Cherry Porter

[kearnage]

I'm looking to do myself a Cherry Porter next and so far I have come up with the following for a 5 gallon batch

Malt:
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4.649 Kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter
0.454 Kg Smoked Cherry wood Malt
0.227 Kg Chocolate Malt
0.227 Kg Crystal Malt - 120L
0.158 Kg Crystal Malt - 60L
0.113 Kg Black Patent Malt


Hops:
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15g Czech Saaz - 60 min
28g East Kent Goldings - 45min
15g East Kent Goldings - 30 min


Other:
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1.00 tablet Protofloc - 15 min
100ml Cherry Extract - Added to barrel while racking

Yeast
------------
Wyeast 1028


I was going to use this cherry extract: http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/aca ... tract.html

Does this look OK? This is the first recipe I tried to concoct from scratch. Is this too much or too little cherry? I have no idea on this at all.

Help - my brain hurts!

[Kyle_T]

If it were me and it was my first recipe I would ditch the cherry altogether, brew the beer as standard so you can get a baseline to work from later.

Keep your hop times simple to begin with, a bittering addition at 60 minutes and an aroma addition at 15 minutes will suffice. I usually use 15g at 15 minutes and use my boil addition to fill up the gap to reach my desired IBU on a malty brew.

I also prefer the standard English hops with the exception of Styrian Goldings. You don't really need the black malt in there but it doesn't hurt, I would drop the pale crystal and use brown malt instead.

Gives a nice dry coffee flavour to a porter. The smoked malt can stay but just use regular smoked malt until you can understand how it will taste before additions, this will help you decide your tweaks for next time.

There's a few ideas to get you going but others will be along I'm sure.

[GeeThom]

Do you have the cherry extract yet, these things tend to be very concentrated?
I recently ordered a plum concentrate for a porter and if I use it I reckon I will add it dropwise to desired effect after fermentation and leave a few days to determine. You can always add more but I definitely would not add 100 ml all at once.

Another way to do this is to take a bottle of ordinary porter and add a couple of drops until it is sufficient to your taste.Not sure if an essence will condition ion the same way as hops do. I think you will get the effect straight away on adding. You can then scale this up to the full brew.

[kearnage]

Thanks. That is probably a good idea. I've always been one for jumping in with both feet before I can swim.

I've done several porters from recipes that others have created.

I was inspired to do this one after having several enjoyable pints of Shepherd Neame's Red Sails.

[kearnage]

Do you have the cherry extract yet, these things tend to be very concentrated?
I recently ordered a plum concentrate for a porter and if I use it I reckon I will add it dropwise to desired effect after fermentation and leave a few days to determine. You can always add more but I definitely would not add 100 ml all at once.

Another way to do this is to take a bottle of ordinary porter and add a couple of drops until it is sufficient to your taste.Not sure if an essence will condition ion the same way as hops do. I think you will get the effect straight away on adding. You can then scale this up to the full brew.

I've not got it yet, I wasn't sure if I should go for real cherries, cherry syrup, cherry puree or the extract. The extract just seemed easier.

[GeeThom]

The trouble with using real fruit is first how much to use,second it's not always repeatable due to variations in the crop and third mess in preparing them. the extract would be the best way to go but may reauire trials end experimentation to get it right but that's part of the fun.

[kearnage]

After a dig around online I found this on blog post on the Shepherd Neame website

Nearly black in colour, the porter boasts a rich aroma of cherry roasted chocolate and a smooth cherry palate, created by a trio of ale, crystal and chocolate malts, along with the delicious flavours of Kentish Morello cherries. Admiral hops have been used for bittering, and Goldings for late hopping.

I think I'll seriously simplify the original recipe in line with this. Just have to work out a good ratio for the crystal now.