East India Porter

[Matt12398]

After Seymour posted Ron Pattinson's researched East India Porter recipe earlier this year I thought I'd like to give it a try. I love dark beers but after spending some time struggling to get my head around mash pH and my soft water requiring a bit of a grasp of water treatment I've been shying away from then in favour of pale ales which seem to turn out better. It's something I want to master though and with a bit more water knowledge and a go hard or go home approach it's time for the porter which is possibly one of my favourite styles. Kernel's East India Porter is in my opinion a masterpiece so I'm hoping this turns out somewhere near to that.

This recipe I pretty much Ron's/Barclay Perkin's recipe that Seymour posted with a couple of tweaks.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 29.75 l
Post Boil Volume: 26.00 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 25.00 l
Bottling Volume: 23.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.056 SG
Estimated Color: 56.7 EBC
Estimated IBU: 66.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 68.0 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
4.65 kg Maris Otter (Crisp) (7.9 EBC) Grain 1 69.4 %
1.00 kg Crystal Light - 45L (Crisp) (88.7 EBC) Grain 2 14.9 %
0.90 kg Brown Malt (Crisp) (128.1 EBC) Grain 3 13.4 %
0.15 kg Black (Crisp) (1339.6 EBC) Grain 4 2.2 %
75.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 90.0 Hop 5 37.8 IBUs
60.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 Hop 6 28.2 IBUs
1.0 pkg Burton Ale (White Labs #WLP023) [35.49 m Yeast 7 -

Now typically I guess for a porter you'd be looking at a water profile that would let the malt dominate but with the high levels of hopping I'm wondering if I should be upping the sulphate?

[seymour]

Looks great, mate! Can't wait to hear how it turns out.

[TC2642]

For me it looks like a good recipe but not an IPA, call me a malt fascist but I wouldn't agree with the crystal, brown or black malt additions.

Pale all the way for me

[oz11]

I have a glass of my brew of this...it is a very good beer. Rather chewy mind you

It's not meant to be an IPA, but an East India Porter.

[JKaranka]

Wouldn't you dry hop this one, say 100g EKG?

[seymour]

For me it looks like a good recipe but not an IPA, call me a malt fascist but I wouldn't agree with the crystal, brown or black malt additions.

Pale all the way for me

You're missing the point. It's not India Pale Ale, it's India Porter, which was a real thing, and as Ron Pattinson discovered out-shipped IPA 6 to 1!

[Matt12398]

Wouldn't you dry hop this one, say 100g EKG?

I thought about it but the commercial example I tried was very malt forward and the hops contributed a satisfying bitterness which complemented the dark malts and little to no hop aroma.

[Belter]

For me it looks like a good recipe but not an IPA, call me a malt fascist but I wouldn't agree with the crystal, brown or black malt additions.

Pale all the way for me

You're missing the point. It's not India Pale Ale, it's India Porter, which was a real thing, and as Ron Pattinson discovered out-shipped IPA 6 to 1!

Listen to you rule abiders with your Dark porters this guy is suggesting for a porter you remove all the dark malts. I think he could he onto something... The Pale Porter. I like it

[TC2642]

For me it looks like a good recipe but not an IPA, call me a malt fascist but I wouldn't agree with the crystal, brown or black malt additions.

Pale all the way for me

You're missing the point. It's not India Pale Ale, it's India Porter, which was a real thing, and as Ron Pattinson discovered out-shipped IPA 6 to 1!

Listen to you rule abiders with your Dark porters this guy is suggesting for a porter you remove all the dark malts. I think he could he onto something... The Pale Porter. I like it

Oops my bad! I always associate East India with Pale Ale, bad case of word blindness there.

[Bierhaus]

Why all the crystal malt?!

Here's the original recipe. I've brewed it twice now and it makes a fantastic beer, I wouldn't change a thing.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2012 ... rkins.html

[oz11]

Strictly speaking the original recipe for this thread was here.

This is where the crystal comes from.

[JKaranka]

Reading a couple of these recipes it sounds like a small dry hop in the order of 25-50g would be spot on then! Anybody tried adding brett, some oak chips and leaving it to age for a year?

[DeGarre]

No oak chips please. Historically, breweries in Britain went to great lengths trying to source 'Memel' oak from Lithuania. This oak was very tightly grained and did not leave an oaky flavour in the beer, indicating that oak flavour never was a desirable characteristic of British beers.

[Otters]

Hi the recipe looks and sounds like it will produce a sublime pint of beer in my view.

Regularly brewing darker beers myself now -- such as Hop Back Entire stout and Fullers London Porter (which are worth a go) - as I've found that the local water supply favours the high calcium chloride salt additions that stouts / porters require.

I'm envious as the Barclays EI Porter is on my wish list for the next brewing leg.

Let me know how it turns out - I'll be very interested in your results

Rgds

Otters

[Matt12398]

OK so we bottled this last weekend and I was really concerned because it finished a bit high, around the 1.020 mark. At this point though after a long day brewing something else I just wanted to get it bottled and had almost written it off. It didn't taste over sweet so hopefully we wouldn't get any bottle bombs.

I was going to leave it a few more weeks before giving it a try and was going to hide it away somewhere in case I got any bottle bombs but the temptation got the better of me. I opened it over the sink to avoid covering the worktop but just a faint hiss. Poured it into a glass and it got a nice foamy head. Tasted it and I must say that it is about 5,000,000% better than any other dark beer I have ever brewed. Rich maltiness with chocolate aroma and coffee aftertaste. Nice bitterness from the generous hop additions. I'd even say it's not a 100 million miles away from the Kernel East India Porter I've been raving at recently albeit a bit drier.

Overall I am so pleased with this. After having a nightmare with my low alkalinity water and struggling with dark beers for some time, my water treatment research has paid off.

I think I might cry.