Differentiate Porter and Stout

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seymour
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Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by seymour » Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:58 am

Thank you, Graham. You are a man among men.

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Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by patto1ro » Tue Nov 06, 2012 8:03 am

"The original porter was 100% brown malt, kilned over hornbeam, not straw. " That's not what London & Country brewer says. It says straw.

Graham

Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by Graham » Tue Nov 06, 2012 12:06 pm

patto1ro wrote:"The original porter was 100% brown malt, kilned over hornbeam, not straw. " That's not what London & Country brewer says. It says straw.
No it doesn't! Admittedly, Ellis advocates straw and he knocks wood as as a fuel, but on page 14 of the first part of his book(s) he says (when talking about brown malt kilned over wood) disparagingly: "Many thousands of quarters of this malt has been formerly used in London for brewing the butt keeping beers with." I don't know what he meant by "formerly" though.

Ellis was somewhat of a fraud, so you have to be a bit careful with him. I don't know where he got the text for the first part of his book(s) but it certainly was not his own work. Porter is not mentioned, and I am sure that the text that he borrowed, pinched, or bought pre-dates porter by a good many years. Part one is okay for giving some idea of the pre-porter situation, if you ignore his prejudices.

Part two of his book, presumably written as padding to maintain sales, is terrible. In this part he pinched a lot of stuff from Thomas Tryon (from the late 1600s), and thereby ruins the book by repeating a lot of Tryon's superstitious mumbo-jumbo; advocates brewing without boiling and other such nonsense.

In part three (1738) he revisits fuels used for kilning and he changes his tune somewhat, probably as the result of complaints and correspondence, and he admits that there are many advocates for kilning over wood. He mentions beech and oak, but not hornbeam, and he attempts to defend his stance on straw. He also admits that horsehair matting is the best support for the malt during kilning, where previously he was advocating wire frames.

His opinion on straw is somewhat perplexing; he seems to have had an aversion to smoked malt, but this is a small-scale "country" attitude; at that time country folk still preferred pale strong ales to weaker brown beer. He seems to have been unaware that smoking had a secondary function; to protect the malt from parasites or mould during storage. Also, dry straw burns so fast that you would need a lorry-load of straw to kiln a wheelbarrow-full of malt. When wet or green it would smoke just as profusely as anything else. He implies (in part three) that the stuff was dangerous by admitting that a second attendant is necessary to carefully watch and maintain the fire. Straw was not only more expensive than wood (he admits that too), but it was only practical for small-scale malt production that was typical of country victuallers at the time.

The statement on the title page of the first part of his book "By a person formerly concerned in a common brewhouse at London" is obviously complete fiction. If that were true he would have known a lot more about London brewing, would have known about Londoner's preference for smoked malt, would have known about hornbeam, would have known that a long, slow hot airflow through the malt is more important than the intense, short-lived radiated heat produced by straw, and he would probably have been talking on a larger scale than kilning a few bucketfuls of malt at a time.

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Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by orlando » Tue Nov 06, 2012 12:17 pm

And this is the sort of debate that makes this forum what it is, not the nonsense in the Tap room that sidetracks it from time to time. Keep going gentlemen I'm enjoying this immensely.
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Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by oakwell » Tue Nov 06, 2012 4:04 pm

And this is the sort of debate that makes this forum what it is.
+1

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Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by patto1ro » Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:52 pm

" He seems to have been unaware that smoking had a secondary function; to protect the malt from parasites or mould during storage."

Have you ever tried Porter brewed with hornbeam or straw kilned brown malt? You might be surprised how little smokiness (almost none even when the beer is young) hornbeam leaves. I now know why hornbeam was the preferred wood: it burns hot and evenly with very little smoke.

Straw works surprsingly well for kilning. I had my doubts myself. True, you have to be careful and keep throwing on fuel, but it can produce a lovely diastatic, dark brown malt.

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Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by Fido97 » Tue Nov 06, 2012 8:55 pm

Presence of roast barley is the key (in my humble opinion). The Saltaire Stout mentioned possibly should not be called a Stout :?:

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Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by seymour » Tue Nov 06, 2012 9:06 pm

Wood97 wrote:Presence of roast barley is the key (in my humble opinion). The Saltaire Stout mentioned possibly should not be called a Stout
So, to clarify: you're saying a stout must contain roasted barley, as opposed to roasted malt (which would count chocolate malt and black malt, depending on how you define "roast"). That gets back to theory of benchmarking all stouts by Guinness, right? Would the Saltaire Stout count to you, for instance, if the chocolate malt gave it a roasty taste?

And just for argument sake, must the roastiness come from barley or barley malt at all? What if you achieve a delicious stout-like beer--as I have, throwing all regard for brewing history to the wind :)--from inexpensive home-roasted unmalted wheat? Would you count that? Would it matter if you didn't know?

