Stout And Port Flavours

[Katherine]

Ripe figs you say.....

And here i am watching the birds eat my figs cos i cant be arsed making any more jam (or drying them).

Dont do that.... stuff them with blue cheese and wrap them with prosciutto put them in oven until cheese melts... Devine

 

[drsmurto]

Dont do that.... stuff them with blue cheese and wrap them with prosciutto put them in oven until cheese melts... Devine

Now you are talking! :icon_drool2:

 

[schooey]

Ship them to NSW and sell the buggers, $3 each at the green grocer atm... <_<

 

[drsmurto]

Ship them to NSW and sell the buggers, $3 each at the green grocer atm... <_<

WTF :huh:

$3 per fig?

My fig tree is bigger than the house and has 2 crops per season...... the first crop are the size of tennis balls.

Maybe i can bankroll the new brewery.....

 

[KHB]

Ah, no.

Im a chef and that statement is definitely wrong the alcohol will evaporate when reducing.

KHB

 

[KHB]

Ripe figs you say.....

And here i am watching the birds eat my figs cos i cant be arsed making any more jam (or drying them).

Smurto,

Send some my way ill make the jam and share it with ya

KHB

 

[Katherine]

I love figs so much! There three dollars over here also! And hard to find... I live in Fremantle FFS! Plenty of Italians growing fig trees...don't waste it on jam! Oh but then you could make a savoury jam then put it on cheese! Dry them out put them on cheese!

 

[brettprevans]

:icon_offtopic: :icon_drool2: :icon_drool2: :icon_drool2: figs. my fig trees are really only 1.5ft babies still.

back on topic.

you could always try throwing in some oask chips or the like for the barrel finish flavour of port. or you can actually put your brew into a barrel and age/oxidise it, or use some actual wild yeat they use in making ports etc.

 

[Snow]

Dont do that.... stuff them with blue cheese and wrap them with prosciutto put them in oven until cheese melts... Devine

Or... cut them in half, coat them with sugar, BBQ them and then smother them in marscapone cheese :icon_drool2:

 

[kirem]

Dont do that.... stuff them with blue cheese and wrap them with prosciutto put them in oven until cheese melts... Devine

YUMMMMMMOOOOOH!

 

[Katherine]

Very impressive as a entree... and dead easy...

 

[Jesse]

Jesse,

The Port/Sherry flavours in Mt Tamborines Stout have come about with age, it certainly didn't have them in its earlier days.
I likened it to ripe figs when I had it the other weekend, it's a bloody beautiful drop

cheers Ross

So if it comes with age. Do i simply make a strong stout and hope for the best? How long is long? is a year in the bottle going to give me that effect?

Or should I look at certain malts in particular or simply a bucket load of them?

Cheers

 

[Jesse]

forgot to mention:
Would a higher mash temp help produce these sorts of intense coffee/choc/malt/port flavours?

 

[drsmurto]

Smurto,

Send some my way ill make the jam and share it with ya

KHB

Made 1 batch with a few cinnamon sticks thrown in for an extra dimension. The fig jam i made last year set like concrete so i scoop that out and eat it with a good blue cheese. If you want any you are more than welcome to help yourself. 4kg turned into jam was enough for me. And thats just the first crop (which still has 5+Kg left). The second crop is smaller in size but 3 times more and will be ripe around March.

I love figs so much! There three dollars over here also! And hard to find... I live in Fremantle FFS! Plenty of Italians growing fig trees...don't waste it on jam! Oh but then you could make a savoury jam then put it on cheese! Dry them out put them on cheese!

My attempt at drying some has worked beautifully. Also dried 10kg of apricots (after making jam, stewing, and 2 preserving runs). Nectarines are a week or 2 away but the only thing i do with them is eat them :icon_drool2:

I love having fruit trees! 2 x apricot (diff varieities), 1 fig, 6 x plum (3 diff varieties and i dont count the prunus plum trees that line my street which i raid and turn into sauce), 3 x apple (which got pruned to the ground and grafted with french cider varieties) and the nectarine. Lemon and a kaffir lime.

forgot to mention:
Would a higher mash temp help produce these sorts of intense coffee/choc/malt/port flavours?

