Harvey's Porter

[Benjy Edwards]

I would like to brew a porter that is similar to Harvey's 1859 Porter. There is a recipe published in Beer Captured which recommends using about 7% crystal, 5% chocolate, 2.5% black malt, and 2.5% black treacle. However, in Designing Great Beers, Ray Daniels says that Harvey's uses brown malt, which was the original malt for porter. I'm try to decide between the following two recipes (or a combination thereof):

83% Maris Otter
7% crystal
5% chocolate
2.5% black
2.5% treacle

---OR---

78% Maris Otter
8% crystal
5% chocolate
8% brown

OG will be around 1.052 with an IBU of 27-30.

Thoughts and suggestions please!

Benjy.

[SiHoltye]

I like this beer too, and although can't help with specifics I do know they use 400EBC crystal malt in the brewery...deffo in the Old Ale (83% Pale, 17% Crystal & Brewers Caramel). Also I think their yeast contributes to the flavour which runs throughout their range. Maybe the treacle in your recipe might give a flavour in the ball park of what the yeast contributes as it's that dark burnt sweet taste IMO. Good luck and post back with the outcome won't you

[Barley Water]

For whatever it's worth, I would go with the second formulation. I will admit right up front that I have never had (or maybe I should say never remembered having) Harvey's 1859. I am however, a really big fan of British brown porter, I think I had a quasi relgious experience one time drinking Fuller's London porter at a little bar in Ft. Worth. Anyhow, it's the brown malt that makes the beer so distinctive, there is nothing quite like it. It is one of those things that once you have tasted it, you will be able to pick it out every time.

If you want a brown porter, I personally would stay away from anything that would tend to give you that burnt, acidic taste (like you get in a stout or robust porter). I have done the recipe found on this board for the Fuller's clone and I thought it came out pretty well. Interestingly, I did get some comments from judges saying that it was a little too "robust". I am thinking next time I do it (which will be sometime this spring) I will either back off on the chocolate malt or maybe go with the light variety. There is no way I am going to mess with the brown malt though, in my opinion that is perfect. By the way, if you want a robust porter, I have had really good luck with a modified clone of Edmund Fitzgerald Porter which does have a somewhat more agressive roast malt character. That stuff just comes out great every time but it is a somewhat bigger beer.

[Benjy Edwards]

Thanks for the feedback, I was leaning towards the recipe containing the brown malt too. The main difference between the second recipe I listed and the Fuller's clone is the higher percentage of brown malt in the Fuller's along with the lower amount of chocolate. Hollow Legs, you say you might decrease the 2% chocolate to make it less robust, so perhaps I should use pale chocolate if I'm going to keep it at 5% of the grist. Switching from chocolate to pale chocolate bumps the colour down from 24 SRM to 19 (according to my spreadsheet), but if I change the crystal malt from 80L to 150L is goes back up to 22 SRM. Of course, that will not only change the colour but also the flavour.

[Barley Water]

I guess the thing that somewhat bothers me about messing with the Fuller's formulation is that I liked the way the beer tasted as it was. The main reason I enter these damn contests in the first place is because I want the impartial feedback. I got pretty good scores on the beer the way it was but I also saw consistent comments saying that the roast component of the beer seemed a little agressive. After doing some indepth research on Fuller's samples, I can see how it might be improved by reducing the roast. I don't think a radical departure from the original is warranted however, what I was thinking was to maybe swap out some of the regular chocolate for some of the pale, maybe go 50-50 or something like that. This could easily turn into a reiterative process where several batches will need to be made before the perfect combination is achieved.

The other thing you could do to adjust color (and I know this is not traditional) but try swaping out some chocolate for Carafa II. That should replace some of the color lost while at the same time reducing the roast. I use Carafa II to color German beers all the time and it seems to work really well. I don't think I would mess with the crystal, as you correctly point out, that will change the flavor. Crystal malt that dark will have some plumb/current flavors and maybe even some roast which would replace the caramel flavors the lower roasted crystal will bring to the party. Anyhow, these kind of issues are what makes this hobby fun to me, it's that holy quest for the perfect pint.

[Benjy Edwards]

I agree that it often takes brewing a recipe many times before you get it exactly the way you want it, so I think I will go with the second recipe I described in the first post and see how it turns out. I can tweak it from there by swapping out chocolate for some pale chocolate and/or Carafa II. It is fun to change things slightly and see how they turn out, and it's a great way to learn more about brewing!

[Barley Water]

Sounds like a plan to me, let us know how it comes out. By the way, what yeast do you plan on using? I really love using the Fuller strain WLP02, it has some unique characterictics that work out really well. For one thing, it floculates really well so you end up with very clear beer quickly. Of course in a dark ale, that will not make that much difference. Flavor wise though, it will do a couple things for you, first, it is not very attenuative so the beer will end up a little sweeter and drink bigger than the gravity would otherwise suggest. The sweeter finish along with the roast flavors from the brown and chocolate malts really go well together. That particular strain also throws off alot of diacetyl so you have to be careful but a little bit in a porter is absolutely sublime. Make sure you leave the beer on the yeast long enough to clean up after itself and you should be ok.

I just did a 70/- last weekend which I used WLP01 (as per the great Jamil), we will see how that works out. Anyway, I am going to do one more beer with that yeast cake (maybe a Blonde or perhaps a Cream Ale, I'm getting ready for another contest in August). After that, I'm going to enter my British phase again using WLP02 and my plan is to brew a Brown Porter, London Pride clone (I just love that stuff) and a Mild all with the same yeast.

[Benjy Edwards]

Barley Water, you and I agree 100% on the yeast. I use WLP002 exclusively, brewing English and American ales alike with it. The flocculation is fantastic, and I like the mild fruitiness that it contributes. I usually ferment at 66F (18.8C) and the esters stay pretty low key, but with the porter I might ferment it close to or at 68F (20C) for a bit more fruitiness. It's a great yeast.

I must be insensitive to diacetyl because it has never bothered me when using this yeast. I always give the beer a full week on the yeast, sometimes 8 days, so maybe that has been enough to let it clean up the diacetyl. I reuse the yeast cake 5 or 6 times, so I'm always pitching a lot of yeast, and primary fermentation is usually over in 2 days, 3 at most.

I love London Pride too, do you use the recipe on this forum (the Real Ale Almanac clone), or have you adjusted it? I have brewed that recipe a few times and it never seems to come out quite right.

[Barley Water]

I have brewed the formulation in the Protz/Wheeler book a couple of times. The first time I did it, I was in a hurry as one of my taps was empty and I pulled it off the yeast cake too soon. I ended up with a little too much diacetyl but I enjoyed the beer anyway. The second time I made it, diacetyl was not a problem so I entered it into a contest. It got ok scores but didn't win anything. I just love that stuff though so I say "the hell with them", I'll just keep making it for myself. I think a beer like that is just a little too subtle for some of these American contests where you need to make a really bold statement to get your beer noticed. Besides the nice taste, I also appreciate the lower alcholol so I can have a few pints and not feel too compromised.

[Benjy Edwards]

I brewed the porter on Saturday, using 79% Maris Otter, 8% crystal 80, 5% chocolate, and 8% brown malt. The session went well, the original gravity was 1.051 and we hopped with Bramling Cross for bittering and had a ten-minute addition of East Kent Goldings. It's fermenting well now and will update with the results in a few weeks once it's on tap. Thanks for the suggestions!

[Benjy Edwards]

I racked the porter to secondary on Friday, 15 May, after 6 days in primary. The gravity was 1.020, so it hadn't dropped as much as I was expecting with the White Labs WLP002. I will have to give it some time in secondary before it is ready to cask.