Nugget Porter

[Monkeybrew]

I have been chopping and changing my mind as to what to brew for my 5th AG brew, but have finally settled on a Brown Porter.

I started out looking at GW's recipe for the Caledonian Porter, because I liked the look of the grain bill. His recipe has an OG of 1.042, but I fancied something slightly stronger, so have increased the whole grain bill slightly to 1.046 keeping the percentages all the same.

I was going to use Progress as a single hop for bittering and a little for flavour, but my pack of Progress was originally opened back in June, and even though they have been sealed up and frozen, they look slightly brown and don't smell too fresh! I looked at the unopened hops that I have in stock, and have decided to give Nugget a try.

Nugget Porter
Batch Size (L): 23.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.695
Total Hops (g): 37.0
Estimated Original Gravity (OG): 1.046
Estimated Final Gravity (FG): 1.012
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.60 %
Colour (EBC): 61.0
Bitterness (IBU): 35.0 (Tinseth)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 76
Boil Time (Minutes): 60
Mash (Minutes): 90 @67C

Grain Bill
3.600 kg Maris Otter Pale Malt 5.0 EBC (76.70%)
0.500 kg Wheat Malt 4.0 EBC (10.60%)
0.225 kg Amber Malt 100 EBC (4.80%)
0.225 kg Crystal Malt 120.0 EBC (4.80%)
0.145 kg Chocolate Malt 800.0 EBC (3.10%)

Hop Bill
22.0 g Nugget Whole 12.20%AA @ 60 Minutes
15.0 g Nugget Whole 12.20%AA @ 10 Minutes

Misc Bill
1 tsp Irish Moss @ 15 Minutes (Boil)

Yeast
Safbrew S-33 @20C

Any thoughts?

Cheers

MB

[seymour]

Sure looks tasty to me. Of course, I always like to see Brown Malt in a Brown Porter, but that's a nice grainbill nonetheless. A small percentage of smoked malt is interesting too. Good call on the Edme/S-33 yeast. I think that's a seriously overlooked English ale strain. I used it for my recent Cream Ale, and got some really cool pear esters which complimented my homegrown green hops. I expect some pear fruitiness would be cool in a big ol' bready brown ale too.

Best of luck!

[Monkeybrew]

Sure looks tasty to me. Of course, I always like to see Brown Malt in a Brown Porter, but that's a nice grainbill nonetheless. A small percentage of smoked malt is interesting too. Good call on the Edme/S-33 yeast. I think that's a seriously overlooked English ale strain. I used it for my recent Cream Ale, and got some really cool pear esters which complimented my homegrown green hops. I expect some pear fruitiness would be cool in a big ol' bready brown ale too.

Best of luck!

I keep meaning to get some brown malt, but my LHBS doesn't stock it, and the postage to get it delivered is quite pricey compared to the cost of the malt!

Did you post a method for making your own brown malt, or did I imagine it?

I will be brewing this at the weekend, but it's been 3 months since my last AG, so I hope I'm not too rusty.

MB

[lee1]

that looks like 1 fruity porter i used nugget dry hoped in a bengal lancer it was very fruity , let me know how this 1 turns out mate looks good

[Monkeybrew]

Right then, after a chance purchase of 3kg of cheap DME from The Malt Miller, I also added some 1kg packs of Light Crystal, Dark Crystal and Brown Malt!

This order will be with me tomorrow, in time for Saturdays brewday.

How best should I introduce the brown malt to my recipe?

A straight swap with the Amber maybe?

MB

[seymour]

Right then, after a chance purchase of 3kg of cheap DME from The Malt Miller, I also added some 1kg packs of Light Crystal, Dark Crystal and Brown Malt!

This order will be with me tomorrow, in time for Saturdays brewday.

How best should I introduce the brown malt to my recipe?

A straight swap with the Amber maybe?

Cool! I'd leave the amber malt in and add an equal amount of brown malt as well. Fuller-bodied, more rich and complex, and might approach 5% ABV. Your call of course.

[Monkeybrew]

Sounds like a good plan to me

[Monkeybrew]

that looks like 1 fruity porter i used nugget dry hoped in a bengal lancer it was very fruity , let me know how this 1 turns out mate looks good

Will do lee

[Monkeybrew]

Just got a couple more minutes of the boil left.

I'll write up a brewday post when I get time

MB

[Monkeybrew]

Still haven't written up a Brewday post!

I've got a bit of a problem with this brew though...........

In the end my final recipe was as above with 3.8kg of MO instead of 3.6kg and 225g of Brown in addition to the other malts.

I mashed at 67C and collected 24.5L @1.048.

I pitched the S-33 dry at 22C and then have been fermenting @20C for a total of 10 days so far. Day 2&3 saw vigorous fermentation, but then it fell flat and lifeless. I checked the SG on day 6 and it was 1.020, and I've checked it again today on day 10, and it's still showing 1.020!

