Strong American Porter

[Laripu]

I made this yesterday. It's fermenting nicely right now. It will be called Wolf Porter. (After blues singer Howlin' Wolf. Unfortunately, I never met him, nor ever even heard him live. But the Lupulin pun is hard to resist.)

The "strong" is self-explanatory. The "porter" appellation comes from the fact that this beer will be very dark. For the "American" adjective there are two reasons. Firstly, I used all American ingredients. Obviously you can make a similar beer with UK ingredients ... no big deal. The second reason is that in the style of some American and Canadian porters of the past, there will not be a strong roasty element, of the kind you'd expect from black malt or chocolate malt. Instead, the colour comes only slightly from a very dark grain (550L roasted wheat, no husk, therefore less roasty taste) and but mostly from 120L crystal malt. There is also a dark sugar (Panela) which both lightens up the body and darkens the colour. A touch of molasses: because it's a very American ingredient, and I was feeling a bit <ahem> Peculier. You could use treacle.

Mashed 90 minutes at 150°F. (In soft water, in which I dissolved 0.3 oz gypsum and 0.3 oz Epsom salts, i.e. 8.5 grams each.) Two hour sparge, 7 US gallons collected. Boil: 60 minutes. Primary ferment with US-05 at 65°F. (Were you expecting °C? It's an American porter, after all. ) Volume: 6 US gallons (ok, 22.7 litres.)

OG 1.072

Here we go:
9 lbs Rahr 2-row malt
2 lbs Briess 10L Munich malt
1 lb Briess 120L crystal malt
1 lb Briess flaked corn (i.e. maize)
4 oz Briess Midnight Wheat (550L)
1 lb Panela sugar (block broken up, and dissolved overnight in water, added to the boiler with the molasses and first quota of hop pellets, at the start of the sparge)
2 oz unsulphered molasses (dissolved with the Panela)

Hop pellets, estimating 39 BU. Liberty hops were 4.6%AA, Citra was 14%AA.

1 oz Liberty added to the boiler at the start of the sparge
0.5 oz Liberty (30 minutes)
1 oz Citra (15 minutes)
0.5 oz Liberty (15 minutes)

[Laripu]

In case you're wondering, this is Panela. I think Jaggery is the same thing from India, instead of South America.

[Laripu]

I might make this again one day with all UK malts, hops, and yeast, and use jaggery and treacle instead of panela and molasses. Just a thought at the moment. First I need to see how this one tastes, in 10 weeks or so.

[Barley Water]

Humm...I would be interested to hear how this tastes. I have personally never seen a Porter formulation that didn't include chocolate malt but hey, what the hell do I know? I have a keg of Brown Porter carbing up in my keezer right now which I did cold steeping the chocolate malt; I am curious as to how that works out. The new 2015 style guidelines mention a preprohibition porter which has some corn in the grist. I may give that a go at some point as I'm a big porter fan (especially Fuller's although there are others).

[Laripu]

Humm...I would be interested to hear how this tastes. I have personally never seen a Porter formulation that didn't include chocolate malt but hey, what the hell do I know? I have a keg of Brown Porter carbing up in my keezer right now which I did cold steeping the chocolate malt; I am curious as to how that works out. The new 2015 style guidelines mention a preprohibition porter which has some corn in the grist. I may give that a go at some point as I'm a big porter fan (especially Fuller's although there are others).

I'll be siphoning this weekend, so I'll have a preview. I'll post after that.

[6470zzy]

Looks like a good recipe, I too like to use Panella. What was the corn addition for, to lighten the body?

Cheers

[Laripu]

Looks like a good recipe, I too like to use Panella. What was the corn addition for, to lighten the body?

Cheers

Yes, while raising alcohol. I like the flavour of corn in beer compared to rice which has none. Same with Panela: more flavour than refined sugar.

Also, to answer Barley Water:
I don't really like chocolate malt or black malt, when used in large amounts. The use of a roasted wheat adds colour with less roastiness. The 120°L crystal also adds colour and sweetness.

