Fullers London Porter

[likesbeer]

Not sure if this is the right place for this question but couldnt think of anywhere better.

I've just bought myself a copy of Grahams book and fancy the London Porter problem is I do extract at the moment and it isnt an extract recipe. I'm guessing because you cant just steep Brown Malt!
Any suggestions of what to use instead of this that will give similar results?
I wasnt planning to be faithful to the recipe anyway as I fancied adding a dash off coffee to make a coffee porter!

Thanks

[OldSpeckledBadger]

It probably won't make much difference if you leave the brown malt out. Just replace it with an equivalent amount of malt extract to keep the OG the same. Why you'd want to ruin a perfectly decent beer by putting coffee in it is beyond me though.

[Barley Water]

With respects, I disagree. Back in the day, Porter was made with 100% brown malt. If you want the beer to taste somewhat like Fullers London Porter, you need to have brown malt in there. While I'm at it, I also think you need to use the proper yeast, both Wyeast and White labs have the Fullers yeast.

Even if you are an extract brewer all is not lost. What you need to do is perform a minimash on the brown malt. Purchase the amount of brown malt needed and have it ground for you. Put the malt in a steeping bag and do a small mash on it (get it to 150F and let it sit there for 45 minutes or so, don't boil the brown malt however or you well extract stuff you don't want). I am sure that the local homebrew suppler can give you instruction if you have never tried this before but it's really easy and you can do it on the stove at home.

As far as the yeast goes, I think that Fuller's yeast is great and it's easy to use because it is highly floculent. It also throws off a little diacetyl which in my humble opinion really adds to the taste of the beer. Make up a simple starter (about a liter or so) and you will be all set (again, the local homebrew store should be able to instruct you on this, it is also really easy). Once you figure out how to do that, it is a small step to harvesting yeast from one batch and pitching it into the next (helps reduce ingedient expense and is also a good way to get alot of yeast for higher gravity brews).

If you can't tell, I get really excited when discussing this particular brew, it is one of my all time favorites (and infact, I have my version on tap right now at home). Lucky for you, it is also one that lends itself well to extract brewing. Porter generally is a good place for newer brewers to start because it is fairly tolerant of small process issues. You should take the opportunity to learn a couple of new tricks (doing a minimash and putting together a starter) I think your beer will thank you and I know your taste buds will.

[likesbeer]

Thanks for the replies, the easy one first thanks Badger...coffee as I had dark star espresso at a beer festival this year and it was great, but a little to strong and a little to much coffee so was going for a lighter version.

Barley, thanks for the info, for the yeast I would agree but two small problems wont be going to the HBS that sells it in the near future and my nearest one doesnt sell it. Plus tried WYeast Irish Ale recently twice and they didnt get going properly. Let them warm to room temp, smacked the packet left for 2-3 days waiting for swelling (not much occured) pitched into a starter and stillnothng worth bothering with after 7 dyas so gave up and pitched Nottingham instead. I'm aware that lots of people use and have good results but I'm rather reluctant to have another go at the moment.

The mini mash sounds much like what I do with the speciality grains anyway but perhaps a little longer. I followed instructions from my first extract and thats generally how I do it now. Put the grains in a bag, put into water and try to keep temp around 67 for 30 mins then fish out the grains and start the boil I also usually rinse with a couple of litres of 70 ish water from the kettle and then carry on with hop additions and 90 min boil time. So it sounds like I can do the same with the brown malt? Thats great I'll give it ago.

[Barley Water]

That is too bad about your experiences with the yeast, perhaps since the stuff is produced over here it is more robust when I get it. I never use dried yeast anymore except to over-yeast certain styles and sometimes for bottling under cetain conditions. I understand however that the quality is quite good and dry yeast is cetainly easier to deal with, especially if you are in a hurry and don't have time to make a big starter. I guess I should count myself lucky, I have a homebrew shop within 20 minutes of my house that carries damn near anything my little heart desires (and what he doesn't have, he will order for me).

