Good morning all. Brewing my first Baltic Porter based off an NHC gold medal recipe.
I’m not finding much literature or discussion of the style on the interwebs compared to most other styles, so I’m having trouble finding a proper water profile/mash pH to use. I use BruNWater.
If anyone could offer some tips it would be greatly appreciated. OG is 1.085 and about 33 IBU. Bock lager yeast.
I’d say brown balanced or brown malty
Can you post the recipe? The profile and pH will have more to do with the recipe in particular than a generic style designation.
Sure.
OG: 1.085
IBU: 33
FG: 1.021
Color: 37
6 lbs Maris Otter
5 lbs Munich 10
4 lbs Pilsner
4 lbs Vienna
1 lb Caramunich
12oz Carafa 3
6oz English Chocolate
1oz Smoked Malt
1oz Perle @ 60
1oz Saaz @ 30
White labs Bock Lager @ 650 billion cells
Mash 152 for 1 hour
Right now I’m using the “London” profile on BruNWater as a preliminary profile to figure out approx how much distilled water I have to buy. And I’m targeting a mash pH of 5.4.
My suggestion would be to not target any of the stock profiles in BW. Get your calcium, chloride, and sulfate where you want them. Add sodium to your liking. Then stop.
I’ve always tracked BW as overshooting the pH estimate slightly so as long as the estimate is at or a little below 5.4, I wouldn’t add anything like Baking Soda to try and compensate. Input your grain bill as accurately as possible (correct colors), add your minerals, and then see what you get.
As an aside from your main question (disregard as you see fit):
The recipe choice is entirely up to you, but this is more in line with what I want and what I have seen for Baltic Porter (at least from a grain bill standpoint):
As it stands, I can’t see the smoked malt adding anything desirable, and the base malt blend you have list is going to be muddy IMHO. I would go with Munich/Pilsner or Vienna/Pilsner. In the best commercial examples of BP I’ve had, a toasty base malt flavor like MO wasn’t present.
BP is not really a water-driven style. I’m leaning to the suggestion that Denny made, but I’d not discount a decent sulfate content in the water since big malty beer styles can benefit from the drying that sulfate provides to the beer’s finish. It helps make it more drinkable and less cloying. We should all be aware that Burton Ales and Imperial Stouts were made in Burton and their high sulfate water made them better for those styles. I’m not recommending Burton level sulfate, but I’m hoping you get the point that sulfate is OK when your beer gets nice and malty.
I don’t dispute that the smoked malt in that recipe might be irrelevant due to its teeny percentage, but it could be a nice nuance. I like a teeny bit of wood smoke in my Scottish ales (not peat). Why not in a BP?
Thanks everyone. My grains are all mixed together so I will go with the recipe as is. I have adjusted the water profile to keep the minerals low. I hope this turns out to be a really nice beer. Brewing it this Saturday.