porter feedback

Beer Recipes
1

Looking for feedback/ideas. I usually do pretty simple grain bills but I have a hard time doing that with porters. Normally, I would not have the munich or brown malt but I think it will help achieve what I am looking for. This is actually a base recipe for this year’s pumpkin batch…

From memory it is something like:
Two row 44%
Munich 34%
Crystal 80 8%
Brown Malt 8%
Chocolate 4%
Carafa I Special 2%

OG 1.057
Northern Brewer at 60 and 10 min for ~25 IBUs
S04 yeast

Be gentle. I don’t brew dark beers very often…

2

I think it looks good. Personally I’d drop the carafa and just go chocolate malt all way. But whatever.

3

+1.  Looks pretty solid. Be sure to post how it comes out.

4

Cool thanks. I am definitely not opposed to going chocolate all the way. I usually only use darker roasted malts in very small amounts for color adjustment and complexity.

5

Looks good to me…but if I were brewing it  I’d drop the chocolate malt altogether (but that’s just me…I think it throws the flavor out of balance and contributes harsh notes), and stick with some carafa (though I personally  use carafa III special).
My porters also improved a great deal when I started using larger amounts of caramel malt, especially very dark caramel malts (and up to a full pind of that). German CaraAroma malt also works smashingly well in porter.
Contrary to one might expect, he caramel malts don’t make the end product out of balance on the sweet end of things at all…in fact the color and roastiness that comes from the dark caramel is quite intense…and delicious.

Just opinions, that’s all.  In the end it all depends on what kind of flavor profile and mouthfeel you’re going after.
If you were going for an historically authentic porter, you’d probably wind up with the simplest grain bill of all:  all, or nearly all, brown malt.

Do you hav a favorite commercial example of the style??

6

As per another current thread, if you are going to use Brown malt, use Fawcett!

7

Haha yeah I started that other thread. I will be using Bairds

8

Thanks for the input.

Honestly I am not sure which commercial examples I am trying to mimic. I really like Black Butte and Cutthroat by Odell but I haven’t had either of them in a bit. I definitely don’t want anything too roasty so I like your idea of using some darker crystal malts. I think I have a pound of crystal 80 in there but I may consider going with some 120 in place or in addition to.

9

Chocolate malt isn’t going to give you darker roast “burnt” flavors. That would come from the roasted barley or black patent. I prefer chocolate malt in my porters because I like them more light coffee/chocolate flavored. Carafa husklless malts, IMO, are great for beers like schwarzbiers and can work for porters but I personally prefer my porters a little more robust.

10

Lots of different approaches for porter, though. I like robust porter a lot and use chocolate and black patent for a nice roasty bite, and then balance it out with dark crystal - between 90 and 120L usually. And I love the Munich in porter and stout, for a nice malty base. But I have used brown in porter a few times and liked it really well, too.

11

A big +1 on that.
These days, at least some Munich (and often quite a bit of it)  finds its way into most of the ales and porters I make.

12

Thanks everyone. It seems like I have a decent starting point. I will just have to go forward and make tweaks in subsequent batches as usual.

Do you think the amount of munich I have in there is decent? It works out to about 4 lbs for a 5 gallon batch.

13

Yep, that’s plenty. It’ll be a good beer !

14

Yeah, I was wondering about the Carafa myself. I think of Carafa as a color-corrector more than anything else, and I don’t see the need for that in a porter. Personally, I like a bit more bite in my porters and end up going 5% chocolate and 5% roast barley for my roasted grains.

15

I like a little black patent or roasted barley in mine as well, but in a dark chocolate/black coffee guy.

16

The Odell Cutthroat is a brown porter style versus robust porter of the Black Butte. Odell is one of the best porters in the US, in my opinion. Brown malt definitely makes the style. I wouldn’t bother with roasted barley or carafa and just go with the chocolate as your roasted malt, if a less robust, brown porter is what you’re going for.

17

I use a mix of pale chocolate, chocolate, and brown malt in my porters. With heavier use of the pale chocolate and brown malt. Some crystal 80 and 120 is quite tasty as well. My porter recipes tend to be very busy but still not muddled.

18

Although interestingly enough Black Butte is just chocolate and crystal for color while Cutthroat has crystal, brown malt, chocolate and roasted barley. Obviously many ways to skin this cat.

19

Right, and they’re very different beers. I very much prefer the Cutthroat to the Black Butte. Also, Summit’s Great Northern Porter is very similar to Cutthroat and awesome.

20

I’ve been working on my own Robust Porter recipe for a few years now and it has gotten VERY close to how I like it.  Although my friends (and I) thoroughly enjoy my latest version, it only scored a 32 at an AHA-sanctioned homebrewing competition when I thought it would be a little higher.  I know how competitions work and that there are LOTS of influences that go into a score but, the other entry that I thought was the weakest scored a 1st place.

My point is to start off with what you think (based on your own experiences, other’s recipes, and invaluable advice from everyone on this great forum) and tweak it on the next batch until you are happy with it.  You will almost never get it right the first time.