AG #59 1892 Whitbread Porter

[BrewerBen]

I'm hoping its not too late to get a Porter on for Christmes. The brew of choice is the 1892 Whitbread Porter from Ron Pattinsons Vintage Beer book. I have done the Whitbread Mild from the book earlier in the year and turned out very good, in fact i liked it so much i have the ingredients to do it again but with a oak addition. The changes i've made to the porter recipe is to add a little acid malt to reduce the alkalinity, use a blend of Treacle and golden syrup instead of No.3 Brewers invert and i'm using the Gales brewery yeast from brewlab. Also the original mash schedule was:

Mash 1 10.4L@ 65.6C
Underlet 3.8L@ 70C
mash2 6.6L @75.6C
Sparge 3.8: @79.4

Which i changed to:

Mash in 27.5L at 38C
Step 1: 60 Mins @ 66C
Step 2: 15 Mins @ 76C
Mash Out: 10 Mins @ 78C
Sparge 8.7L @ 78C

I only added the 38C mash in as thats what i usually do and for the original underlet i'm just going to consider to be the rise time between step 1 and step 2 when using the BM. The times i largely made up as there isn't anything given in the original recipe but i guess with most of the mash time at 66C not much can go wrong really and 76C isn't really that far from my usual mash out temp.The Recipe is:

Target Gravity is 1.058 for 25L

4400.00 gm Pale Malt, Maris Otter 71.67 %
567.00 gm Black Malt 9.24 %
567.00 gm Brown Malt 9.24 %
150.00 gm Acid Malt 2.44 %

440.00 gm Lyle's Golden 7.17 %
15.00 gm Treacle 0.24 %

8.00 gm Fuggles [4.10 %] (90 min) Hops 3.0 IBU
40.00 gm Cluster [9.80 %] (90 min) Hops 35.3 IBU
31.00 gm Goldings [5.30 %] (60 min) Hops 13.8 IBU

2L Gales Yeast Starter

Mash in 27.5L at 38C
Step 1: 60 Mins @ 66C
Step 2: 15 Mins @ 76C
Mash Out: 10 Mins @ 78C
Sparge 8.7L @ 78C

I've treated the water, measured grains and stepped up the starter this evening ready to get brewing early tomorrow.I'll update with the usual pic's one i'm done.

[rui]

i have the same book and was thinking to do the same recipe!! have a good brewday!!

[BrewerBen]

Yeast propegations. Was getting a little low so stepped up the starter from a gales sample i had bottled previously. 2L went straight in this brew the rest will be fermented out and then bottled for future use.


Gratuitous grain shot. The bown malt smelt amazing:


Mashing In:


Pumps on:


PH measurement. I've decided using these suck and i want a PH meter. Looking at the picture it seems its much easier to read in picture form than just looking at the strip:


Hops. Cluster leaf hops and pellets for fuggle and golding:


Mock brewers invert no.3 using golden syrup and treacle:


Steamy and dark, not the best environment for taking pics with a iphone:


New addition to the brewery. Will come in handy when start brewing to the BM's full capacity:


Still yet to sort out the steam extraction:


Pre boil gravity. This is before the sugar addition:


Plate chiller/recirc/Siphon hooked up:


Possibly the darkest beer i've ever made:


Yeast pitched and aerated:


Gravity reading off the scale:


A nice smooth brewday and for some reason almost hit 90% efficiency. I had cut the sparge volume by 2 Ltr to take into account the yeast starter but i still ended up with 25L before i pitched and 27L @ 1.062+ all in. Its going to be a good Christmas if this turns out well.

[BrewerBen]

i have the same book and was thinking to do the same recipe!! have a good brewday!!

Cheer's, i really liked the book and this is one of the beers that can easily fit in the malt pipe without too much hassle. There's a few more i'd like to try such as the 1935 Fullers OBE and the 1902 Whitbread IPA. But the mild i did was so good i cant resist but this time i'm using for a base for a Innis and Gunn style beer using Sherry oak cubes from the malt miller.

[Hugh Jampton]

Good post. I'm building a shed to brew in and I'll
have to get a hoist like that. I use a short malt pipe to do
5 gallon brews with my 50L BM. I'm brewing in the kitchen at the moment.

[BrewerBen]

The hoist was a cheap and cheerful find on amazon - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001 ... ge_o03_s00. Seems to do the trick. The only annoyance is the pulley really scraped along the post with the short malt pipe so next time i'll use a length of the rope rather than attach the pulley direct to the bar. The brewery is getting there, its really makes life easier having a bit of space that i can make mess in without getting in the way. Not to mention the roof over my head. Just need to sort steam extraction and decide on the final position where everything goes as some stuff is just balanced on blocks of wood but will eventually be fixed in position.

Fermentation is off to a good start:

[seymour]

Wow, yum!

[BrewerBen]

Looks like this is finished at 1.017 making for a nice warming 5.9%. I'm slowly learning how this yeast behaves and i am pretty sure it will continue to ferment very slowly by itself (when i've primed other beers have ended up a little to lively) so i'll be bottling but not priming. It's currently crash cooling so i'll be on a mammoth bottle wash today to bottle up tomorrow or Tuesday.

Sample tasted nice, certainly not a subtle beer with plenty of coffee and chocolate notes.

[rui]

looks realy nice...waiting to see the final result!!

[BrewerBen]

I can't wait, all bottled up now and crash cooling really helps in minimizing the yeast in the bottle. I'll have to put this out of sight now until Christmas. Maybe sneak in a sample in a week or 2 though purely to check its carbonation before putting it out on the cold garage and tiring to forget about it

[micmacmoc]

What a lovely looking beer! Nice stuff, really making me want a mild. Have you made any Gales clones with that yeast? I loved proper Thumper back in the day.

[BrewerBen]

I'm really pleased with how this has turned out. Its a powerfully flavoured pint, the roasted malts dominate but with a nice background bitterness to it and some residual sweetness. Also it has carbonated very well considering i didn't even prime it. My only adjustment when i brew it again (probably for next Christmas) would be to do a fairly large dry hop to add some hop aroma to cut through the roasted malt dominance. Despite the strong flavour, and the strength at 6% + it really does slip down very easily.

[Monkeybrew]

Sounds like a nice dark winter brew

I'm finally going to be brewing a smoked Porter this coming Saturday, that is based on the Fullers recipe in GW's book and was thinking of using Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale yeast which I believe originates from The Gales Brewery.

I am currently using it in a 1.038 pale kit brew, and plan to pitch some of the slurry straight into my Porter. Is your yeast actually from the brewery, or is it 1332?

Just wondered what sort of attenuation you have been getting with it?

Cheers

MB

[BrewerBen]

The yeast i used for this came from a brewlab slant, i just asked for the Gales yeast. I then grew up the starter and then split it to use in several brews. I used this yeast in a few beers last year and the ones that came out best were brewed with darker malts and english hops. My attenuation has been around the 70-75% range but in this beer i think the sugar addition helped.
I also found this yeast ferments slow, most took a full 2 weeks to finish and even then there was still a lot of yeast in suspension and may even have a fair bit still floating. I also don't prime with this yeast, i did a initially as i normally would with dried yeasts but it just seems to keep going and made for some over barbed bottles.
I think the 1332 Northwest Ale came from Hales brewery who may have got it from the Gales brewery http://halesbrewery.com/index.php?id=83. It could have changed over time so i'd be interested to hear if it has the same traits as my brewlab sample