Porter

As the years pass I'm mellowing in many ways. For longevity someone once said 'Sit loosely in the saddle of life'. Despite never being the most relaxed of people, age has tought me to slow down, not to sweat the small stuff and to drink dark beer.

That last bit might not be entirely true, but I am enjoying the odd darker brew from time to time and with that in mind I decided to brew a Porter toward the end of last year. It's my most recent brew and I have to say it turned out rather well.

To be fair the recipe's not entirely mine - I took it from an old home-brew publication by Marc Ollossen. The edition I have was printed in 1997 and is an ex-library book which cost pence to purchase, although I believe the book may still be about having been republished at some stage. I've only done a small handful of recipes from the book, but I can't remember a bad one so Marc has done his job well.

There's several Porter recipes within its pages and I narrowed the choice down largely based on ingredients I already had in stock. It's based on a commercial recipe but as far as I'm aware the brewery quoted (Marston Moor) is no longer around, unless it was swallowed up by one of the bigger boys.

The grist I came up with for a 23l batch was made up of;

4000g Maris Otter
155 g CaraPils
380g Roasted Barley
120g Dark Crystal
120g Wheat Malt

For an OG of 1.046

Hops were;

Challenger 43g @ 60mins
Savinjski Goldings 20g @ 15mins
plus
Savinjski Goldings 10g steeped at 80c during chillling.

The yeast I used for this one was Muntons Premium Gold. Not the most popular of dried yeasts among the brewers I know, but I find it works very well for beers with a malty profile;  https://www.muntons.com/home_brewing/muntons-premium-yeast/

These days I'm brewing with a 20L Braumeister and the brewday for this one was a bit of a mare. The mash schedule I intended was;

80mins @ 68c
5mins @ 78c

but I suffered a power outage - having left the German piece of kit to do it's thing unattended - this was the first time I hadn't sat like a nursemaid by its side while mashing (I'd nipped back to bed for an extra half-hours kip and a subsequent shower) - I returned to find the power dead due to a faulty extension lead.

I had no idea how long the power had been out, (I can't recall now what the temperature was when I returned to the mash either) so I decided to start the process over, so the upshot was a very long mash.

This may have contributed to a slightly thinner than anticipated body, but at the end of the day it didn't really detract from what was a damn fine pint. The recipe's a keeper.

Brewday - Export Porter 22/08/2013

It sees like an age since I posted about brewing an East India Porter, but the brewday has finally arrived.

Dark beers have been growing on me over the years, but although there are many nice examples of porters, there's still loads I don't get on with. For this reason I've decided to use Mild Ale Malt as the base for mine. I'm hoping this sweeter malt might help take the edge off the acrid bite that the dark malts contribute.

I've altered the hop schedule a little from that original post too. Although the historical records suggest the porter exported to India was stuffed full of hops, in a similar manner to that of IPA, I wasn't too comfortable with the number of bittering units the Beersmith software was predicting.

Also, my beers tend to come across a tad more bitter than the software sometimes predicts, so I've cut back a bit. Even with the reduction in hops, the bittering units are predicted at 70, which I would still consider pretty high for a porter with an anticipated OG of 1.064

As the brewery's not been used for a while I've spent the day giving it a good clean, a thorough rinse and attached new hoses and connectors. Oh, and I'll be using new stainless fermenters too.

My water here in the South West of the UK is ideal for dark beers, so there's not much to do in terms of water treatment. I'm really looking forward to this one;

Export Porter

Type: All Grain	Date: 22/08/2013
Batch Size (fermenter): 50.00 l	Brewer: Mark
Boil Size: 61.39 l	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 75 min	Equipment: Elite Brewery
End of Boil Volume 55.12 l	Brewhouse Efficiency: 73.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 50.00 l	Est Mash Efficiency 77.4 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage	Taste Rating(out of 50):
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 10500.00 g Mild Malt (7.9 EBC) Grain 1 71.7 % 2800.00 g Brown Malt (150.0 EBC) Grain 2 19.1 % 750.00 g Amber (Crisp) (54.2 EBC) Grain 3 5.1 % 600.00 g Black (Crisp) (1339.6 EBC) Grain 4 4.1 % 200.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 50.1 IBUs 100.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 15.2 IBUs 35.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 7 4.3 IBUs 1 Item Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 8 - 4.0 pkg Nottingham Yeast (Lallemand #-) [23.66 ml] Yeast 9 -
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.064 SG	Measured Original Gravity:
Est Final Gravity: 1.017 SG	Measured Final Gravity:
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.2 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol:
Bitterness: 69.6 IBUs	Calories:
Est Color: 72.8 EBC

East India Porter

There are a few things to get out of the way before I'm brewing next. Like a shedload of work, a quick vacation with the wife and kids, plus the Great British Beer Festival. But, I already know what I'm brewing as soon as the opportunity arises. An East India Porter.