Part of the inspiration for this beer is the (now defunct) style of porter sold in Quebec in the 80s and before, exemplified by Champlain Porter. It was 5%, slightly sweet, and hardly roasty at all, and very dark brown, almost black. I'm shooting for higher alcohol and hop bitterness, a cross between Champlain Porter and Baltic porter.

Kind of two nods to my heritage: my father was a Lithuanian Jew (i.e. Baltic), and I come from Montreal, Quebec. Champlain was the only beer I ever saw him drink.

[Laripu]

My dad's beer:

Someone on this forum once commented that Champlain looks like Guy Fawkes. I can see that. French explorer, British terrorist .... hardly any difference.

[Laripu]

Humm...I would be interested to hear how this tastes.

I'll be siphoning this weekend, so I'll have a preview. I'll post after that.

As promised, I siphoned and tasted. It's in a secondary fermenter and shows a lot of promise.

The goal was for it to have noticeable sweetness and it does, but that will diminish with aging in the secondary FV, until it's almost balanced. The hop bitterness is almost not apparent over the sweetness, but as the sweetness diminishes, that will seem to become more dominant. Very dark brown, but also very little roastiness, as intended. The "Midnight Wheat" malt and 120°L crystal did their job. Body is medium, but will also be a little less in a month. Again, as intended.

I could taste no diacetyl or polyphenols, or other fermentation biproducts. As expected from US-05...very clean. I had made a starter, and it fermented for 17 days without stopping, and left a huge amount of sediment.

I'm going to let it settle for a week, and then dose it with gelatin. In a month l'll bottle, and start drinking in mid-March.

[6470zzy]

I'm going to let it settle for a week, and then dose it with gelatin. In a month l'll bottle, and start drinking in mid-March.

Whenever I have used gelatin as a fining I perceive that it strips away some of the flavour. Have you ever noticed this occurrence?

Cheers

[Laripu]

I'm going to let it settle for a week, and then dose it with gelatin. In a month l'll bottle, and start drinking in mid-March.

Whenever I have used gelatin as a fining I perceive that it strips away some of the flavour. Have you ever noticed this occurrence?

I believe so, but I'm not 100% certain. For that reason, I've decided two use 2 ounces (56.7g) of hop pellets 15 minutes before end of boil, instead of 1 ounce (28.35g), especially in blond beer.

A recent beer I made without gelatin has an excellent hop aftertaste. (Not like an AIPA, just nice.) But it looks terrible. I think gelatin drags down not only yeast, but also the protein responsible for chill haze. When I pour that beer a bit warmer, it looks pretty good.

I haven't noticed any differences in malt flavours.

I bottled this particular beer yesterday, and the malt was great, as expected. I had used 1 oz of Citra and 0.5 oz of Liberty 15 minutes before end of boil. Hop aftertaste is nice, but not astounding. Anyway, this is meant to be a malty dark beer.

[Laripu]

I'm drinking my first bottle of Wolf, 3 weeks after bottling.

It's not yet fully carbonated, but it tastes amazing. There's a mild aroma which makes me think of molasses (which was an ingredient). Overall it's very malty, but also light bodied for a beer of that strength.

I'll have another next week, when it should be carbonated, and then start drinking it in two weeks, which will be 5 weeks after bottling.

[Laripu]

Damn, it's good. Now fully (if lightly) carbonated.

Not much head. But very malty, slight molasses, and even slighter roasty aftertaste (almost unnoticeable, and I only mention it because Mrs Laripu says she detects it).

There's sufficient bitterness to balance the malt. I could drink this forever.

[6470zzy]

Sounds as though the recipe was a success Do you bottle all of your brews or do you keg some? I keg most of what I brew these days although I do not force carbonate.

Cheers

[Laripu]

I used to keg and force-carbonate, but that was 20 years ago. Then I moved from Montreal to Tampa. Tampa houses have no basements, due to the high subterranean water level. I left my fridge with the holes in the door for taps back there. I've been bottling / priming ever since.

The recipe worked so well that I'm definitely going to redo it with UK ingredients, whichever are available. (I doubt I can get UK flaked maize, for example. Black treacle will also be a challenge.)