Do I rouse or rack and pitch some S-04?

Cheers

MB

[seymour]

Speaking of Nugget, some food for thought: Stan Hieronymus shared a scientific study which unfortunately came out after the completion of his Hops book (if I find the link, I'll post more details) which took a closer look at which exact compounds in hops produce those delicious fruity flavours and aromas. Obviously, all these rare, expensive new hops have high concentrations of those compounds, but it turns out many older and overlooked hops contain them too in smaller concentrations, and you can obtain the same results if you know exactly how to blend them at different stages in the brew.

For instance, he was recently consulting in Argentina where there are such strict import restrictions, breweries cannot get any outside hops (nor liquid yeasts, either, a fact he learned only after delivering a key-note speech contrasting German Weiss versus Belgian Wit yeast), so they must use only the 5 varieties grown in Argentina: Bullion (the original English bred hop, and sister of Brewer's Gold, if you recall), Cascade, Nugget, and two unnamed cultivars bred for their climate but nothing too exciting, flavour-wise. Armed with better scientific data about their own handful of hops--mainly through late combos of Cascade and Nugget--Argentine brewers are able to produce beers with the same hoppy traits as Mosiac, Citra, Simcoe, Galaxy, Nelson Sauvin, etc.

This fact shocks many conservative brewers who only ever thought of Nugget as a bittering hop due to it's high alpha acids. We homebrewers and craft-brewers have been discovering some of this experientially through single-hop brews, and even come up with some imaginative hop combinations, but it would be impossible for us to quantify it all as precisely as the scientists. Leading hops experts like Stan predict this data and the resulting hop blend experimentation could be the major focus for brewers in coming years.

Pretty cool to think about, huh? I suspect this is equally true for many of the early English breeding experiments which were originally rejected by English breweries for being "too American"...

[Laripu]

Do I rouse or rack and pitch some S-04?

If it were me, I'd rack to a secondary fermentor, and leave it at 22 or 23°C for three weeks. But I never measure interim gravity, just initial and final. That's my SOP.

You could rouse and raise the temperature two degrees for a week, then rack to secondary for a few weeks. As a bonus, you'll end up with a clearer beer, from settling in the secondary.

[Monkeybrew]

Just got a couple more minutes of the boil left.

I'll write up a brewday post when I get time

MB

Brewday post here-

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=63740

[Monkeybrew]

Do I rouse or rack and pitch some S-04?

If it were me, I'd rack to a secondary fermentor, and leave it at 22 or 23°C for three weeks. But I never measure interim gravity, just initial and final. That's my SOP.

You could rouse and raise the temperature two degrees for a week, then rack to secondary for a few weeks. As a bonus, you'll end up with a clearer beer, from settling in the secondary.

Cheers for the reply.

I am happy to report that I roused the yeast on Wednesday and raised the temperature from 20C-22C, and I looked in on it tonight and there is about 10mm (3/8") of krausen back on the brew, and the CO2 is coming out of my blow-off tube every 10 secs or so

I think that I will just leave it alone for a week, and then re-check the SG to see what's going on.

MB

[Padalac]

Speaking of Nugget, some food for thought: Stan Hieronymus shared a scientific study which unfortunately came out after the completion of his Hops book (if I find the link, I'll post more details) which took a closer look at which exact compounds in hops produce those delicious fruity flavours and aromas. Obviously, all these rare, expensive new hops have high concentrations of those compounds, but it turns out many older and overlooked hops contain them too in smaller concentrations, and you can obtain the same results if you know exactly how to blend them at different stages in the brew.

For instance, he was recently consulting in Argentina where there are such strict import restrictions, breweries cannot get any outside hops (nor liquid yeasts, either, a fact he learned only after delivering a key-note speech contrasting German Weiss versus Belgian Wit yeast), so they must use only the 5 varieties grown in Argentina: Bullion (the original English bred hop, and sister of Brewer's Gold, if you recall), Cascade, Nugget, and two unnamed cultivars bred for their climate but nothing too exciting, flavour-wise. Armed with better scientific data about their own handful of hops--mainly through late combos of Cascade and Nugget--Argentine brewers are able to produce beers with the same hoppy traits as Mosiac, Citra, Simcoe, Galaxy, Nelson Sauvin, etc.

This fact shocks many conservative brewers who only ever thought of Nugget as a bittering hop due to it's high alpha acids. We homebrewers and craft-brewers have been discovering some of this experientially through single-hop brews, and even come up with some imaginative hop combinations, but it would be impossible for us to quantify it all as precisely as the scientists. Leading hops experts like Stan predict this data and the resulting hop blend experimentation could be the major focus for brewers in coming years.

Pretty cool to think about, huh? I suspect this is equally true for many of the early English breeding experiments which were originally rejected by English breweries for being "too American"...

Fascinating.. MORE details please!