If you are steeping grains that don't need mashing already (like crystal malts for instance) then doing a mini mash will be no big deal for you. All you need to do is hold the grain at sacrification temperature for an hour or so and you have it made. It is however a slippery slope since once you figure out how easy it really is, you will be wanting to do full grain mashing and soon you will have a garage full of equipment.

[Whorst]

I'm having a go at a London Porter clone any day now. The recipe I have is supposedly spot on to the real thing.

8.25lbs. 2-row pale
1lbs. 60L crystal
.6lbs. brown malt
.6lbs. chocolate malt
enough fuggles for 25-30 IBU's

[likesbeer]

Cheers whorst, that is very similar to the one I have I wont post as its from Grahams book so would encourage its purchase.
It is a nice tipple and I would agree with Barley that these styles of beer are a good starting point for home brewing as they seem difficult to c**k up famous last words.

You are indeed spoilt Barley my decent HBS is about 45 min drive, my local one (next to where my wife works ) is more like a brew cupboard but he does sell the basics.
You are also right about the slippery slop to AG I am currently constructing a shed (better known as a brewery) to set up a full mash system to AG, as I dont have a garage to fill up. 4 meter x 2.5 meter fully insulated double glazzed with wood burning stove for the cold winter nights. Will get a small tool shed extension to one side (the bosses suggestion ) so that I can use the whole shed for brewing

So it seems sorted then I'll just scrifice the brown malt for an hour rather than my usual 30 mins

[Barley Water]

Yup, that is pretty much the recipie I am using. I started screwing around with the chocolate malt using a combination of regular and light chocolate malt. I was using the dark chocolate and started getting some judging comments that the beer was a little bit too "robust" so I dumbed it down just a little. I like the beer I have on tap right now but it didn't win anything at the last contest I sent it to. The judges said that the beer was good but not enough character (whatever the hell that means). I am toying with the idea of increasing the Brown Malt just a little to see what I get as of course, I want the "perfect pint". I know the formulation is very close though and to some extent I am nit-picking so I know your beer will come out well.

By the way, the original poster was considering adding coffee to the beer. If you decide to do this, I would recommend making up some strong coffee elixir and then testing to see how much you really want to add the the rest of the keg. One of the other things I do is roast my own coffee beans and fresh roasted is way better than the crap you can buy in the store that has been sitting around for awhile. If you can get some really fresh roasted beans, the aroma will be much better (as well as the coffee if the beans are high quality).

[likesbeer]

I'm a long way from looking for the perfect pint so far I havent got past the "thats the best ever" stage
Fresh roast beans would be lovely, but not so easy to come by over here.
The idea was to try and make it a fairly light flavour as the dark star espresso was very nice but far to much for me.
My plan was to make a mug full at 3 or 4 times normal strength and see how that went was going to add just after the boil, make up a caffatier from a well roasted strong coffee. But that doesnt give much chance of a test. If I did add some and then when kegging added more if necessary that would at least give me the chance to start low and add rather than hope for the best and end up to strong. Cheers for all the tips

[Whorst]

Much of the way it tastes will be down to water. Chloride should be pretty high, with sulfates and sodium reasonably low. I've doctored my tap water and will cut it with distilled.

[likesbeer]

You know it took me a while to stop my eyes bouncing so I could write this
I've heard that water and its treatment is one of the very important things to get right, just I'm not at that level yet.
I'm not persay trying to do a exact copy more of a something in a similar style as I'm not good enough yet to deal with all the samller details

[smp465]

I work with a guy who did an extract porter steeping 1 kilo of brown malt as suggested. It was a great beer.

[likesbeer]

Cheers for letting me know, I had hoped to get this on last weekend but had man flue and couldnt move off the sofa. The shed is calling to be finished this weekend so think it'll be another week before I manage to get this on but I'll keep you all posted on the end result. Perhaps a brew day thread will apear in due course for this.