Advice on Porter recipe?

[rhys333]

Have you been drinking it yet?

Unsure if you meant me, but I'll chime in too since your post was right after mine. My porter is about a month old right now and I'm really happy with the grain bill posted above. Strong chocolate aroma and the brown/wheat combo works really well. I do detect a slight astringency, but thats down to mash pH and will be corrected in the next batch. This'll be my go-to base recipe for porters.

 

[JKaranka]

I originally meant b-radbrew but it's better still to hear from everyone!

 

[JKaranka]

I just tried the 33cl tester that I leave hanging around for checking how things go half way through conditioning. Very tasty, but still some sweetness from the priming sugar. Mild roast flavour but mainly plenty of cocoa and malt. Very drinkable as I was expecting. The grist had ~18% Brown Malt, 5% Amber Malt and ~3% Black Patent Malt. Works at around a 6.5% beer (OG around 1.056 and FG 1.008), can't quite recall from memory. I'm fairly satisfied with understanding porter / stout grists now, but it's taken a year of sticking to brewing only dark beers (except one bitter and one saison).

On the positive side, now I only stock four malts (pale, amber, brown and black) and a couple of hops. I can put in one order a year and it seems me through the seasons.

 

[rhys333]

I'm fairly satisfied with understanding porter / stout grists now, but it's taken a year of sticking to brewing only dark beers (except one bitter and one saison).

JKaranka, can you explain how you treat your water for porters and stouts? I brew with RO water and salts, but struggle with astringency in dark beers. Lights beers are spot on, but I find predictions for dark srm grists harder to nail down.

 

[JKaranka]

JKaranka, can you explain how you treat your water for porters and stouts? I brew with RO water and salts, but struggle with astringency in dark beers. Lights beers are spot on, but I find predictions for dark srm grists harder to nail down.

I don't get any astringency here. The tap water is fairly soft, so I compensate upwards by adding gypsum. With dark beers I don't need any acidity correction, but I do add around 6-10g of Gypsum for a 6 US gallon beer. For pale beers I have to add ~2g of lactic acid. I did all the calculations last year, came up with some standards and since then I just keep a log of the water additions.

 

[rhys333]

I don't get any astringency here. The tap water is fairly soft, so I compensate upwards by adding gypsum. With dark beers I don't need any acidity correction, but I do add around 6-10g of Gypsum for a 6 US gallon beer. For pale beers I have to add ~2g of lactic acid. I did all the calculations last year, came up with some standards and since then I just keep a log of the water additions.

Thanks JK. Do you know what you're working with in terms of carbonate/residual alkalinity levels?

 

[JKaranka]

Can't quite remember but the tap water here had very little of everything. Less than 20ppm of either sulphur or calcium. I top up to 120ppm sulphur onwards.

 

[rhys333]

Can't quite remember but the tap water here had very little of everything. Less than 20ppm of either sulphur or calcium. I top up to 120ppm sulphur onwards.

Okay thanks JK. And from your descriptions above I gather you aren't adding carbonate to increase pH.

 

[JKaranka]

No, nothing to bring the pH upwards. Only downwards for paler beers. Seems to suit my water here.

 

[rhys333]

No, nothing to bring the pH upwards. Only downwards for paler beers. Seems to suit my water here.

Okay thanks. This backs up what I've been thinking lately.

 

[chickypad]

JKaranka, can you explain how you treat your water for porters and stouts? I brew with RO water and salts, but struggle with astringency in dark beers. Lights beers are spot on, but I find predictions for dark srm grists harder to nail down.

Are you measuring pH? I have basically RO water out of the tap, it's so low in minerals and alkalinity. I do have to add a touch of baking soda on some dark beers.