Porter Advice

So keep the darkest roasted coloring malts to around 2-4% of the grist (going by you and Jamil Zainasheff) and then get some more color from lower roasted malts, and consider aging the beer for some time. Sounds like a gameplan to me. Thanks for the tips!

 

Looks like "coulor" to me. It will be some sort of caramel, I guess. Is the 36 the hops?

 

Yeah I think you are correct about that, going through the book again there's a later entry which clearly says coulör.


Yeah, 36 is the hops in kg, entered in the column for "new hops", as opposed to the lager beer below which used 18 kg of "old hops", both simply listed as Bay (Bavarian).

 

Don't be afraid to call it a stout or a brown ale, you know, if it doesn't come out right.
It's not as flexible as the saison style, but there's a lot of wiggle room for porters.

(I always thought of porters as drinkable schwarzbiers. Better boddied, less acrid, and something that will be drinkable in the winter. A little less SRM than a stout and little more than a brown ale.)

 

In old British records Bavarian usually means Spalt.

 

This is a fairly classic London Porter recipe:

1870 Truman Runner
Pale malt 12.00 lb 85.71%
Brown malt 1.25 lb 8.93%
Black malt 0.75 lb 5.36%
Strisslespalt 60 min 3.00 oz
Strisslespalt 90 min 2.00 oz
OG 1059
FG 1017
ABV 5.56
Apparent attenuation 71.19%
IBU 57
SRM 29
Mash at 160º F
Sparge at 175º F
Boil time 90 minutes
pitching temp 62º F
Yeast Wyeast 1098 British ale - dry

 

It seems there existed quite a few different naming conventions when it comes to hops inbetween different breweries. In this particular brewery they differentiated between Bay (Bavarian), Hallertauer, Spalter, Hersbruck, Saaz, Auscha and Böh (Bohemian). The use of less specific terms such as Bavarian and Bohemian right next to origin specified hops (one brew can be Bay, the next Saaz, then a few brews later Hallertau, then Bay again) seems to indicate to me that this was the name of the product bought from the hop merchant, without the name clout of Saazer or Spalt (either land or stadtgut), presumably to a lower price (although I don't know the prices that they were paying for their hops). If sold and purchased as no-name hops I would suspect that the quality was lower, or at least the geographical origin to be less reputable than Spalter in the case of Bavarian.

 

British records mostly specifically say Saaz. Occasionally Bohemian. It's very unusual because they didn't normally bother mentioning the variety of British hops, just where they were grown. Though that does give you a clue to the type of hops. Anything from East Kent was likely to be Golding-like.

Where was it I saw Saaz divided into two subtypes? Saaz Town and Saaz Region I think they translated to.

 

I suppose it makes sense that their knowledge, and system of classification, of hops would be more in depth and detailed when it came to hops grown closer to home, being able to distinguish and feeling a need to distinuish between hops grown in different areas, whereas foreign hops were known by a broader geographical indication of origin. Brewers outside of Bavaria and Bohemia knew the reputation of Saazer hops (already ingrained in Bavarian brewing) and the reputation of Spalter hops as approaching Saazer, so it becomes a simple shorthand for hops required for brewing a certain type of beer. This can be seen in another Swedish brewery which distinguished between "lager beer hops" and "pilsner hops" in the early 1900s up until the 20s, at this point they only brew pilsner and the hops they buy are Saazer, i.e pilsner hops. At one point they buy a bale of "American" hops, simply labeled as such (though in British brewing they might have distinguished between state hops/New York state hops and Oregons etc., having more experience with the hops and a better understanding of the quality of hops from different regions and areas). It's an interesting aspect of brewing in any case.

Saazer Stadt and Saazer Bezirkhopfen I guess, with Saazer landhopfen being placed inbetween those in percieved value. I recall you writing about it in one or several of your blog posts, and the same type of division (with or without the Bezirk cathegory) can be found in quite a few Bavarian brewing books which talk about hops and which list them according to their reputation.

An interesting example I thought was this excerpt from Ernst Hantke's "Handybook for the American brewer and maltster" where on page 325 he writes:

"When it comes to imported hops, of which only the finest types come into consideration, since the domestic hops are mostly better or at least equal to the lesser imported wares, only "Saazer" as the best and "Bayerischer" hops as the second best come into consideration. It is clear that the Saazer hops are the finest hops, at least in terms of aroma, but in Europe they still distinguish between Saazer stadtgut and landgut and prefer the former. The name Bavarian hops is understood in the United States for the most part to mean not those hops, of varying quality, which are grown in many different areas of Bavaria, but instead is understood to mean German hops in contrast to Saazer."

 

I went ahead and ordered the ingredients for my next batch and went with a grist of circa 75% marris otter, 21.5% brown malt and slightly over 3% black malt (so somewhat of a compromise between a brown malt heavier grist and pale and black malt focused grist, been looking at some of your posts on porter-grists and was inspired to use more brown malt). For hops I went with East Kent Goldings (4.2% AA), could have gone for a continental hop I suppose but I have yet to use English hops and figured this was a good opportunity. I'll probably be using a hop addition at 60 minutes and 30 minutes, so an emphasis on bitterness (perhaps I should move all the hop additions back to 60 minutes though?). For yeast I went with Safale 04 (first time using something other than the Safale 05). I'm planning on brewing the batch on thursday next week at the latest and be able to taste test the beer by Christmas eve.

 

Patrik, IMO your recipe looks like it would make a tasty Porter.

FWIW, when I brew my Porters I solely add hops at the beginning of boil; no mid-boil additions. It has been a long time since I have brewed with S-04 but I think that yeast would make a tasty Porter.

Please report back on how your Porter turned out.

Cheers!

Jack

 

No, just mash as any other adjunct...flaked barley works nice for a porter mashed high

 

It's finally time for a taste test of my porter after being in the primary for 2 weeks and in the bottle for 2 weeks. Colorwise I'm surprised by how dark it is, I thought it was going to be more towards brown but it's pretty much "black" unless held up against a bright light in which case it shows some dark red edges. Smell is dominated by roasted and dark malt and some light yeast esters. Flavorwise it's a combination of dark malt, definite roastiness and with a pronounced hop bitterness, along with mild yeast esters. It's dry and has a light body. Apart from the light body which could have been a bit heavier it's quite nice I think as an amateur homebrew, I can at least recognize aspects of it from commercial beers I've had which is nice. My next brew will probably be a porter as well and I'll try and adjust the mashing temperature to allow for more residual extract and a slightly fuller body.

 

Patrik,

I recommend that you age some of these beers and take note of how the beer evolves with time. I brewed a Robust Porter that I bottled on 10/20/15 and after 2+ months in the bottle this beer is starting to reach its peak of flavor (which I am anticipating will occur in another month or two).

I made efforts to achieve a high final gravity for this beer and I overachieved a little bit: OG = 1.089 and FG = 1.037. My target FG was 1.032.

Cheers!

Jack

 

Looks good. I have to agree with @JackHorzempa that time usually does wonders in bringing together the flavors in dark beers, so be a little patient on judging this one too early. I'm not sure where you mashed at, but don't be afraid to try some caramel malts the next time around to increase body too.