I love this stuff.
Last edited by seymour on Wed Jan 09, 2013 12:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

millmaster

Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by millmaster » Tue Nov 06, 2012 11:01 pm

I went and read the 1880 Beer Act ( sad, I know ) - its posted online, amazingly enough. What the 1880 Act does is change the basis of taxation of beer from the malt that went into the mash tun to the wort, thus "freeing the mash tun" to allow use a whole raft of adjuncts, as I'm sure has been posted on this forum before. So from the 1880 Act, we have proof that Roast Barley was legal to use after 1880.

The 1880 Act also defines Sugar as meaning "any saccharine substance, extract, or syrup, and includes any material capable of being used in brewing except malt or corn" and specifically repeals the duty payable on "Sugar" - it is arguable that Roast Barley could be considered Sugar by these definitions. Whether Roast Barley was so defined or not, it was legal to use Sugar as defined in brewing before 1880 as long as duty was paid.

BTW I would presume that "corn" in this context would mean wheat as opposed to maize

The final schedule of the 1880 Act lists a whole raft of legislation that it repeals, which I havent had the time to go through, even if I can find it all on-line and some of this may specifically state that it was illegal to use Roast Barley for brewing so I'll keep looking. However, until that information is found or made available, I believe that Roast Barley was legal to use before 1880, provided duty had been paid on it.

The Durden Park book I mentioned earlier has two recipes for an Export India Porter ( Black IPA before it was invented ? ) from 1868 and 1855, one with Roast Barley, one with Black Malt. The one with Roast Barley is reported as a recipe for Export India Porter from Barclay Perkins dated 1855 - if that original recipe book or a photo of it is available to anyone, posting that or a link to it would be of interest.

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Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by patto1ro » Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:06 am

millmaster wrote:I went and read the 1880 Beer Act ( sad, I know ) - its posted online, amazingly enough. What the 1880 Act does is change the basis of taxation of beer from the malt that went into the mash tun to the wort, thus "freeing the mash tun" to allow use a whole raft of adjuncts, as I'm sure has been posted on this forum before. So from the 1880 Act, we have proof that Roast Barley was legal to use after 1880.

The 1880 Act also defines Sugar as meaning "any saccharine substance, extract, or syrup, and includes any material capable of being used in brewing except malt or corn" and specifically repeals the duty payable on "Sugar" - it is arguable that Roast Barley could be considered Sugar by these definitions. Whether Roast Barley was so defined or not, it was legal to use Sugar as defined in brewing before 1880 as long as duty was paid.
Sugar was allowed in brewing in 1847. Corn in the sense used in that quote means grain. Unmalted grain of any any kind, with the exception of oats fopr feeding horses, wasn't even allowed in the brewery. Roasted barley was definitely not classed as being sugar.
millmaster wrote:BTW I would presume that "corn" in this context would mean wheat as opposed to maize
It means any sort of grain. Corn does not mean maize in British English and certainly didn't in the 19th century.
millmaster wrote:The final schedule of the 1880 Act lists a whole raft of legislation that it repeals, which I havent had the time to go through, even if I can find it all on-line and some of this may specifically state that it was illegal to use Roast Barley for brewing so I'll keep looking. However, until that information is found or made available, I believe that Roast Barley was legal to use before 1880, provided duty had been paid on it.
It wasn't. Unmalted grain of any type was illegal. See here:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.nl/2011/ ... arley.html

This is a quote from the 1830 Beer Act:

"And be it further enacted, that it shall not be lawful for any brewer of beer for sale in the United Kingdom to have in his or her brewery, or in any part of the entered premises, or in any mill connected with such brewery or entered premises, any raw or unmalted corn or grain whatsoever, either whole or unground, or ground or bruised, and that all raw or unmalted corn or grain, whether whole or unground, or ground or bruised, which shall be found in such brewery or premises or mill, and all malted corn or grain, whether whole or unground, or ground or bruised, with which such raw or unmalted corn or grain may have been or shall be mixed, shall be forfeited and may be seized by any officer of Excise, together with all sacks, casks, vessels, or packages in which such raw or unmalted corn or grain shall and may be contained, or in which such raw and unmalted corn or grain, and the malted corn or grain with which the same may or shall have been mixed, shall or may be continued. And every brewer shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of £200."

I think that's pretty clear - any type of unmalted grain was illegal.

