I love a good porter in winter, and as porter is at its best when matured, now is the time to get brewing. Proper porters in the 18th century got their complex flavours from the fact that maltsters were unable to create pale, uniform malts. The malts they used were all different colours, so to recreate this brewers often use several different types of malt in their porter. Not a fan of doing things by halves, I decided to go for ten malts in mine. Some of these are old-fashioned malts like amber and brown, with a little smoked malt to recreate some of the smokiness brought about by the way malts were kilned. Others are modern, such as melanoidin malt, a German innovation which allows the brewer to get some of the rich, deep maltiness found in Oktoberfest beers without the complicated decoction mashing normally required. The base malt is still the good old Maris Otter pale malt. Despite this, the predicted colour was almost black – it doesn’t take a lot of dark malt to get a very dark beer.
Sam joined me for this brew, so about half of those pics were by him.
This is the first recipe that I’ve created using Beer Alchemy for Mac, which is really excellent. The spreadsheet calculator I used before was good, but this is a lot easier.
| Ingredient |
Amount |
% |
MCU |
When |
| UK Pale Ale Malt |
2.900 kg |
47.5 % |
3.2 |
In Mash/Steeped |
| German Munich Malt |
0.500 kg |
8.2 % |
1.0 |
In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Dark Crystal |
0.500 kg |
8.2 % |
14.1 |
In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Brown Malt |
0.500 kg |
8.2 % |
10.3 |
In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Amber Malt |
0.500 kg |
8.2 % |
3.6 |
In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Chocolate Malt |
0.400 kg |
6.6 % |
65.3 |
In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Smoked Malt |
0.200 kg |
3.3 % |
0.2 |
In Mash/Steeped |
| German Melanoidin Malt |
0.200 kg |
3.3 % |
1.9 |
In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Oat Malt |
0.200 kg |
3.3 % |
0.1 |
In Mash/Steeped |
| UK Torrified Wheat |
0.200 kg |
3.3 % |
0.1 |
In Mash/Steeped |
| Variety |
Alpha |
Amount |
IBU |
Form |
When |
| UK Challenger |
9.3 % |
35 g |
33.1 |
Loose Whole Hops |
90 Min From End |
| UK Fuggle |
3.8 % |
25 g |
5.5 |
Loose Whole Hops |
20 Min From End |
| UK Fuggle |
3.8 % |
25 g |
3.3 |
Loose Whole Hops |
10 Min From End |
| UK Fuggle |
3.8 % |
25 g |
0.0 |
Loose Whole Hops |
At turn off |
| Ingredient |
Amount |
When |
| Cinnamon Stick |
10 g |
In Boil |
| Protafloc |
3 g |
In Boil |
| Coffee, Ground |
20 g |
In Fermenter |
Brewlab 1000-Thames Valley 3
| Expected ABV: |
6.4 % |
Expected OG: |
1.063 SG |
| Expected IBU (using Tinseth): |
41.8 IBU |
Expected Color (using Morey): |
69.1 EBC |
| Mash Efficiency: |
80.0 % |
|
|
Sparging my wort 