Honey porter recipe ideas-feedback please!

[Hwheel72]

I'm putting together a recipe and I wanted to see what y'all thought as well.

Just looking to see any thoughts on this combination, thanks! Lot's of flavor explosion, IMO.

All Grain Recipe:

8.5# Maris Otter
1.5# Caramunich II
8 oz Chocolate Malt
8 oz Brown Malt
4 oz Black Patent

1oz Northern Brewer 60 min
1 tsp Irish Moss 15 min
1 oz EKG 10 min

1.5# honey @ Flame out

Mash @ 152 deg for 60 min

Yeast: Wyeast 1028 or Nottingham Dry

OG: 1.058
FG: 1.012



Thanks for any thoughts on this!

[Bill Lawrence]

Well as somebody who enjoys a nice Porter occasionally that looks like it might be tasty. That black patent malt is going to give you the burnt roasty flavors which should make the beer fall into the Robust category. If I were making it, I would probably use English crystal malt rather than the German stuff but I don't know if that will really make all that much difference. I also really like what brown/amber malt does to that style; my favorite recipe calls for 1 1/2 pounds in a 5 gallon batch however I am shooting for a brown porter rather than the robust variation. Of course as is well documented elsewhere I'm rather keen on Fuller's London Porter so I use WLP02 rather than the more attenuative English strains. I want the beer to be just a bit sweeter and hopefully if the almighty is smiling on me I also get just a touch of diacetyl.

[Hwheel72]

Yes, I originally had Crystal 60 there instead of the german mix, but I went to homebrew HQ and nibbled on both grains. I was thinking that the German had a touch more flavor. You are definitely right about the black patent though. Maybe 4 oz is a bit much. I also heard about a honey malt to give the beer a more of a honey taste. I've never played around with that one so Im not too sure of it's validity. I wish to not overpower with honey flavor so I figured adding some at flameout might do the trick. I gues we shall see. That's the beauty of this wonderful hobby.

Great advice on the yeast suggestion as well. Thanks!

[Bill Lawrence]

I frankly doubt you'll get any honey taste with the the roasted malts in the grist. Likely what will happen when you add the honey is that it will jack up the alcohol content of the beer and dry the whole thing out a little bit (none of that necessarily being a bad thing by the way). I don't use honey all that much but the last time I did it I added a bunch to a Belgian Triple after fermenation got going really well. The advantage to adding the honey late with that beer is that the delicate aromas are better preserved and I did get a bit of flavor as that style is much lighter anyway. Actually, I'll likely do at least a couple of Belgian brews after I'm done brewing for the Bluebonnet (I'm currently in my English phase right now) and I may try dumping some honey into an Abby Single. That's a light, delicate style so the honey should come through a bit plus I want the beer to be extremely dry. Saisons are another style that I would think honey would work out pretty well......

[RyanD]

Bill beat me to it but I always add honey to the mix 2-3 days after pitching yeast. Its good for yeast health also as they will eat the simple sugar of the honey before the sugars extracted from the malt. I have read of many a recipe where the yeast eats the honey and never makes it all the way through the complex sugars, leaving you with a sweet, poorly attenuated beer.

[Hwheel72]

Just brewed this, this past Sunday. I will let you all know how it turns out. I lowered the Black patent to 2 oz and used WLP002. Thanks for all the info you guys provided!

[Hwheel72]

Well, it has been bottled for in 22oz bombers for 3 weeks now and it seems to not be carbing up. I will give it another week or two. any suggestions or questions would be helpful. The flavor turned owned pretty darn tasty, however. just needs some bubbles. I'm sure kegging this would have been ideal. We'll see what next week brings.

[BigWally]

Definitely give it more time. Since it has been rather cool lately and I assume you are storing the beer in a closet, the yeast may be a bit sluggish. You may want to get them somewhere a bit warmer, say a spare bedroom with a space heater. That did the trick for a beer I was recently brewing with a saison yeast that was definitely not happy with the cool weather.