Brewday 23st Feb - Porter

[SteveD]

Well, I got my H&G delivery on Monday to discover 2 things. The spirit thermometer I ordered to replace the one I broke arrived broken. Quick trip to Farnborough to get a replacement. Also, my original recipe had 600g of amber malt to help balance out the paler diastatic amber in the recipe. They sent brown malt instead, labelled as amber but clearly not, to go with the 1.5 kg brown malt that I actually wanted. Well, 2.1Kg brown malt is even more authentic, so no problem with the brew just mild annoyance at the cockup....and the PH 5.2 mash stabiliser was out
ofstock.

PORTER, late 18th century

Maris Otter Std pale 2.3Kg - 30%
Pale Amber (diastatic) 2.3Kg - 30%
Brown Malt 2.1Kg - 28%
RauchMaltz 0.8Kg - 10%
Black Malt 0.15kg - 2%

Morris Hanbury Goldings 4.3 a-acid, 120g (whole pack is stated to be 113g but contains 140g - good job I checked!)

2xpacks Danstar Nottingham - hydrated then 1/2 pint of wort added.

Target vol 24L

Target OG: Extract value of the grain is 2182.8 and I'll be sparging to aim for 1065. There's enough grain to get 1082 at my average extraction efficiency of 90% but I'm stopping short to see wether beer quality improves by not sparging down to 1006. Target OG will be hit at an extraction efficiency of about 71%

Another reason for a lower OG than what is possible for that grain bill is it's got to be drinkable by the end of March for the North Hants beer club meet. Not really long enough but at 1065 it should be approachable. Plus, Porter at OG 1065 is in the middle of the range for what they were brewing around 1800 and sometimes they didn't age it, but got it out to the pubs early as mild porter. I'll also bring some to the meeting after to see how it matures two months later.

Water : Crs in all brewing liquor to get the bicarbonate down to about 100ppm and 6g NaCl (salt) to get the chloride to near 300ppm in 24L brew length to mimic 'London' water. Calcium and sulphate levels are ok as they are.

Stop Press!! Brewday 21st Feb becomes 23rd Feb! Displaying perfect timing and old friend is dropping by lunchtime tomorrow so what was scheduled for tomorrow will now happen on Friday. Having already written out this post, I can't be arsed to do it again then, so, here it is now! More on Friday as the brew gets underway with my brewer's acolyte in attendance. Much beer drinking, bread, and cheese eating will also happen!

23rd Feb - Brew underway. Prepared 50L liquor the night before and put the boiler on a timer switch to have it underway early. Sitting at just above strike heat by 9am....but my brewer's acolyte is late, so I delay mashing in till he arrives.


The Cast - Brewer's Acolyte - Andy - no, not THE Andy.


Steve's patent grist preheat method


18L mash liquor into preheated coolbox tun, strike at 74c, initial heat 66c mash PH about 5.0. (two sets of papers disagreed ) Mash underway at 11am, extra quilt thrown over mashtun. Break to get lunch supplies, bread cheese, cake, etc. Quick ransack of comestibles means mash time 2 hrs. Conversion complete, temp at end 64-65c.


The serious part of the brewing process


The tower of plastic


1st Wort hopping.

Collected 10L on first runnings, added 120g Goldings hops to try first wort hopping. Sparged to 34L (exactly the brewlength of sparge liquor) runnings at G1016 when we stopped.


Igor the Sparge Monitor at work


Spinny Sparger - what else..


Silly sod! I hadn't told him there wasn't any alcohol in it yet


Boil underway - outdoors with intermittent rain. Boil time 1hr 40 mins, final volume 24L.

Boiled down hard because of an almighty cockup......half way through the boil I look at the dining table and idly notice the hop strainer sitting there..........Oh Shiiiiite! I have to drag my old mash/lauter tun 'Atilla the Tun' out of retirement and sanitise it briskly. A quick boil of the immersion chiller and the whole contents of boiler tipped unceremoniously, hops an all, into Attilla filling it to near the brim. Oxidation central! Now, this operation requires Atilla to be on the deck, but sitting on a plank to stop the tap from scuzzing up, as it's set at the bottom...but..I need the plank on the chair on which Atilla will ultimately sit, to stabilise it, so as I'm struggling one handed with the tun, and grabbing the plank with the other hand......my back goes prang....great.


