Good afternoon all, I'm brand new to the forum and brand new to brewing! I've brewed one batch of beer, which is currently fermenting. I want to start a second, which I want to be a porter. I like dark, fairly intense flavors; however, after buying my ingredients bi became concerned that the roasted/dark flavors would be too overpowering. Would this be too much for, even for a porter/stout? 6.6 lbs. Breiss LME traditional dark 1 lb. chocolate malt 2 lbs. Cherry smoked malt 1 lb. Flaked oats 1 lb. Base 6-row malt (I was told I would need this in order to get particular enzymes I was missing -- thoughts?) I was thinking I would steep the grains for 1 hours prior to adding the LME. I am thinking to doing 2 oz. Fuggles for 60 minutes in the boil and the employee at the brewery recommended 1 oz German Northern Brewer for the last 20 minutes. Does this sound like a decent recipe, or would it be too overpowering, or off-balance? I apologize for leaving any important information out, if I did. I am fairly new to this so I'm still learning the basics. Thank you for your help!
Update: after some research, I think I'm going to change to golden light instead of the traditional dark.
the smoked malt is the only thing that stands out to me. Seems like a lot, but I have not used it so am not sure how much it will bring. Otherwise the rest looks OK to me. I wouldn't trade out all of the dark LME, for golden light. But i would have to look up what the dark LME was made up of. If you trade it all out, you might end up more on the brown side (srm 20-28) then the darker porter side ( srm 25-35). Also those SRM numbers are pulled out of my back side, not going to look up the actual style colors or the color your batch would be without the dark LME (going to bed sorry). But otherwise the original looks good to me. I have not used northern brewer hops before but they do well in darker beers if i remember right. Only thing is I would not say is you need the 6 row base malt. The LME should have everything you need in it.
1) Not a big fan of Dark Extract. I'd rather get color and flavor from steeping grains 2) Agree with @Granitebeard: too much smoked (a little goes a long way). Do 1lb smoked, 1.25lb Chocolate and that gets you to 34SRM You can't really "steep" 6-row, oats, and to a lesser degree smoked. But if you hold it at 152deg or so for that hour(depending on the attenuation you are looking for), you are really mashing and then you are looking good.
Wow thanks a lot for you info guys! I appreciate it it a lot. So my new plan would be to lower my smoked grains to 1 - 1.5 lbs., And I was thinking of adding 8 oz. Of roasted barely to make up for losing the dark LME. The reason I opted to let go of the dark LME was that I want to get to know the grains better instead of dumping in an extract that someone already tempered with. I figured going light would help me out here. Also, just to make sure I understand everything correctly, there is no need to add the 6 row? Again, thanks a lot guys -- you're a huge help.
Toss the 6 row 1 lb of smoked is cool but for a super smoky beer I have used up to 4 lbs/ 5 gallons. I like dark extract and light so perhaps you want to start keeping notes on your beers made. Taste preferences are personal, good luck and have fun.
Great! I think I'm all set. One last thing regarding the 6 row. I was doing some reading last night and it said if you have a lot of two row you should use a little six row to get the enzymes from it. I believe, and I may be wrong, that all my other grains (except the oats) are two row. If this is the case, wouldn't I need the 6 tow to turn the two-rows starches into fermentable sugars?
I love smoked beers, make them, travel to Bamberg to drink them. With my love for smoked beer stated, I'm not a fan of the Cherrywood smoked Malt, it is too phenolic for me. Beechwood or even the newish mesquite smoked Malt would be my choice. I have bought some mesquite and need to brew with it. It tastes good, so I need to see if it makes a good beer. Edit - I'm a peat smoked Malt hater, way too phenolic.
