I have brewed this chocolate/brown malt porter year after year now with roughly the same OG/proportions. roughly 8% simpsons chocolate malt, 8% brown malt, 6 to 8% crystal malt for about 1.055 to 1.06 OG. It’s one of the very few beers I can say I’ve really worked out the recipe for, but each time for easily the first 6 weeks after bottling it feels messy, harsh, filling me with regret for “oh man, i shouldnt have added so much of each roasted malt.”
but by two months in, it tastes like ultra smooth dark bakers chocolate. i don’t know which one it is, but i somehow suspect the brown malt as I felt like i never had this problem when I just used chocolate in the past.
Anyway, any thoughts? or do you have any particular grains that really take forever to meld with a beer?
won’t lie, ive never used peated malt, but i love scotch and so have always been so tempted to try that 0.5-1%
It’s been stated many times that personal tastes vary, sometimes greatly.
I only bottle and never used a keg. All my home brews, regardless of
grain, begin to become much better at about 8 weeks. My pipeline is built
so the next brew up is about 9 weeks old, but can be sampled at 6+ weeks.
When my pipeline was smaller, and drinking sooner, I noticed the last bottle
in the batch was always the best, so the pipeline was increased.
My individual batches brewed are mainly consumed between 9-12 weeks.
The batch may not be the best, due to the grains/hops/yeast
used, but it’s definitely the smoothest, and flavors are blended/melded well.
I have the Wife take a sip of a brew from time to time, mix them up, and not telling her when it was brewed.
When she samples a 6 week old (from the day of brewing) brew, she
states it’s not ready, has potential with more aging or asks, why are you drinking
your beers when their not ready ?
Some here tout drinking brew 1-2 weeks later as being fresh.
3 months is fresh to me, but maybe using a keg changes things.
I definitely find that my Stouts/Porters do well with some time behind them. Do they get better? That’s hard to say but they do age well. I would say they change somewhat, from starting out crisp and roasty to softening and blending, adding those chocolate notes a bit more after a few additional weeks in the keg.
My hop-forward beers are definitely best “fresh” as they will lose some of that nice hop aroma buzz after about 3-4 weeks. That’s certainly an in-house process/handling issue but since I brew small batches, the beer is usually gone by the time things go south.
As far as extended aging, I can’t speak to that. I’ve never had a beer last more than 5 weeks.
Dark beers can withstand age a lot better than most pale or (esp.) hoppy beers possibly due to natural anti-oxi properties of roasted malts (allegedly). It could be that the micro-oxidation affecting you beers after 2 months is actually improving them. It could also be true that with some tweaks your recipe will be better prior to those stated 2 months.
The two malts that I have used in the past, that seemed to have required some aging to tame the harshness/sharpness/whatever you want to call it, are pale chocolate and special roast. To the point where I have quit using them.
Special B also took some time to mellow in my dubbels, until I discovered I got a better plummy/raisiny flavor from using the Belgian candi syrups, so I no longer use it, either.
Finally, I brewed a Baltic Porter in June 2020 where I threw in a one-inch chunk of Brewer’s licorice into the boil for the last 5 minutes. it took a long time for the licorice flavor to subside (and yes, I am dropping licorice from my brewing arsenal). On the topic of dark beer longevity, I still have a keg of that porter on tap, and it tastes better than ever.
thanks, this is the answer i was looking for. im going on the idea of that sort of “harsh zone” concept of roasting between ~200L to ~350(400?)L, which is why there is that gap where there isnt really a 250L roasted malt commonly, and even ~150L crystal malts and stuff are rarely used nowadays. i put a full pound of special b in a beer many years ago and i have shied away from it ever since then.
re: liqourice, i am afraid of that flavour as i like it, but it will stick in my mouth and overpower anything else for a long time afterward. i was getting a noticeable liquorice taste from bottled 5% CO2 carbed guinness, so i stopped buying it. not sure why i was getting that.
