Brewday 18/2/07 questions first......

[louthepoo]

I'm going to brew this London Porter tommorow (thanks for the recipe Daab) but have some questions before i do.

(1) I have crushed black malt not brown, does this make much difference?

(2)I have whole chocolate malt, does this need crushing or can i use it whole?

(3) I have safale S-04 yeast instead, much difference?

(4) I'm going to use a campden tablet in my water, how long does it need to be in there before i can start brewing with it?

(BTW I have different ingredients because the homebrew shop i bought them in didn't have them)


FULLERS LONDON PORTER

25 litre batch OG 1053 ABV 5% 140 units of colour 33 EBU

OPTIC PALE MALT 4300 gms
CRYSTAL MALT 568 gms
BROWN MALT 683 gms
CHOCOLATE MALT 115 gms

HOPS 90 minute boil

FUGGLES 86 gms

Add 10 gms Fuggles last 15 minutes

Used White Labs London yeast.


Thanks in advance, Lou

[louthepoo]

cheers Daab, and Moorsd for the original post.

what about the chocolate malt? does that need to be crushed or can i put them in whole?

I'm going to do the brew today, footballs been called off!

[Bigster]

then a rolling pin and a bag may do the trick

it does indeed - did that to wheat malt today only after almost chucking it in whole

[louthepoo]

crushed the whole black malt with the back of a hammer in a saucepan!! Hammer was brand new and it had a damn good clean!

Just starting the mashing

[louthepoo]

I heard the neighbour call over the fence at me but i carried on regardless

He'll love me for the smell its gonna make aswell!!

he'll hate me for not letting him have any too

[louthepoo]

its finished mashing, now i'm going to sparge it. just made a home made sparger from a pet bottle with the bottom cut off and holes drilled in the top (it'll do untill i buy one!)

The wort is coming out as black as night but considering its a porter, it should!!

[tubby_shaw]

Sounds like it's going well Lou

The wort is coming out as black as night

You really have crossed to the dark side

[louthepoo]

Or you could go over to the dark side and try batch sparging next time

whats that?

[iowalad]

I thik Daab just explained batch sparging perfectly.

For a cheap and easy mash tun as well as a walk thru on a basic batch sparge.

http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/

Denny is a well respected home brewer (and grew up in the great state of Iowa!). Oblivious has posted the above site before and I think he batch sparges as well.

It is really a very simple process.

[louthepoo]

Boiling away nicely now.

There was a lot of bits in the bottom of the barrel when i sparged it, a lot more than i had last time. Will this be in the final beer or will it go with the irish moss and settle?

[Frothy]

Looks like brown malt is pretty substantial part of that recipe. If you did infact replace it with Black Malt you'l have a very original stout on your hands and a very different flavour to the intended porter.

Frothy

[louthepoo]

got up this morning to find the biggest yeast head i've ever seen and its gurgling away like my belly after a night on the beer and curry!! can't be bad

I used Black malt because they didn't have any brown malt

The OG was 1048

I cut down the recipe to make 19L so it didnt slosh all over the side of the boiler like last time!! it still made a mess and took ages to make though, I'm sure it will be worth it

thanks for your help Guys.

[louthepoo]

Looks like brown malt is pretty substantial part of that recipe. If you did infact replace it with Black Malt you'l have a very original stout on your hands and a very different flavour to the intended porter.

Frothy

Its definitely unique, just tried a sip of it while i was checking the gravity before i bottle (currently at 1018) and it tastes fantastic now!!

I'm not going to drink it till its bottled though but i've got to say its one of the nicest beers i've tried in a long time and that includes the real ales down the pub!!

Its black as the ace of spades and really strong tasting, just how i like it!

[louthepoo]

Yes its number 2, the first one was ok but its gone a bit flat and it has that funny water taste! I took a lot more time and effort on the 2nd one (8 hours!! )

I'm definitely keeping this one as a favourite and all because the hb shop didnt have the exact ingredients the recipe said! i'm well chuffed with it!

btw as i'm progressing through homebrewing i'm getting more intrested on some of the terminology used on this forum like :

IBU
% efficiency
acid content

is this stuff important to know? I've only just got the hang of OG and FG!!

i didnt last long doing kits before i moved on to ag though - only just over 1 year!!

[Frothy]

IBU - International Bittering Units
It's quite important to learn how to use your hops with an equation or a program like promash etc. as quite often the hops have differnent Alpha acids or have to be substituted for a different variety so you'l have to change the recipe a bit. Alpha Acids are basically the chemicals that give us bitterness.
IBU = AAU x U x (10/V)

AAU = %AA of hops x weight in grams
U = Tabulated utilization value (found on the internet)
10 - just a metric conversion factor that always stays the same
V = Boil Volume in Litres

So if you know how many IBU's you need of a specific hop you can rearrange the equation as so to find out how many grams you need

IBU/ (U x 10/V) = AAU

AAU/ %AA = weight of hops (grams)

or you can use promash

Frothy