Victorian Porter 4/11/07

[Jimberbob]

Today I have brewed the following recipe taken from BYORAAH.

2300g Pale malt.
2300g Amber malt.
2300g Smoked malt.
82g Goldings 4.5%

Mashed in 16L at 67C
OG 1060
FG 1015.

It's just cooling down in the boiler as I type.
Due to my recent problems with fermentation (another failed stout last week ) I have omitted all water treatments in an attempt to find out what is causing me these problems recently. So no campden tablets, no gypsum, no magnesium sulphate and no salt have been added to this brew.
Fingers crossed as my confidence in brewing has certanly taken a knock recently.

I'm not sure what yeast to use with this one, I have Gervin and Safale-04 and only about 20 mins to decide, any ideas folks?

[Aleman]

Safale

But with that amount of Amber it may not ferment as low as you would expect.

What was the Mash Temp?

[Jimberbob]

I mashed at 67C for 90mins.

[Vossy1]

But with that amount of Amber it may not ferment as low as you would expect.

Why?

I have a 10% amber brew in primary at the mo and the safale has struggled I'd love to know why

[Jimberbob]

It's all done, I only ended up with 1051 but 25L instead of 23L.
Not to worry, yeast is in and fingers are crossed.

[Aleman]

But with that amount of Amber it may not ferment as low as you would expect.

Why?

I have a 10% amber brew in primary at the mo and the safale has struggled I'd love to know why

As its not a diastatic malt, the remaining malts will struggle to convert it, and hence it finishes higher because of the residual dextrins. . . . I brewed a bitter earlier this year with some amber (13%) in it, and it fermented out fine, but then I had mashed it cooler than normal (63 instead of 66)

[Vossy1]

Cheers for the explanation TJB
So would you say a FG of 1014 from 1050 would be about right if mashed at 66 deg c

Not trying to hijack your thread, JB but my probs are directly linked to TJB's response

[Jimberbob]

No problem Vossy. It's all interesting stuff.

[Aleman]

Would you say a FG of 1014 from 1050 would be about right if mashed at 66 deg c

Ok, Here you go


"A FG of 1014 from 1050 would be about right if mashed at 66 deg C"

[Aleman]

Sorry couldn't resist it

Would you say a FG of 1014 from 1050 would be about right if mashed at 66 deg c

Sounds normal to me, Ok it took a long time to get there, but I wouldn't be unhappy with 1014 as an FG. I've had beers with 20% amber ferment from 1.060 to 1.1016, and had others stick at 1.020.

I know that Amber is in theory on the edge of the kilning temps and time to be diastatic and I suspect that this has something to do with the variability of malting. Clive does do a Diastatic amber (50EBC) which is half the colour of 'normal' amber (90 EBC), but I've not had the chance to brew with that yet.

Personally I find that by brewing a few degrees lower than my usual mash temps (say 63 instead of 66) then I still get a reasonable degree of attenuation.