Tales from the dark side, making Porter
Posted: Thursday Jan 25, 2007 4:28 pm
Following on from this thread http://www.homebrewandbeer.com/forum/vi ... php?t=4424 on the Cascade Mahogany Porter.
I've made about 6 batches of Porter in the last year & can now share the results. I really like the James Squire Porter & initially tried to clone this. Then I got fixated on a Robust Porter & sailed towards Stout territory. I'm still not sure where Robust Porter ends & Stout begins.
The general idea is simple. Any ale kit can be "darkened up" by steeping & adding the right specialty grains.
For the best 4 brews I used Tooheys Draught or Real Ale & a Coopers Dark.
Either 1kg Ultra brew (500ME, 250Dex, 250Maltodex?), 1kg Dry Malt or 1kg Dex + 100g Maltodex. The batch with Dex also had Oats so didn't lack body.
To each batch I added;
100 - 200g dark crystal malt.
100 - 200g chocolate malt.
20 - 150g roast malt.
20 - 100g roast barley
Two batches had 100 ~ 150g of wheat malt & one had 100 ~ 150g of rolled oats. Each steeping was held at between 65-70 degrees for at least 30 minutes. I was trying to convince myself that some conversion might happen.
Only two early batches (the 2 Tooheys Draught) had extra hops & only at the end of the boil anyway. Future attempts will include some hop experimenting but I've headed into all grain or at least partials now.
For yeast I used S04, Cooper's kit & US56. I plan to do some double batches in future & try different yeasts in each half. I wouldn't say any one yeast stood out over the others. The batch with the kit yeast also had the kilo of dex but turned out one of the best.
All batches were 20 litres.
Give it a try, just keep a record of what you did. The better your records the more likely you can reproduce that awesome batch you made 3 months ago.
I've made about 6 batches of Porter in the last year & can now share the results. I really like the James Squire Porter & initially tried to clone this. Then I got fixated on a Robust Porter & sailed towards Stout territory. I'm still not sure where Robust Porter ends & Stout begins.
The general idea is simple. Any ale kit can be "darkened up" by steeping & adding the right specialty grains.
For the best 4 brews I used Tooheys Draught or Real Ale & a Coopers Dark.
Either 1kg Ultra brew (500ME, 250Dex, 250Maltodex?), 1kg Dry Malt or 1kg Dex + 100g Maltodex. The batch with Dex also had Oats so didn't lack body.
To each batch I added;
100 - 200g dark crystal malt.
100 - 200g chocolate malt.
20 - 150g roast malt.
20 - 100g roast barley
Two batches had 100 ~ 150g of wheat malt & one had 100 ~ 150g of rolled oats. Each steeping was held at between 65-70 degrees for at least 30 minutes. I was trying to convince myself that some conversion might happen.
Only two early batches (the 2 Tooheys Draught) had extra hops & only at the end of the boil anyway. Future attempts will include some hop experimenting but I've headed into all grain or at least partials now.
For yeast I used S04, Cooper's kit & US56. I plan to do some double batches in future & try different yeasts in each half. I wouldn't say any one yeast stood out over the others. The batch with the kit yeast also had the kilo of dex but turned out one of the best.
All batches were 20 litres.
Give it a try, just keep a record of what you did. The better your records the more likely you can reproduce that awesome batch you made 3 months ago.
