Plum Porter?

[David R]

With the summer stone-fruit season just around the corner I'd like to brew a fairly robust (6.5-7% ABV) porter and age it on a heap of black doris plums. Yes I know it seems a bit early to be thinking about next winter already, but I've sworn to myself that this year I'm going to get in early and brew some big winter-warmers well in advance for the colder months!

I've never done any brewing with fruit nor have I formulated a porter/stout recipe, so I'm going to need some help. "I've got some bad ideas in my head"....

Grains; Just so I'm not starting completely from scratch, I've found this as a fairly well-rated recipe to use as a base; http://byo.com/hops/item/2936-regan-dillon-porter
I'd like there to be a bit of a chocolate there to compliment the plums (but not drown them out), should I bump it up a bit? And I was thinking about adding a bit of Special B, should work well with the plums right? How much though?

Yeast; Something clean and safe like US05, or get crazy with it and use something like Wyeast Trappist 3787 to add to the fruity flavours?

Hops: I'm thinking I should perhaps limit (or skip altogether) the late additions in the original recipe as there will be enough going on with the malt and the fruit. Just a single 60min addition of something clean and high AA to get the 36 IBU.

And lastly, the plums; how many? Pasteurise them or just chop them straight into the secondary, or split it and do both?

[Grant R Baker]

Just a thought.. but I would drop the Black malt, increase your choc and smack in a good 5% of Special B as you intended. (maybe drop half of the crystal 40)

Pacific Gem would be a goer on the hops, fuggles dropped in late. Maybe consider not using a Belgian yeast, try something like Irish Ale yeast.

[David R]

Sounds pretty good to me!

[Steve Dorrington]

Hi David,  I've a Porter this year to the recipe from a local Wgtn Ubrew, that tastes great.  I made mine way too late, so it's still in the keg. I salute getting underway sooner than later and love plums, especially Omega's.  Here's the 23L Porter recipe:  

Water (Wgtn - soft) 1/2 Campden tablet, 1/2tsp Baking Soda, 1tsp Calcium Chloride.

Marris Otter 5.9BC  4.70kg 

Brown Malt 128EBC 0.80kg 

Crystal Malt Med TF 118EBC 0.60kg 

Pale Choc 707 EBC 0.40kg 

Mash @ 67degC

Fuggles (4.5%AA) 60g @ 60mins

Fuggles 30g @ 15 mins.

Yeast Fermentis S-04

Even with no fruit this tastes good.  But with Plums......:)

My OG1.060 and FG 1.018    

Let's know what you decide to do and how it goes?

cheers Steve 

[David R]

How does this look?

Equipment: Grainfather
Efficiency: 73.00 %

Est Original Gravity: 1.065 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.8 %
Bitterness: 32.9 IBUs
Est Color: 34.5 SRM

Ingredients

Amt	Name	Type	#	%/IBU
4.75 kg	Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)	Grain	1	68.9 %
0.70 kg	Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)	Grain	2	10.2 %
0.45 kg	Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)	Grain	3	6.5 %
0.40 kg	Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)	Grain	4	5.8 %
0.35 kg	Special B Malt (180.0 SRM)	Grain	5	5.1 %
0.24 kg	Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)	Grain	6	3.5 %
24.00 g	Pacific Jade [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min	Hop	7	28.5 IBUs
30.00 g	Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min	Hop	8	4.5 IBUs
1.0 pkg	Nottingham (Danstar #-) [23.66 ml]	Yeast	9	-

Kinda tempted to brew it twice, once with the plums, then again with some dark candi sugar and the Wyeast 3787.

Grant, if you have a better suggestion for yeast then let me know. I don't really want the expense of using a liquid yeast unless it's going to make a big difference to the finished product.

[Grant R Baker]

That looks good to me.

[David R]

Not too much crystal with the 40, Special B and CaraPils? I'm not sure if the plums will add sweetness or tart, guess it depends on the fruit?

[Grant R Baker]

The sugars in fruit will get eaten by the yeast (super fast) and can even thin yer beer out and could leave it tart.

Leaving the sorta-unfermentable sugars from the crystal will help balance that out.

[David R]

Cool. Mash high then too? I'm really keen to try this now, bring on the plums!

Semi-serious thought, could I resort to good old Watties canned ones?!

[Che Soffe]

Just a guess here but I think you could. However the added sugar would mean that it would dry the beer out more.

[Che Soffe]

Real interested in how this turns out.
Sounds delicious in my head.
the Trappist yeast would be interesting, fruity flavours from the yeast, malt and fruit then.

[Rhys Williams]

> Yeast; Something clean and safe like US05, or get crazy with it and use something like Wyeast Trappist 3787 to add to the fruity flavours?

Split the batch and do both.  You'll be amazed at the differences, and over time, you can do a side by side taste (say monthly) and see how they are developing.

[David R]

I put out the call on Facebook to see who had a plum tree I could raid, and going by the interest in the beer it sounds like I may need to do a double batch of it anyway! Good opportunity to experiment...