Robust Porter Recipe HELP

[Simon Cooke]

Hi there fellas,

 

Im brewing a Extract/Partial mash Smoked Vanilla Bourbon Porter in about a week and am a wee bit worried about my process/recipe. 
Advice/tips/ideas very welcome!!

Rather than copy-pasting it il just link you to my Hopville recipe.

Here's the main recipe I have been confidently pursuing until now:
25L Porter 7.7%

My first worry was sparked by a brew buddy of mine...
So far the ingredients for this brew have almost breached 100bux (25L)
As you can see this beer is not very close to Robust Porter style, with a lot of fermentables and with a final abv expected around 7.7%
Being a poor student, my mate suggested that I make my money go a bit further and stretch out the volume (maybe up to 40L) to end up with not such a robust beer, with a lower ABV, and more bottles to drink. (see recipe #2)

recipe #2

So as you can see, the only change to ingredients would be using a full tin (1.5kg) dark malt extract instead of 500gm. Now with a 40L volume, obvs lower gravity and ABV of 5.3%, lighter colour and lower IBU.

My question... Which one would you brew?? The hardcore 25L OR the more relaxed yet high volume 40L?


And also, one question to do with the process, how long should I steep my grain for? at what temp? and with or without all those extract syrups (light, amber, dark)?

I was planning on going with 30min steep at 66°C with just 500gm extract syrup (as Im worried the boil following this would nuke them) 

Cheers!
 

[Simon Cooke]

42 views and no replies? Anyone please? would really appreciate it

[Christian]

Go with the 25L - it's meant to be a big tasting beer so don't compromise on the gravity.

I'd just steep the speciality grains buy themselves for 30mins @ 66 and then boil with the other ingredients. My personal preference would be to drop the molasses and add some crystal grain. Also, with those grains, I would think that you might be best just to use pale extract. I'm not sure any distinct flavour will come through from them and may 'muddy' the profile somewhat.

[Joel Wicks]

Love the creative idea, has potential to be great if you can balance all those different flavours you've got going on. If you use the 25L recipe I'd dial back the dark malts and grains and as Christian says maybe add a little crystal. Considering 60 EBC is fully black 98 EBC is likely to just taste burnt. Personally I'd go with the 40L as it's a bit more balanced and and more economical for you (I was a student recently too), unless you are dead set on making a very strong beer. Remember the Bourbon will add some alcohol too. 

As for process this might help you: http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter13-3.html If you have a decent size pot boil all the extract after you have steeped then removed the grain. Good luck!

[MrC]

I was one one the 42 :-)  

 

My first thought when looking at those recipes was that smoked malt really needs to be mashed rather than steeped.  If you steep it you'll get a lot of starch in your beer, so you'd be better off doing a partial mash than steeping.  It also looks like there's a lot of dark malt in there.  The chocolate and black malts alone are quite substantial and when combined with the dark and amber extracts it'll be a very dark beer.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, just thought I'd let you know.   Depending on the Molasses that you're planning on using 500g might be too much.  I've never brewed with molasses but it looks pretty high to me.  

 

As a rough comparison check out Jamil's Smoked Porter recipe:

http://beerdujour.com/Recipes/Jamil/The_Jamil_Show_-_Smoked_Robust_...

[JoKing]

So here is my 2c for what it's worth...

 

The amber and dark LME's are not going to help out flavour wise in this beer. I'd go with the most pale extract you can find. I'd recommend using the Halcyon DME that we have as a base for any beer... but in your case I think it might be a bit too late. Amber LME or Dark LME for that matter are mostly colour adjusted with roasts etc... they really don't have the malt weight to go with the stated colours.

 

2nd up is that there is nothing in here that's gonna help add texture / body with all that chocolate and black. Definately do not back down the amount of roast malt you have there - just ad some Cara's or Crystal to your minimash to help sweeten it up. I'd say somwthing like 300g Pale Crystal and 200g Dark Crystal would help heaps. And as Mr Cherry says - steep it all in a big pot at 65 degrees to convert the starches in the smoked malt... which has it's own diastatic capabilities: no need to add more pale malt to help convert this. You can use a drop of iodophor to some of the liquid in your minimash to test conversion.

 

Hope that helps bro.

 

Joe.

 

Also - I'd to the 25L recipe, and bottle it in 330ml bottles.

[MrC]

On a side note. Joking - as a base malt, how would you describe the flavor of the halcyon DME? Is there a grain variety you would compare it to or is it neutral? English or US?

[JoKing]

Probably Ozzy Pale would be the best match... has an almost braeburn apply kind of fruityness in the finished beer. Similar to the flavours you get in Coopers Sparkling.

[Paul Wicksteed - another1]

Good recipe Simon,

 

for my 2 cents worth I would keep the molasses in there, as it adds a great body flavor. Instead of the bourbon I would use bourbon chips to flavor it while fermenting, and do a 25ltr batch.

 

Steep at 65 degrees, and test for conversion after 60 min

[Simon Cooke]

CHEERS GUYS!

All your feedback is a huge help, and will allow the CaveMan home brewery to tweak our recipe in favour of a tastier, more balanced beer. Paul- we might have to put this one forward for a review!

[Paul Wicksteed - another1]

that would be awesome Simon, looking forward to it

[Simon Cooke]

So we mashed at 65deg for 60mins (all the grains, and two tins of malt)
Went with Two tins of Light LME, one Amber LME and the 500gm black strap molasses.
It was an 8L volume.

 

Pulled the BIAB, and boiled for 60mins, and added the hop additions. 
Added the last tin of Light LME at 10mins.

 

Diluted to 25L, and OG was 1.060..... (recipe expected 1.071)

I removed all the grains of the Hopville recipe out of curiosity, and the expected OG became 1.059,

so basically can I conclude that my grain did not undergo a successful starch conversion? the brew store didnt have iodophor for me to test the mash, but figured Id be safe with 60 min mash?? (remember this is my first partial mash)

Can anyone see what I did wrong here? Mash/boil volume is my newb guess

Cheers 

[Paul Wicksteed - another1]

I have had similar results with some BIAB, so I end up not diluting as much on the boil, or boiling it off to see if I can reach OG.

 

What was your grist/water ratio, i.e. "kg of grain / volume of water"?

 

A mash with more water dilutes the concentration of enzymes, and slows down the conversion, but generates more fermentables. Where as a stiffer mash is better for protein breakdown, but creates a sweeter, maltier beer, with less fermentables. So its a bit of a balancing act, and when you throw in temperature and how enzymes react differently to water temperature than they do grain temperature, you have a lot of variables to cover. 

 

As a general rule I was told to 1:3 at 65-68 for 60min with a pH 5.3 should yield good maltiness and fermentability