Fruit porter recipe

[Cazamodo]

Im thinking of brewing up a standard porter, then fermenting a gallon on different fruits. I have plums, blackberries, and elderberry. I plan to rack the porter on to the fruits (pasteurised) after primary fermentation. I even have strawaberry and gooseberry but dont see a porter working with those haha. Its a 5gal batch, and I will have a gallon on each fruit. So i will still have some standard stout left over too.

anyway what would you thin of this for a standard recipe....

2.8kg Pale malt
900g Munich Malt
450g Crystal 40
225g. Chocolate Malt
100g Roasted Barley
30g Bramling Cross@ 60 minutes
30g Bramling Cross @ 15 minutes

First time using those hops. should I just use them to flavour? And use a different bittering hop?


also what yeast woul you suggest?

[floydmeddler]

Have never used BC but I hear the impart a blackberry note which would work here. Whatever you decide to do, please do a brewday post so that I can track your progress. I've recently been considering using fruit in beers myself. In fact, I was considering using apricots in a stout.

[Cazamodo]

I brewed this up yesterday, will get a brewday post up soon! Had a massive disaster and the boiler packed up! But saved it in the end.

I used fuggles at 60 mins instead of bram cross.

[floydmeddler]

Excellent! (apart from the disaster bit of course). Looking forward to following this.

[jaroporter]

i've planned a similar brew for my next in the coming week. would have actually got it on the go by now but then the kent cobb goldings came in so had to knock up an ipa for the end of season partay.. :p

would be very interested to know what weight of each fruit you planned to use and how they turn out. i've planned a very similar recipe (although for hops i'll probably use challenger and willamette - any thoughts? also undecided on if i ought to bitter to a higher level to compensate for sweet fruit.. ), and intend to put 12L onto ~ 3 - 4 lbs blackberries, then keep the rest as a control / for mixing with the fruit batch to test optium ratio of fruit.

maybe you could use the strawberries with the other berries in a forest fruits porter?! now you got me thinking, i'm being far too reserved with my one fruit test!

i was thinking about using some second generation S-04, or nottingham to ferment. what did you go with in the end?

top idea with the brew and hope it come back with some great results. keep us posted..

[Cazamodo]

Mines sitting in a no-chill cube waiting for me to get round to splitting the yeast and making a starter to ferment it as yet. I went with WLP0013. I have just under a kilo of blackberries I was racking a gallon onto. I also plan to use the same amount of plums for a gallon too. And I'm also tempted to get a couple of bags of frozen 'fruits of teh forest' or whatever they call it from the supermarket to see what that does haha.

So far this brew is taking alot longer than I planned, only due to me being busy. Once its all up and running ill have a brew day post of how its all going. it was very thrown together, I dont even have a OG yet.

[Cazamodo]

Just an update, unfortunately I wont be following up this brew. I never had time to get it completed so put it in a no chill cube, however along the lines somewhere it wasnt sanitary. It had started to go off in the cube. I had a taste to see if it was worth putting yeast on it and hoping, and I held my nose and took a big sip, and it made me throw up, so I used it to clean the drains.

I still have the fruit, but not the grain for another porter. I planned on making a nice blonde beer next, so I'm thinking i will do the same with that and split it to experiment, yet I plan to use apricots for one, orange in another, and might aswell use the blackberries I have up in another! hopefully I will have more luck on this one.

[jaroporter]

always sad to hear a brew gone wrong, but pleased to know the experiment lives on! good luck with the next

[seymour]

...I still have the fruit, but not the grain for another porter...

You can freeze the extra fruit while you accumulate your other ingredients. The freeze-thaw cycle simulates what happens in nature, cuts any astingency, and breaks the cell walls to make it more dissolvable in beer anyway.
I really can't wait to hear about your apricot blond ale. Yum!