Atilla is a fermenting bin with a boiler tap below a perforated false bottom - my own manufacture.


Post boil gravity at 20c - Yeehaa. (I quite like this photo )

Cooled down to 15c with the IC which took ages becasue of frequent interruptions as water was diverted for other purposes, eg cooking the dinner.


Oxygenated by running wort over paddle to create a shower, plus bubbled air in with fishtank pump, for about 2 hrs. Paddle bit not shown.


Break Material...rather here than in the FV..yeeeeuuch!

I'd realised another error in the meantime where the surplus sparge liquor intended for top up had been put in an FV...which was unsanitised It wasn't going to be my day. Make up enough extra liquor to cover the boiler element, treat with sodium met and CRS, boil, stick outside to cool. Eventually run off into FV, top up with lukewarm liquor to 24.5L, bringing the temp to about 17c. take OG...1070 (corrected for 20c). 5 degrees over intended, so should have stopped sparging earlier.....still, it's a nice historical strength Efficiency about 77% but then the whole idea was to be inefficient!

Colour, very dark, almost black, but with reddish tints. Rounded roastiness but not overpowering, and a bit of smokiness Quite bitter as you might expect.


Yeast starter made up in the usual way, rehydrating with sparge liquor, then after about 20 mins, adding wort in stages till about 3/4 pint was burbling away. Pitched at about 7pm.

3 coffee mugs inverted at the bottom of the boiler support the FV and water at 17c added to create a water jacket around the FV. If it starts to get too warm, I'll circulate cold water through the jacket.


12 hrs after pitching. 18c


18 hrs after pitching, 20c. Replaced some jacket water with cold, down to 16c again. When it gets back to 20c repeat.

1pm, head collapsing into silky bubbles stage.

Cheers,

Steve

[Andy]

You've not had a great mail order shopping experience there Steve

Hopefully that's all the gremlins out of the system now

[SteveD]

Cheers, Andy. I hope so. Ok, my sample size of one may well not be representative but I've formed the opinion that cheapness and 'convenience' may not necessarily be the best thing in brewing supplies just as it often isn't in other walks of life. I'll now revert back to getting stuff from Farnborough, Cheers, and try out the Hog's Back Brewery. It was only a try out, and I won't be trying again!

[oblivious]

Looks very nice

[mysterio]

Why don't you just toast some of your base malt to make your own amber malt?

[SteveD]

Why don't you just toast some of your base malt to make your own amber malt?

Can't be arsed Actually, I don't have an oven thermometer....and I still can't be arsed! Honestly though, I might give it a go at some point as it is said that freshly home toasted malt is better than shop bought.

On this occasion the extra Brown malt is fine. In hindsight, better in fact, but that sort of cock up can easily ruin an entire brew. Omit Roast barley from Guinness, etc.

[Frothy]

very informative
Que est RauchMaltz?

Frothy

[Andy]

Wouldn't you need to toast uncrushed grain ? And therefore require a grain crusher to use the resultant malt ?

More reasons for the "can't be @rsed" camp

[oblivious]

I think the original brown was roasted over wood, which gave it a smoky flavor, the addition of a small amount of RauchMaltz help replicate the original brown malt used

[Western Brewer]

Hey Steve, Hope you have a great time on Fri. Sorry to hear about your bad experience with H&G. Although i've not ordered grain from them, they have always been prompt and helpful to me. I use the Farnborough shop a lot though, nice to pop in and smell the place and have a look round. Do you ever go to Cheers over at North Cheam. He's the chap whos mashing course I went on last year. His grain is uncrushed but you can do it there in the shop, at least you know it's fresh then. Seems to have loads of grain but no liquid yeasts or anything. Give him a ring to see if he's got what you want before you go.
Mark

[mysterio]

Wouldn't you need to toast uncrushed grain ? And therefore require a grain crusher to use the resultant malt ?

More reasons for the "can't be @rsed" camp

Good point, I always forget about that.

