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Am looking at putting down the following brew and would appreciate any ideas/comments:

1 can Cascade Mahogany Porter
1kg Liquid Chocolate malt (Morgans)
1kg Clover honey or whatever specialty honey I can get from supermarket.
Cascade finishing hos (teabag)
Safale yeast

Am just going to follow instructions on can not boil anything.

I would also appreciate advice on the following:

When should I add the honey? At primary or secondary fermentation?
Would I better using a tarditional English hop such as Fuggles?

Thanks for your help guys.

Wassa

This will be a very large beer, with 2 kilos of (mostly) fermentables added.
You may want to think about cutting back- maybe 500g of each, or skew the proportions depending on which flavour you want to predominate, honey or chocolate malt. On second thoughts, that may be way to much chocolate malt regardless.
Add whatever you decide to use to the primary, and make up to the 23l with water.
There is a table of hops matched with beer styles here- http://www.byo.com/referenceguide/hops/ Fuggles do not get a look in as stout or porter hops.

Whilst I am amongst those who comment favourably on Cascade's bottled commercial beers, I am prepared to express public disappointment over the kit Choc Mahog Porter in particular. If you are looking for a porter with substance, presence, character, colour, ... , this one is not it. Of course, this comment is at the risk of having a Thylacine slipped into my sleeping bag
I am also a little suss over the Spicy Ghost, which claims "wheat inspired" and flavour "haunted by orange and coriander", yet its ingredients show no wheat (either malted or otherwise), nor orange, nor coriander, ...
Maybe this is what is referred to as poetic licence?
I have one awaiting sampling. An experimental brew to which I actually added both malted and unmalted wheat, plus brewed with a yeast cultivated from a Weihestephaner Hefe Weissbier. So the jury is still somewhat out on Cascade's Spicy Ghost. But, as I said, a thumbs down to the Choc Mahog Porter. If you like porter, you will be disappointed with this one.

I think it makes a nice dark mild (4.4% with 1Kg of Cooper's BE2) , but it hasn't got enough body to be a porter. I'd add that can of Morgan's Chocolate, and an extra 500g of LDM or similar, to have a hope of being a porter.

Tony

peterd wrote:Whilst I am amongst those who comment favourably on Cascade's bottled commercial beers, I am prepared to express public disappointment over the kit Choc Mahog Porter in particular. If you are looking for a porter with substance, presence, character, colour, ... , this one is not it. Of course, this comment is at the risk of having a Thylacine slipped into my sleeping bag
I am also a little suss over the Spicy Ghost, which claims "wheat inspired" and flavour "haunted by orange and coriander", yet its ingredients show no wheat (either malted or otherwise), nor orange, nor coriander, ...
Maybe this is what is referred to as poetic licence?
I have one awaiting sampling. An experimental brew to which I actually added both malted and unmalted wheat, plus brewed with a yeast cultivated from a Weihestephaner Hefe Weissbier. So the jury is still somewhat out on Cascade's Spicy Ghost. But, as I said, a thumbs down to the Choc Mahog Porter. If you like porter, you will be disappointed with this one.

I agree on the Spicy Ghost. But, peterd, this does not really address the question asked. Having tried the regular Cascade porter,what do you think of Wassa's ideas? Wil they help? Or it the kit beyond redemption?


Salut!

With the Choc Porter, go silly with more malt, it as a stand alone kit was the biggest disapointment of 2004. It is insipid and uninspiring and sooooo needs more malt and body and.... aahhh f'kit not worth the effort IMHO.

More IMHO's on Honey Porter, try the following:
Coopers Classic Old Dark Ale
1kg Ultrabrew (500g Light Dry Malt Extract, 250g each Maltodextrin and Dextrose)
500g Leatherwood Honey (or other varieties of your choice)
Goldings Hop teabag.
Yeast as supplied.

Cheers,

Greg.

WIth all the posts on honey I shouldn't need to say this but you should boil it.

Dogger

Dogger Dan wrote:WIth all the posts on honey I shouldn't need to say this but you should boil it.

