Getting ready to brew a robust porter - looking for (quick) opinions

[J-Drew]

I'm all set to start brewing Jamil's robust porter from Brewing Classic Styles with one exception. I only have 4 ounces of chocolate malt and the recipe calls for 12 ounces. In short, today is my one chance to brew and my time at that is limited. I can get the other 8 ounces of chocolate malt, but it will be over an hour before my LHBS opens and a round trip to my LHBS will take about an hour.

So...what do you recommend? Suck it up, lose the time, and make the trip to my LHBS? Or go ahead and brew it without the other 8 ounces of chocolate malt?

 

[JonM]

I just gave Jamil's recipe a quick google and it looks like there are lots of different versions. One has 4.8 oz of chocolate. As long as you have some other dark stuff in there, I bet you'd be fine with what you've got.

 

[J-Drew]

Thanks JonM. That's the way I'm leaning. I've also got 1/2 lb. of black patent. I know robust porter is a broad style, but I don't want to end up with regrets. I'm hoping that is enough chocolate to still turn out pretty well.

 

[J-Drew]

Well, here it goes...

 

[JKaranka]

Four ounces of patent wouldn't hurt!

 

[J-Drew]

Well, to close out the thread, here is what I ultimately did. I brewed it anyway, which was good because I was out of time just as I finished brewing.

The shorter version: If I had it to do over again I would have backed off the crystal malt by half and brewed away.

The longer version: The beer wound up too sweet for my personal taste and seemed like their was a "hole" in the flavor. So I tried to fill that hole in by bourbon-barrelling the porter. I think it made it better, but it never quite covered up the hole I was trying to fill.

In the end, if I ever found myself in that situation again, I would look at what grains I could reduce to brew a balanced beer, even if it was "out of style." I don't regret brewing this beer because it was either brew this one or don't brew at all. Hindsight is 20/20 and I could have brewed a better beer with what I had on hand, but I certainly wasn't thinking this way about it when I brewed this beer. I chalk it up to yet another lesson learned when brewing.