Hey guys long time lurker here on the home brew section, first time post. I’m hoping to brew an all grain stout whose flavors mimic being aged in port barrels without having to actually barrel age it. Is it possible? And what grains would you suggest? Thanks again for any and all advice.
Have you considered oak chips/cubes/spirals? While your beer is fermenting, you can soak them in the Port of your choice. Then add them to the beer in a secondary. Alternatively, you could also add the port that the spirals had been soaking in, but IMO you'll get smoother flavors going with the pre-soaked wood into secondary. Regarding grain choices, there are a variety of ways to build a stout. But I can't think of any that would specifically drive a barrel aged flavor.
Special B for raison and dark fruit. Some of the dark Belgian Sugars have the depth of flavor, D-180 for example. Make your own invert 3 is another way. Be prepared to age in the celler for a long time.
@hopfenunmaltz beat me to it...was thinking Special B, Simpsons DRC, and/or some dark candi syrup. I would say adding some actual port or soaking some oak cubes/sprirals in some port could help push it along.
One of the few beers that reminded me of port was Divine Reserve #18 from St Arnold. Here is a description of that beer with the ingredient list https://www.saintarnold.com/divine-reserve/
As others have said, some sort of crystal as well as some darker candi syrup will help. I like Simpson's DRC and D-90. I would also look into yeast selection for this. You'll definitely want an estery yeast that doesn't lean toward banana and is POF-.
Thanks for the suggestion guys, really appreciate the knowledge, I think I’ll load up on the special B and other dark crystals, if not I will definitely do the oak spirals as suggested.
Just going from my own experience here, but if you go the oak spiral route, I would boil the spiral first, then soak in the port. The boil will help get rid of some of the harsher flavors that fresh oak imparts. Also, it will infuse oak fairly quickly when in contact with the beer. 3 weeks on an imperial stout almost got it too oaky for my taste. Another option would be to load up on the suggested malts AND do the oak/port steep. Depending on how ‘porty’ You want to go with this one. Let us know how it ends up!
I used some oak spirals in an American strong / barleywine and ruined it with the tannins contained therein. I will never use wood in a beer again because of that.
Another option for extracting excess tannins from the wood is a two stage soak. I have only brewed with oak (toasted oak cubes) once to produce a Bourbon aged Porter. I pre-soaked the cubes in cheaper Jim Beam bourbon for a number of days; I discarded that liquid (it smelled nasty) and then soaked the cubes in Makers Mark and used both the cubes and Makers Mark during the aging phase. I detected no tannins in the resulting beer. Cheers!
I got lucky the first time I used oak chips and ended up with a very nice,sparkling wine-like dry mead, with a balance of tannins and acidity. Thinking to spring board off that success, I messed up a couple beers trying to oak them. In retrospect, I haven't had examples of oaked beers that I really dig, so I quit trying.
I have found english crystal malts in the 70L range to often have a 'grapey' flavor to them. I think if you paired this with a touch of special b you may get a port like flavor. Another option i dont that has been mentioned yet is adding dried currents to your secondary to get a wine like flavor. Or just add some port to taste? Easiest way to control flavor.
At the same time I used a light roast french oak in a saison dryhopped withNelson, and soaked the spirals in sauvignon blanc, it was exceptional. But my medium american spirals completely ruined my B bomb clone. It was my fault, I didnt theow out the first soakings so to speak.
May try soaking some boiled oak cubes in port to get out the tannins then add in the flavor? Other than that, I can't really think of a way to get a beer to really taste like port. Also, what kind would you be targeting? Ruby or Tawny port? 'fresh' or vintage?
