The noob learns a lesson and something that puzzles me

Post your recipe, please. Probably not enough hops, no late hops. Might need more crystal malt of different lovibonds. Porters are tricky, though. A little too far and you're too close but not quite on a stout, and a little too mild, and it's an off-style brown.

 

I agree with Reneejane. A recipe will help diagnose an issue. For the most part, I find that beer made with kits always comes off a bit on the lighter side. They make decent brews, but for that full bodied mouth feel and taste more crystal malt to get that taste up there

 

A little sweet, but otherwise not much flavor? Possibly needs more roasted malts, or might be missing brown malt, which is often the missing link in porters. But without more details that's a guess. Post your recipe and process. Nobody can really answer a 'my beer doesn't taste right, what happened?' question without those.

 

The OP said its from a kit so it should be pretty foolproof.

I bet it needs time. My brown ale (first batch ever) tasted like a flat coke after a week in the bottle.
Just a little better after 2. Great after 3 weeks. Now after 6 weeks...... Well you know where I am going with this.

A porter needs more time to condition than say a pale ale. Patience....

 

What yeast did you use? I find that to make a huge difference in my porters.

 

I would not make that assumption. Lots of kits have pretty lame recipes.

 

Even if it if is a very good kit, it could be that the manufacturer set out to brew a beer that is a little different from the homebrewer's idea. There is a lot of room for variation in the interpretation of most beer styles; porter is among them.

 

All true. I have been lucky with the kits I have used so far. All fresh and tasty.

 

Don't under-estimate the power of the dark side of the force!



One of my fav homebrew vids evah!

 

Ok, i can send you a porter recipe, but i like to use crystal. The chocolate malt gives you color, but it's not enough for roastiness.

 

How many gallons of beer did you say this made? How many bottles, at least?

 

I can never nail a porter. Neither can many commercial breweries. They always taste like stouts or alt beers to me.

 

I can't imagine a modern Porter without some crystal and without some Brown Malt. Well, I can imagine it, but I wouldn't brew it. You also mentioned being too gentle with the grain squeeze. It shouldn't be necessary to squeeze at all, but it's certainly possible that extraction was limited, by temperature or by lack of flow through the bag. Poor extraction from specialty grains would result in less flavor.

 

LMAO, I went looking for my porter recipe, that was tasty, and I found it, but it's actually 2nd runnings of a RIS with some DME added and 1 oz first gold for 60 minutes and OG: 1.042. SO.... Yeah, it's actually pretty tricky to make a good porter. I would build a porter a bit different from that recipe. I would try to get a lot of the color out of some crystal, but I don't particularly like Crystal 120, it can be harsh. I would use some Crystal 40 and Crystal 60, at about 1 lb of the 40 and .5 lb of the 60, and then get the color the rest of the way there with some black patent.

The RIS recipe was:
8# maris otter
7# munich 20
3# biscuit
2 # crystal 60
1 # chocolate
.5 # roasted barley
.5# black patent

Mashed at 156. and used Irish Ale yeast.

You don't really want to omit the crystal because that's where you get your body and flavor from. A good book to get is, "radical brewing," you can learn a ton from that book. BUt, I went looking for the reference about why you want to be using crystal, and here it is as it pertains to you, "Malt extract has been largely stripped of aroma, which is why a pound of crystal... makes such a dramatic improvement." THe lower the number the lighter the color. But, even the lowest crystal number brings flavor and body to the beer. Whereas, choco/roasted barley adds dryness, bitterness, and darkness.

 

Extremely soft water could be another problem here

 

While I'm recommending books, Clonebrews is a good buy, too. I've owned this book since I started brewing 11 or 12 years ago, and it's got some good recipes, good charts, and it's helpful when you're trying to brew to style.

Here's a good one for a porter using extract (but the book has allgrain and mini mash as well).

Crush and steep in 1 gal 150 degree water for 20 minutes:
1lb British crystal 55
12 oz British black malt
6 oz british choc. malt

Strain the grain water into your brew pot, sparge the grains with 1/2 gallon water at 150. Add water to the brew pot fro 1.5 gallons total volute, bring the water to a boil. Remove the pot from teh stove and add:
6 lb M&F light DME
2 oz black treacle
1.5 oz East Kent Goldings

Add water until total volume is 2.5 gallons

Boil for 45 minutes then add:

1 tsp irish moss (or I prefer whirlfloc tabs)
1/2 oz Fuggles

Boil for 12 more minutes and then add:

1/2 oz East Kent goldings.

Boil for 3 minutes, remove from stove, and cool. Add cold water to obtain 5 gallons pitch at under 80 degrees.

Suggested yeast is Wyeast's 1084 Irish Ale yeast.

 

I am curious how old the kit was at the time of brew. Old yeast / old hops can ruin the flavor of a beer pretty quick. Tebuken mentioned water too - water chemistry is very important (in my opinion) for brewing a well made dark beer that pops the right way. pH too low or too high can yield a bitter mess or a flavorless beer.