, and therefore dont need the extra dash of black malt (plus, I feel my recipe was even a little too roasty to qualify as a brown porter, so extra roastiness isnt needed IMO). I find that my beers are fairly tasty with just the bittering addition, and never use flavour/aroma in my porter (unless its a robust), but that may differ for your tastes.
Its just a slightly bastardised version of the porter recipe given to me by Bonk to start my AG career, and I love it (thanks again, Bonk!). If it helps, I never use any crystal in mine, especially dark crystal, though the lads at the BJCP on the weekend reckoned it needs a little bit of crystal in there to give it a more caramel quality, but all rated it better than James Squires (maybe cause it was fresher?). To be honest, the few I put crystal in, I didnt enjoy. I reckon if ya keep it simple, ya cant go wrong.
Hope this helps a little
All the best
Trent

EDIT - Steve just beat me to it, and managed to say it in less than half what I did! Drop the black, and halve the crystal! I would change it to carapils, though Steve felt (at the BJCP) some crystal would have been better in mine

Actually Trent, I said it could do with some of those Blackcurrant/Plum/Raisin type of aromas and flavour that crystal can impart - and not drown out the slight roasted/chocolate profile.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Trent]

Oops
Sorry Steve! Shows my hearing goes down the drain a little as I drink! Didnt mean to misquote you.
All the best
Trent

 

[Weizguy]

Trent,
I just consulted my scoring sheet, and it was I who commented that I'd like to taste some caramel flavour in there (for my tastebuds to be really happy).
I also agree with Stephen, that it would also be improved if you could get some of those raisiny flavours.

With the flavours you had, though, I gave the beer 42 points out of 50 and called it a great session beer, which is prob what happens to it at home.

Beerz, Seth

 

[Airgead]

Thanks Folks

After reading the suggestions here (and the ones people emailed to me direct) I think I'll go with something along the lines of

4.5kg ale malt
500g choc
200g dark crystal (I am aiming for some dark raisiny/plumy flavours here)
Maybe a touch of black malt for colour. Using the JW malts stargebrew shows the colour at around 57EBC which is at the very low end of the scale. 50g black malt bumps it up to 62 which is more what I am after. Is it just me or is the JW choc significantly lighter than some of the others out there?

I've bumped the OG up to around 50 and I'll bump up the hops to around 35IBU. Still not sure whether I'll use a flavour addition or not. I'll have to sleep on that one.

Cheers
Dave