Dogger

There are differing views on whether honey should be boiled. Mead makers suggest avoiding boiling honey because it destroys some of the flavours and aroma. If you do boil it, you should skim off the scum that rises to the top.

I am planning to use honey in one of my next brews and have wondered whether using a campden tablet might be a better alternative. These are commonly used in winemaking but don't seem very popular for beer brewers.

The scum is albumin
and if the honey is unpasturized it should be boiled

Dogger

Dogger Dan wrote:The scum is albumin
and if the honey is unpasturized it should be boiled

Dogger

Or you could pasteurise it yourself.

http://byo.com/feature/924.html

> But, peterd, this does not really address the question asked. Having tried the regular Cascade porter,what do you think of Wassa's ideas? Wil they help? Or it the kit beyond redemption

I have made a career by not answering the question asked! First determine an answer you are happy with, then look for a corresponding question

But, just this once, I will try to stay on track. The kit is fine, it is just not (IMHO) what it purports to be: a porter. I agree with Tony (damned perspicacious these Queenslanders!) and gregb: Wassa should go heavy on the Dark Malt (of one flavour or another), at the expense of the honey (I agree a bit high on fermentables in the original recipe). I would also suggest some serious boiled hops (to crank up the bitterness to get a porter, as opposed to a mild dark ale) rather than just aroma hops - as to choice of hops, the table in the link provided by undercover1 is pretty good.

I'm a little confused here.

I too was disappointed with the straight out of the can result and was going to try -

The can with

Morgans Dark Crystal malt (1 kg)

Dextrose (1kg)

Is that too much dextrose?

Wassa, (at least I assume that last post was you),
regardless of the pros & cons of Cascade kits, you need to think about what you are putting in.
A 1.7kg can of mix, a kilo of malt & a further kilo of dextrose will give you a load of fermentables, which depending on where you are brewing and the yeast you use may be a bit much for the yeasties to chew through. The non-fermentable part of the can & malt will stay in the brew, of course.
So, you may find you brew takes forever to reach a realistic FG, and it may still come out very sweet.
Maybe just 500g each of the malt & dex?

I agree with undercover1: too much in the way of fermentables. Cut the qty down considerably (dextrose at the expense of the crystal malt). And you might like to consider boiling some of your favourite bittering hops for a while to ramp up the "character" of this porter. Alternatively, if you like porters, give this particular kit a miss, and try something else.

Guest,

I don't know much about the porter kit you intend to use but your recipe will probably make a very strong flavoured beer. I added the dark crystal to a Tooheys dark ale kit with 500g light dried malt (I was after a big beer) and this ended up very sweet (rummy and toffee like).

If you are keen on the crystal malt I would add some hops such as cascade or fuggles (15-20g) to balance it out a bit.
I'd also lose the dextrose. Unless you want plenty of alcohol.

Similarly you could lose the crystal and add 1kg of lighter malt with 100g chocolate grain.

Cheers,
Jay.

I see I'm out voted here but I didn't mind the Cascade porter. I kept it simple as far as additives but only filled to around the 15l mark.

> only filled to around the 15l mark


Which means that both your body and bitterness levels may well be well up on the kit "recipe": depends of course on what else you added, and how much. But a fair idea. If I were ever to make this one again, I would either use much less volume (I might follow your experience here) or accept that I had to add a lot of (especially) hops. But I am much more likely to pass on this kit, and try elsewhere for my porters.

Hi Peter,

Did you have somewhere in mind by "elsewhere" with respect to porter kits? The only other one that I'm aware of that's available in Australia is the muntons one - haven't tried that yet.

Tony

The HBS at Parkwood at the GC has one. I think they also have an outlet in Brisbane.
There may be a James Squire Porter kit. Not sure. There certainly is a JS Porter commercial you can buy.
Or any brown or dark ale kit, with appropriate additions, will make a satisfactory porter. Could probably start with a bitter kit as well.

Thanks Peter. I'll give them a call.

I've got what I think is a good extract recipe, which I might try rather than heavily-supplementing kits, since its not really any more work to do that.

Tony