[SteveD]

Hey Steve, Hope you have a great time on Fri. Sorry to hear about your bad experience with H&G. Although i've not ordered grain from them, they have always been prompt and helpful to me. I use the Farnborough shop a lot though, nice to pop in and smell the place and have a look round. Do you ever go to Cheers over at North Cheam. He's the chap whos mashing course I went on last year. His grain is uncrushed but you can do it there in the shop, at least you know it's fresh then. Seems to have loads of grain but no liquid yeasts or anything. Give him a ring to see if he's got what you want before you go.
Mark

Hi Mark

I know Richard at Cheers. As you say, he gets all his grain uncrushed and you crush it there and then on his philmill 2. Quite a good idea as it's got to be fresher like that, all things being equal, plus you get to use a crusher You're right about the aromas, both at Farnborough and Cheers, lovely, plus Richard normally has 5 gallon batches fermenting away in his shop adding to the brewshop miasma

I used H&G on a whim, and for the convenience as I wasn't going to get the chance to visit the shops and I'm sure that on the whole they're good, but I'm definitely one for supporting the local shops and face to face dealings.

I think the original brown was roasted over wood, which gave it a smoky flavor, the addition of a small amount of RauchMaltz help replicate the original brown malt used

That's right. Malt was roasted over hornbeam or oak faggots. They roasted it while green and still fairly moist. They used flash heat, quite hot and intense which caused the grain to swell and pop, like popcorn, and for that reason it was called blown malt. It also charred a bit which gave the bitter flavours and dark colour. This was the original brown beer malt - and original porters were just the brown beers of the day, marketed differently and not an invention as per popular myth. The term porter was already in use before the 1722 date attributed to its 'invention' by Harwood. Blown malt was a bit of a rip off, because the grain expanded a lot, and at the time malt was sold by volume, the bushel, and not by weight until much later.

Modern day brown malt is made differently, most importantly - it isn't diastatic, it isn't charred or popped, and it's not roasted over wood, so it has no smokiness.

Rauchmaltz is a German malt made in Bamberg deliberately smoked by kilning over beechwood. It's used to make Rauchbier, the most well known of which is Schlenkerla which is said to be the nearest you can come now commercially to the taste of old porter.

To replicate old style brown malt, I'm using modern brown malt, a percentage of Rauchmaltz to get the smokiness, and a small percentage of black malt to get the colour and a bit of bitter burnt roastiness.

Tomorrow I'll know if the theorising comes to anything

[Andy]

Steve - looking forward to trying that in just over a months time. I'll bring some of my Whitbread London Porter along also - it'll be a tad too early for it at only 2.5 months maturation time but "early" taste feedback would be appreciated .... I'll also have my Wotnot Landlord and SNNSPA* available - hmmmm, which ones to bring



* Sierra Nevada Not So Pale Ale

[SteveD]

Steve - looking forward to trying that in just over a months time. I'll bring some of my Whitbread London Porter along also - it'll be a tad too early for it at only 2.5 months maturation time but "early" taste feedback would be appreciated .... I'll also have my Wotnot Landlord and SNNSPA* available - hmmmm, which ones to bring

* Sierra Nevada Not So Pale Ale

Silly question! All of them! The porter showdown will be interesting. Mine will definitely be a bit green but I'm bringing it as a early taster to see how it matures over 1 month and 3 months, because I'll bring it to the meeting after as well. Just got to keep it down to about 1065 and resist the urge to keep on extracting up into the 1070's and beyond I

I'm looking forward to your beers. The Durden Park Porter will be fab I bet, and SNPA is a fave of mine. As for Wotnot Landlord, it's the kind of stuff I like to brew so...all good!

Just waiting for Ant's comments - my porter - "Jeez mate, it's like licking out a ashtray that's had beer spilt in it" You just know he will

[EasyBrew]

Just a quick note on grains. When you buy Brupaks crushed grains they are fresh. Clive at Brupaks crushes them to order for the homebrew shops. Whilst he puts a use by date of one year on them, we and I'm sure the other shops buy them frequently as they need them and in order to keep them fresh for customers order regularly in quantities they can sell in just a few weeks. Brupaks also seal the bags in thick, oxygen proof bags to retain the freshness.