Plum Porter recipe - comments please

[Sir-Rooty]

Hi all,

I'm preparing for my first crack at a Plum Porter. I'd really welcome your feedback on the recipe I've put together below.

I've liked what I've read about Special B so I've bought a bag in plus I've juiced and frozen 500g of red super sweet Plums - planning to drop this in about 10-15 mins prior to flameout along with the other late additions. Not worked with Phoenix hops before either but the descriptions online seems to fit what I'm shooting for.
I've been enjoying using WLP028 Edinburgh yeast on a couple of other dark brews recently so will be dropping that in.
This is for 30ltr batch and I'm hoping to get it done and in bottles by mid-Dec with a view to drinking in March.

Original Gravity: 1.067
Final Gravity: 1.019
ABV (standard): 6.42%
IBU (tinseth): 43.14
SRM (morey): 19.01

Fermentables
Amount Fermentable
6.7 kg United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale 76.1%
500 g Plum - (late addition) 5.7%
500 g United Kingdom - Brown 5.7%
250 g Belgian - Special B 2.8%
250 g Brown Sugar - (late addition) 2.8%
250 g Dry Malt Extract - Dark - (late addition) 2.8%
250 g United Kingdom - Amber 2.8%
100 g United Kingdom - Chocolate 1.1%
8.8 kg Total

Hops
Amount Variety Type AA Use Time IBU
35 g Phoenix Leaf/Whole 10 Boil 60 min 27.53
40 g Phoenix Leaf/Whole 10 Boil 15 min 15.61
25 g Phoenix Leaf/Whole 10 Aroma 0 min

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Drop the sugar. Plum fructose will dry out your beer enough as is.

Your problem with the recipe is that you are not using enough plums. I put 3kg into 50 L batch and you have to tell people it's there.

[Barley Water]

I agree with the previous poster, drop the brown sugar, you won't even taste it. I have never messed with plums but I have messed with raisins and I can taste 6oz in a 5 gallon batch. What I do is run them through a blender with a little wort then carmalize the whole thing (I am trying to get a rummy flavor in a Dubbel). I haven't screwed around with DME in years (except to make starters) but I wouldn't use the dark stuff because only God knows what the manufacturer put into it to get the dark color. That also seems like a very little bit of chocolate malt for a porter but hey, I'm from Texas so what the hell do I know?

[Sir-Rooty]

Thanks for the replies! The late additions more than anything are being used to get the ABV above 6% if I'm honest. I can scale up the grain to a certain extent to cover some of that and if I up the amount of plums then I suppose that will help again.

The amount of chocolate being low is deliberate because I've not used Special B before and alongside the Brown it could all become a bit too loaded and confused?!

[bigtoe]

2 brews done with Plums and Prune Juice etc and the plummy goodness just did not come thru, ended up going the way the brewers do and picked up some flavouring concentrate off ebay, 1ml per 1L of wort and you have pretty much what Titanic are doing. I added it with the 50g of priming sugar as I dropped the cooled wort into my keg (23L)

My first attempt was actually a tad dry, probably all the sugar in the fruit being the cause, the second brew I added the concentrate but added to much, it was drinkable but to plummy, my 3rd brew was for me much much better. I decided to go with M15 yeast which finished at 1.015 so some sweetness was left with good body and gave nice dark fruity flavour. I was going for a plummy mild though not porter. Final product was 18IBU, fruity and malty with a nice hint of Plum...went down really well at 5.5% ABV.

[Sir-Rooty]

Hmmmmm definitely a trend forming here. What do you search on in eBay - 'Plum concentrate'?

[bigtoe]

I used this one, a 30ml bottle is all you need per brew under 25L, remember though go easy with it, I found 1ml per 1L beer worked well BUT it may still be to plummy for you...experiment maybe over 1 or 2 brews, its nicer to have a hint than be over powered so maybe 18ml per 23L would be a better start and work from there.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/30ml-250ml-Co ... OOsLLDOiIQ

edit...found the right one, they recommend 1.1ml per 1L beverages, I would say 1ml or slightly less is better.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

You can add your concentrate at any time, you don't have to guess at any stage if your process, draw off samples and dose them in theglass as you taste.

Also be aware that you need a way to be solid fruit matter out if the beer. Bagging in hop bags, voile , mash bags for BIAB will do it

[Sir-Rooty]

Thanks guys - that's been really helpful. I'm ordering some of the concentrate for sure. I'll report back when nearing brew day

[Northern Brewer]

FWIW, the new Titanic Plum Porter cans have an ingredient list as follows :

INTERNATIONAL BITTERING UNIT
IBU 52

INGREDIENTS :
Water, Malted Barley, Wheat Malt, Malts ; Maris
Otter, Pearl Wheat, Dark Crystal, Hops ;
Pilgrim, Hercules, Goldings, Celeia,
Natural Plum Flavouring, Yeast.

That's how it is laid out - I suspect the text was designed for a different layout, then they changed it so the lines aren't right. The use of semi-colons is a little random, and I think there's a comma missing - what they're saying is that they use the Maris Otter and Pearl varieties of barley, plus malted wheat, rather than pearl wheat (which is a thing, it's dehusked like pearl barley).

Presumably Pilgrim and Hercules are used for bittering.