Inspired by The Perfect Pint I'm going to have a crack at Will's recipe which was based on the Porter that Barclay Perkins produced for the Indian market. The original details can be found on Ron's blog and, I must admit, before reading this I didn't know that we exported as much, if not more, Porter to India than we did Pale Ale.

For someone whose preference is usually for a beer that's light and hoppy, the requirement of 19% Brown Malt is a wee bit scary.

The recipe, adjusted for my kit will be;

East India Porter 1859

Robust Porter

Type: All Grain	Date: TBA
Batch Size (fermenter): 50.00 l	Brewer: Mark
Boil Size: 61.39 l	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 75 min	Equipment: Elite Brewery
End of Boil Volume 55.12 l	Brewhouse Efficiency: 73.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 50.00 l	Est Mash Efficiency 77.4 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage	Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 10500.00 g Mild Malt (7.9 EBC) Grain 1 71.7 % 2800.00 g Brown Malt (150.0 EBC) Grain 2 19.1 % 750.00 g Amber (Crisp) (54.2 EBC) Grain 3 5.1 % 600.00 g Black (Crisp) (1339.6 EBC) Grain 4 4.1 % 230.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 57.6 IBUs 115.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 17.4 IBUs 40.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 7 5.0 IBUs 3.13 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 8 - Yeast - TBA Yeast 9 -
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.064 SG	Measured Original Gravity:
Est Final Gravity: 1.017 SG	Measured Final Gravity:
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.2 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol:
Bitterness: 80.0 IBUs
Est Color: 72.8 EBC

Homebrew Review - Porter

Several of my friends were surprised when they found out I was brewing a porter. As a relatively new convert to proper beer, my preference had always been for the pale ales over the dark ones and if that's what I enjoy drinking, that's what I tended to brew.

But, over the last year or so, I've not had such an aversion to the dark malts. I've enjoyed the odd commercial porter here and there, not to mention a friend's Imperial Russian Stout which I've really taken a liking too. So, the time was definitely right for me to have a crack at a porter and this was brewed last November.

This wasn't a strong, historical, porter mind, but more like the Fuller's version. The original recipe is here and the original gravity came in at 1.048

Porter

So what was it like? Not bad. I've enjoyed drinking it and it was well received at my local homebrewing group and some of them know a thing or two about brewing dark beers.

With an inviting scent of coffee and chocolate, the aroma was good, the colour was maybe slightly lighter than expected, but the off-white head laced the glass and didn't dissipate until half-way through.

The dark malts didn't produce the intense acrid taste I tend to dislike, but formed a light mellow flavour, which made for an easy-drinking pint. In all honesty, it was probably a bit lightweight for the style, but as my first porter attempt I was happy enough. Next time, I might increase the brown malt go for something a bit more intense.

Once I've finished this post, I'm off to crush malt for another brew tomorrow.

Brewday - Porter 20/11/2012

Porter is not a style I've brewed before. In fact, it wasn't until recently that I started to enjoy the darker British beers, so I thought it was definitely time to have a crack at brewing one.

I've based the recipe on something which I believe is not dissimilar to that used by Fuller's and brought the gravity down a tad. As I'm short on Fuggles, I'm going to try Williamette as the hop. As the beer style is more about the malts than the hop, this hopefully shouldn't detract from what should be a decent pint.

In fact, it wasn't until after I put the recipe together that I read in Beersmith that Williamette is used in Sierra Nevada Porter. I've not had the opportunity to try the American beer, but it's encouraging that my thought of using Williamette as a substitute wasn't wide of the mark - although whether the American interpretation of a porter is the same as ours, I'm not sure.

Oakhurst Porter

Brown Porter

Type: All Grain	Date: 20/11/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 50.00 l	Brewer: Mark
Boil Size: 62.65 l	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min	Equipment: Elite Brewery
End of Boil Volume 55.12 l	Brewhouse Efficiency: 73.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 50.00 l	Est Mash Efficiency 77.4 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage	Taste Rating(out of 50):
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 8200.00 g Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 78.0 % 1050.00 g Brown Malt (150.0 EBC) Grain 2 10.0 % 1050.00 g Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC) Grain 3 10.0 % 210.00 g Chocolate Malt (1000.0 EBC) Grain 4 2.0 % 78.00 g Willamette [6.30 %] - Boil 75.0 min Hop 5 26.8 IBUs 0.50 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 6 - 2.0 pkg Nottingham (Danstar #-) [23.66 ml] Yeast 7 -
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.047 SG	Measured Original Gravity:
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG	Measured Final Gravity:
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.5 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol:
Bitterness: 26.8 IBUs