Okay…your assignment is to come up with a creamy smooth, non harsh tasting, high ABV version of an English Porter.
My brew partner’s wife does NOT like American Barleywines, or Imperial Stouts. But she wants a good Porter, and she also wants it to pack a good punch, say 8 to 10% ABV .
Can we take our standard grain bill, and just double it for more alcohol?
What say you?
A couple of years ago at homebrewtalk.com there were some pictures posted from the Fuller’s brew logs. I believe they originated on Twitter and were posted by the Fuller’s brew master. The user, Northern_Brewer, a member here as well as over there scaled down that recipe to a 20L version for homebrewers. I copied and pasted that into my folder of things I want to brew way back then. Hope it helps…
Fuller’s Imperial Porter:
5.10 kg (64.8%) UK pale malt (Bairds)
910 g (11.6%) glucose
874 g (11.1%) UK crystal - light (60L-ish?)
619 g (7.9%) brown
182 g (2.3%) treacle (see discussions elsewhere for how it’s similar to but not the same as molasses)
109 g (1.4%) UK chocolate malt
73 g (0.9%) Invert sugar #1 (Lyle’s golden syrup will do or make your own)
However they will be getting much better efficiency than a typical homebrew setup. If we assume 65% brewhouse efficiency and a yeast such as Imperial A09 Pub (or Fullers yeast harvested from bottles of 1845 or a cask) managing 67.5% attenuation then we need to multiply by a fudge factor to end up with a grain bill that looks like this for OG 1.101 and 10.0% ABV (imperial is for 5 US gallons, metric for 20 litres) :
6820g 14lb 4oz (64.8%) UK pale malt
1217g 2lb 9oz (11.6%) glucose
1168g 2lb 7oz (11.1%) UK crystal 60L
828g 1lb 12oz (7.9%) brown malt
243g 8.1oz (2.3%) Lyle’s treacle
146g 4.9oz (1.4%) UK chocolate malt
97g 3.3oz (0.9%) Invert sugar #1/Lyle’s golden syrup
Tweak the numbers to match your equipment. Yeast nutrient is probably a good idea.
My thought is to not double the roasted malts. Increase the base malts to add ABV but go easy on the roasted malts increase. You won’t need more for color reasons. As the ABV goes up you can probably tolerate some extra roasted flavors. I am not sure how much I would increase the roast. Maybe 10-50%. I am wimpy and would err on the low side.
If she wants easy drinking you might consider some pale chocolate or even dark Crystal.
Thanks for your input! I’ll go easy on the roasted malts, for sure.
Our English Brown Beer Category, 3rd Place entry, was from Fullers London Porter recipe, that dates back to the late 19th century.
The Fullers Imperial sounds interesting!
To boost ABV alone, you might simply add invert sugar or adjunct, such as flaked corn (but that alone risks thinning it too greatly). Even so, you will want to keep it easy drinking I would think, so just doubling the full recipe gets you into a potentially cloying range with crystals and specialty malts simply doubled along with base grain. So, doubling the base malts, increasing the specialty malts by, say 25- 33%, and then adding sugar or corn to get the final boost to where you want the ABV might pose a reasonable approach.
Sounds like a small batch might be the way to go, until you have your ratios dialed in on the ingredients. At least you are starting with a well known (to you) starting point with your porter recipe. I would probably mess around on a recipe calculator with this one to get close and then hit the workbench to fine tune it.
Good luck and Cheers!
I think of the Belgians as masters of making very quaffable high gravity beers, “digestible” as they say. I think you could consider looking at some good quad recipes for ratios of base malts, specialty malts, and sugars/syrups. From there you could use the appropriate malts and sugars for a porter. I think black starp molasses would work in moderate amounts as some of the sugar.
Also, yeast choice could be important here. Whatever you use, making a smaller porter first and repitching fresh yeast couldn’t hurt.
I must say that Denny Conn’s Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter is quite good.
Thanks! Even without the flavorings I think the base porter is outstanding.
I agree. Forgot to add the bourbon when I first brewed it a few years ago and did not miss it at all.
Also makes a great base for coffee porter.
The London Amateur Brewer’s most decorated member, Phill Turner, has a 8% Porter that won Best of Show at the 2016 Brew Brighton competition:
OG: 1.077
Maris Otter 59%
Munich II 21%
Carafa I 5.5%
Brown Malt 5.5%
CaraMunich 5%
Melanoidin 4%
40 IBU Perle at beginning of boil (he boils 90 min)
He brews it as a Baltic Porter with WLP830
Thanks again! This gives us all kinds of ideas, and things to explore.
Mrs. R.J. does not like anything harsh, or overly bitter, or anything that tastes like Starbucks Coffee & Burnt Toast.
But she is growing tired of her current Porter…even though it did well in the competition.
It sounds like she’d like my porter recipe, then.
I have used his base recipe several times as well. Very nice Imperial Porter - won some awards plain and with coffee and with peppers as well.
Very cool!
I like the dark munich/MO combo in my porter as well
That looks right up my alley. Thanks for sharing!
These recipes are looking inviting!
Now you got me going down the Baltic-Porter rabbit hole.