Porter(!) assistance please-

[Ocean's of Ale-]

Ok mates, so currently in stock i have;

- ×2 tc light malt extract  (i was going to make ginger beer using them, but refuse to pay $30 a kilo for ginger at woolys )

-1 blonde kit   ( Morgans one actually, i very much rate them!)

2kgs of dried light malt extract (probly even got a little more)

250g's of medium crystal grain ( had more but been a little greedy with it)

1kg of dark crystal grain (love the smell, love the name)

1kg of chocolate malt grain (essential in winter thawing ales)

1kg of roasted malt grain ( any repice recommending using the full kilo i will of course ignore mates)

25g's of fuggles

25gs of cascade

25gs of por

25gs of galaxy

25gs of saaz

Yeast; uso5 /bry97-(×3) coopers pale yeast sashes ...er fermentis 34/70.. (probly even have bakers yeast lying around)

My goal is to make a wicked porter@ (abv 4/6%abv)....any advice ladys/ gents? 

My gratitude as always well in advance mates-

 

 

[Ocean's of Ale-]

Mmm ok...(lol!) well roughly iam thinking;

3kg of light malt extract.

500gs of dme.

225gs of 80°L crystal

225gs of 350°L choclate 

112gs of roasted barley 

25gs of Fuggles @60mins

15gs of cascade @40mins

10gs of cascade @15

Bry97

(Losely based on terry foster's standard robust porter repice).

Happy days mates-

[joolbag]

Hey mate. I’ve recently put down a robust porter from the BYO website. Mine had 300g chocolate malt and 200g black patent. I don't have any experience with roast barley, sorry.

 

What I did read is that you don't want citrus hops in a porter; it's not a black IPA. I used what I had, classic EU/UK varieties. Syrian goldings, fuggles and east Kent goldings. I'm not sure cascade is true to style but if you like it, then try it

[Ocean's of Ale-]

Cheers jool's, thanks for the hop advice,  ill just duck out at some point to LHBS and pick up some goldings and some more fuggles. The citrus hops are all some what left overs from lagers and ales i was brewing thru summer, and would be a mistake of sorts to throw them into a porter.

As for the grain bill, i think ill take your advice there to and up the anti of choclate to 300g's. I best get brewing it soon mate as winter seem's to have arrived-

[Otto Von Blotto]

Black patent goes really well in the porters I've done. I think I used 350g of it, with 150g chocolate and 100g roasted barley. It was my first time making up a porter recipe and it turned out so well that I never changed it. Fuggles and EKG were the hops, but I could always sub them for something like Magnum or whatever. Hop flavor isn't really the aim of these beers, they're all about the malts.

[Ocean's of Ale-]

Cheers kelsey,  ill pick up some black patent as well from my LHBS, l guess the porter that i have in mind is more a sweeter Carmel / chocolatey porter rather than a dryer more intense roasted coffee porter. I guess that the thing with porter mate is it can potentially vary so much in flavour, but that's probably consistent with beers in general. Thanks for your thoughts bro-

[Otto Von Blotto]

Chocolate is definitely at the forefront of the flavors in my porter; along with those three dark grains, I use about 200g of medium crystal in it as well. If I want a more roasted flavor like you'd get in a stout, then I bump up the roasted barley significantly and drop the other dark grains down somewhat.

[joolbag]

@blurred this is the recipe I brewed on Friday.  

 

[Ocean's of Ale-]

Really really good advice mate's thankyou, that really looks like a cracking good repice there to jool's;

Ill give this a red hot crack -

3kg of light malt extract

Medium crystal 200g

Dark crystal 200g

Choclate 200g

Black patent 300g

Roasted barley 100g

Hops: Fuggles&EKG

Yeast: us04 or Nottingham 

Abv 5.8ish% 

Next time ill do a light and amber extract combo as base, depending on how she turns out-

[joolbag]

Hey mate are you missing an ingredient in there? 3kg light malt extract won’t get to 5.8%.

 

im only a relatively new brewer myself but I’m not sure if you need that roasted barley or if you are overdoing it with the dark grains. I suppose you could brew it and scale back if it’s a bit too much.

 

i tracked down the link to the article and recipes from the BYO site. A good read:

https://byo.com/article/robust-porter-style-profile-2/

[Ocean's of Ale-]

Doesn't the kg of grain bring it to 4kgs of fermentables jool's? It must increase the abv a fair bit ? Ill take your avice about the roasted barley if you reakon it will be to intesene mate, iam after a more caramel/choclate porter anyway.

[ben 10]

Grain is very different to extract.

[Otto Von Blotto]

The grains will provide mostly unfermentable sugars along with their color and flavor, so on top of the extract they won't contribute much to the ABV at all. I just found my recipe; it contains 350g black patent, 200g medium crystal, and 100g each of chocolate malt and roasted barley. That's in 25 litres. I only make them to 21 litres now, and the 100g amounts are scaled back to about 90g, with the other two reducing to 310g and 180g respectively. Add 5kg of Maris Otter and the last one turned out an ABV of 6% in the keg (no priming sugar). It's not over the top in terms of the roasted barley taking over - you need a fair bit more than that amount in it to have any huge effect. In stouts I use 500g roasted barley and it's quite noticeable, but desired in those beers.

[Ocean's of Ale-]

That's awesome kelsey, ive had a bit of master class this week. Beer never seems to stop amazing me! Thanks heaps for your help mates-

[Ocean's of Ale-]

Just got back from my LHBS he has no black patent in stock d'oh!

[Otto Von Blotto]

I also suspect the grains probably behave differently when mashed with a base malt as I do with all grain batches. The enzymes that convert the starches into fermentable sugars during the mash probably do a bit of work on the sugars from the specialty grains too, so they may not increase the FG as much as they do when they're steeped by themselves like you do in extract brewing. They still contribute heavily to flavor though, which is the main thing. The last porter I did started at 1.060 and finished about 1.014. Specialty grains made up about 11% of the total grist, the rest of course being the Maris Otter.

[Ocean's of Ale-]

Evening mate's, 

I realize this is an older thread but given your great advice i feel its only polite to update. Ive had been waiting to obtain some black patent so it stalled temporarily any of my  porter desire's. In the past few weeks ive put an irish red ale down and another red headed beauty called Cascarrillo down. (Honestly Coopers should sell that brew commercial..f $%ing killer) Anyway i didn't have any black patent (theses last few weeks) so i slapped this down.

20 litres. 

×2 thomas coopers light malt extract. 

200g's of crystal grain.

150g's of dark crystal grain.

150g's of chocolate grain. (Cold steeped for 24hrs).

50g's of roasted barley. (Cold steeped for 24hrs)

Fuggles @ 60mins. 

Ekg@ 40 mins. 

Fermetus Us04. 

Og 1.052

Fg 1.020

= 4.2% +0.5%primer=4.7%abv.

Preliminary  tastes suggest a very tooheys old dark ale style beer only richer. I guess technicaly its more of a 27d London brown ale.

Anyway long weekend  on the way and i like that porter recipe of yours kelsey so ive now got some black patent and ill get brewing.

thanks again mates cheers..(go blue 's!)

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

That sounds not unlike the brown ale I have on tap at the moment actually. I only used fuggles and a different yeast but it too reminds me of a Tooheys Old but tastier. In fact I might just go pour one now