The coffee/choc flavour comes from the spec malts - choc and carafa spec would work along with plenty of roasted barley or black malt. I'd suggest you need ot wait for a few years to get the port/sherry like flavours altho the suggestion of adding some oak chips from a port barrel into secondary might be worth a shot.

IIRC there are a few brewers in the Barossa with beer in oak barrels.....

 

[himzol]

I love having fruit trees! 2 x apricot (diff varieities), 1 fig, 6 x plum (3 diff varieties and i dont count the prunus plum trees that line my street which i raid and turn into sauce), 3 x apple (which got pruned to the ground and grafted with french cider varieties) and the nectarine. Lemon and a kaffir lime.

Dr S. How does the Kaffir cope your way, we put one in a couple of years ago and had to move it last year because it was sulking where it was...much problem with the cold?

Himzo.

 

[caleb]

I think any very strong brew with a complex malt bill and good yeast will age well and end up producing something rich and unique. Have you tried many strong Belgian ales? I often liken them to the "port" of beers... not sure if they have the exact qualities you're after, but they are certainly complex and interesting, and would age well.

Certainly, use of choc malt, maybe a good dose of crystal as well, would probably be the go.

However, have you though of looking at hop profiles as well? What hops do Mt Tamborine use. There are a lot of hops which would have what I'd classify as "port" related flavors. In fact I was recently trying to catalog some.

You might consider:
Bramlings Cross: blackcurrant and lemon
Brewer's Gold: blackcurrant, fruity, spicy
Green Bullet: raisins, floral
Hersbrucker: Red wine, tobacco
Pacific Gem: cask oak, blackberry
Hallertau Traditional: plum, raisin, chocolate

These flavor descriptions all come off the Craftbrewer website, not my own tasting notes.
However, you might want to consider some of these as a choice for your brew. (and not, say Amarillo or Cascade which certainly WON'T deliver the flavors you seem to be after.)

 

[Muggus]

Use of plenty of specialty grains and melanoidin-rich malts is definately the way to go. Possibly use a few varieties of crystal.
I reckon using a characterful yeast British or possibly even Belgian will add to it. Though thats almost crossing over into Belgian speciality ale using the latter.

I like the idea of using a few more fruity sort of hops later on in the boil like Caleb mentioned above. I know that Brambling X and Green Bullet can give slightly vinous character, especially mixed with darker beers/malts.

One other suggestion may be to include a small amount of mollasses or rich unrefined sugar. It might end up more rum-like than port though.

Either way, left to its own devices, most rich dark beers will start to develop 'fortified wine' like character after a couple of years of conditioning due to oxidisation. Whether it be port-like is another matter, most of the time its more like sherry which isn't as enjoyable.

 

[muckanic]

In any event, it's a pretty messed up way to add port-like flavours to stout.

It actually works quite well, although I don't quite follow why someone would want to use so much that they had to worry about boiling off alcohol. Raisins are another interesting cheat, as the caramelisation adds something which fresh grapes don't have. Lastly, adding a stave or two from a used wine/port/sherry barrel can duplicate some of these flavours in a more compressed timeframe.

Strictly speaking, we ought to distinguish vintage port, tawney port and sherry, all made differently. Sherry is probably the most hassle, as it involves tertiary fermentation with special flor microbes. There are numerous strong, old bottled brews, but the only non-Belgian brew that I regard as being authentically port-like is Greene King's Strong Suffolk Ale (due to the controlled oxidation of the barrel).

 

[reviled]

If you have a read here , I tried to "speed up" the port flavour process by adding Port to an Imperial Stout I did...

It was interesting, but it resulted more in a type of sour grape finish than Port cos a heap of the sugars in the Port got fermented out.. I would think if you add port at any stage (apart from in the glass) the sugars will get fermented.