A further Act in 1855 (18 and 19 Vict., cap. 94, sec. 36 tightened up the restrictions:

"And for preventing fraud and evasion of the duty of Excise on malt by the use of raw or unmalted corn or grain in the brewing of beer for sale, be it enacted that it shall not be lawful for any brewer of beer for sale to have in his brewery or in any premises belonging or adjacent thereto, whether the same shall be entered by him or not, any raw or unmalted corn or grain whatsoever, either whole or unground, or ground or bruised, except corn or grain not ground or braised being in premises entered by such brewer for the purpose of making malt, and all raw or unmalted corn or grain which shall be found in such brewery or other premises except as aforesaid, and also all malted corn or grain, whether whole or unground, or ground or bruised, with which such raw or unmalted corn or grain may be mixed, shall be forfeited, and the brewer for every such offence shall forfeit the sum of £200."

"Precautions were further taken to prevent raw grain passing into the brewery under the style of roasted malt, and according to the instructions given to the Excise officers, it was not deemed malted if the plumule of 95 per cent. of it did not extend one-half the length of the grain. The preparation of roasted malt was also strictly under Excise supervision.

The Acts above alluded to remained in force until the year 1880, when, by the well-known Free Mash Tun Act, the duty was transferred from the malt made to the wort produced and gathered.
" ("Food & sanitation, Volume 4", 1894, page 102.)
millmaster wrote:The Durden Park book I mentioned earlier has two recipes for an Export India Porter ( Black IPA before it was invented ? ) from 1868 and 1855, one with Roast Barley, one with Black Malt. The one with Roast Barley is reported as a recipe for Export India Porter from Barclay Perkins dated 1855 - if that original recipe book or a photo of it is available to anyone, posting that or a link to it would be of interest.
Funny you should mention that. Barclay Perkins brewing records are a particular interest of mine. I have photos of both the 1855 brewing book and the 1868 one. Nowhere does it ever say "roasted barley". It says either "R" or "Rd"

Here's the ingredient list for an 1867 EI (Export India Porter):
Image

And here's an 1855 EI brewing record:
Image

Not that neither says "roasted barley" or "Black malt": the 1855 says "Rd" the 1868 "R". Both stand for "roasted malt", which was one of the names given to black malt.

I made the same mistake initially myself, assuming R or Rd meant roast barley. Until I read the legislation and realsied it was illegal.

Welshy

Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by Welshy » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:14 pm

This is all great. So, if I read that 1855 recipe correctly, it's about 25% brown malt, 5%ish black malt and 70% pale malt (the last two I assume being two different types of pale malt)? Which is pretty much the recipe in the Durden Park book, with the exception of the black malt/roasted barley thing.

The book also has two Barclay Perkins Imperial Brown Stout recipes that include roasted barley (one of OG 1.085 from 1832 and one of OG 1.107 from 1856), so I guess they should be black malt too? (In which case, I guess I'll have to chuck my authentic imperial stout that's been aging for 6 months down the drain...).

Also, the Durden Park book doesn't have much information on when hops were added during the boil, they just assume to put them all in for the full boil (plus the occassional dry hop), although I see most of your 'Let's Brew Wednesday' recipes include multiple hop additions. From your blog, I understand that information on when hops were added during the boil wasn't often recorded in the logs, but common practice was to have more than one hop addition. Have you any idea on how hops would have been added during the boil for these recipe?

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Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by patto1ro » Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:11 pm

It's probably less that 25% brown malt as I'm pretty sure these were volume quarters. A quarter of pale malt weighed about 336 lbs, one of brown around 250-ish. HP=Hertfordshire pale malt, SP=Sussex pale malt.

Yes, in the Barclay Perkins Imperial Brown Stout recipes it should be black malt, too.

Assuming all the hops were in for the full boil is unwise. I've never seen a 19th century brewing record that specified the hop additions. However, technical brewing manuals usually recommend two or three additions. Barclay Perkins did note hop additions in their 20th century records. The Stouts had 3, 4 or even five additions, while ordinary Porter had just one.

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Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by super_simian » Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:47 pm

Wood97 wrote:Presence of roast barley is the key (in my humble opinion).
Nope.

weiht

Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by weiht » Wed Nov 07, 2012 4:06 pm

How do u make it relevant today? Are u going to diss a stout that taste excellent only to find out there is no roasted barley? Or a porter that uses roasted barley with chocolate malt?

The porter style was very much lost to the world at large until the US craft movement revived it. I know that there were a few breweries in the UK that continued to brew it but it wasn't available outside it region. Correct me if i'm wrong but even Fuller's London porter was brought back in the 90s?

Its also pretty sad that not many pubs carry them regularly on tap. I guess it doesnt sell as fast

Welshy

Re: Differentiate Porter and Stout

Post by Welshy » Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:24 am

Thanks for the info Ron. I will have to think about this stuff (particularly the hop additions) next time I try recreating one of these historical recipes. I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd be interested in seeing some of these recipes in a 'Let's Brew' post on your blog, particularly the Barclay Perkins 1856 IBS beast (I think I saw a weaker version in an old post on your blog, but not the strong version - unless I missed something).

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