Robust Porter Recipe Help

[rack04]

I'm attempting to formulate a robust porter recipe and would like help deciding which is more appropriate for the style; Black Patent or Dehusked Carafa III?

Black Patent Option:
76.8% 2-Row
10.1% Dark Munich
6.1% Crystal 40
4.0% Chocolate
3.0% Black Patent

Dehusked Carafa III Option:
78.4% 2-Row
10.3% Dark Munich
6.2% Crystal 40
3.1% Dehusked Carafa III
2.1% Chocolate

From what I have gathered Black Patent gives a very sharp, roasty edge to a beer, often with some bitter and acidic notes. To me there should be a well balance between roasty and sweetness in a Porter. My thought was to use Dehusked Carafa III to add color and body while retaining a nice smooth flavor without the bitterness. Thoughts?

[Thors Brother]

I prefer black patent but why not use a little of both?

[bpillmore]

Quick question from a newbie: Is the % by volume, weight, fermentable content or something else?

Thanks for bearing with my inexperienced questions.

[Bill Lawrence]

In my humble opinion, the whole trick with porter is to get the balance right between the sweetness provided by the base malt and the crystal and the toast/roast provided by the darker character grains. If you can get an initial sweetness going with maybe some toffee/caramel followed up by some nice roasty flavors, well it's just sublime. With a robust porter, you can actually get away with a little bit of Roasted Barley (but not alot otherwise people will start calling it a stout). Dehusked Carafa is really good at adding color without very much roast at all, I use it all the time to color beers I want to get darker but without the roast. Another malt which you see in porters (especially the really good stuff) is brown malt. That stuff has a very distinct flavor which I really like, try Meantime porter sometime, really great beer. I agree with the previous poster though, I would probably go for a mix, unfortunately, I can't tell you exactly what proportion will work best, it's sort of a multiple iteration type exercise. I don't make the robust variety very often as I have this semi-erotic/sexual thing going with brown porter. A few years ago, I screwed around with a variation on an Edmund Fitzgerald clone that turned our really well and as I recall that stuff had some roasted barley in the grist. I will for sure be making another brown porter for the COC and Limbo (and I'll use the yeast cake to ferment an Olde Ale) and if I have time and space, maybe I'll dust off my old robust recipe and crank some of that out as well, it's been awhile.

[Bill Lawrence]

% by volume is a measure of the alchol percentage to the total by volume (ie; 100ml of beer that has 10ml alchol is a 10% beer). This is always greater than the % by weight as alchol weights less per a given volume than does water. Actually though, unless you make beer just to get drunk (which I doubt since Thunderbird is more effective from a cost/efficiency perspective than brewing your own beer), it's not particularly important when ginning up recipes. Just as a rough rule of thumb, a 1.050 beer is going to be roughly 5%, give or take. I would say that the top end for homemade beer would be about 10% as most beer yeasts don't do too well above that concentration (some barleywines reach this level). Of course meade might be a different story, some of that stuff gets up there. That's why you need to be careful when Wayne starts coming around with some of his offerings, it's very drinkable but it's also dangerous.

[bpillmore]

Excellent. Thanks for the explanation. I was more curious about the % splits for the grains/malts discussed in this thread. Are those by volume, weight or something else?

[Bill Lawrence]

Oh, I misunderstood your question, they are by weight.

[rack04]

Thanks for the well thought out comments. Here is the revised recipe in it's entirety.

Code: Select all

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Robust Porter
Brewer:
Asst Brewer:
Style: Robust Porter
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (0.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 12.86 gal
Post Boil Volume: 11.46 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 10.50 gal
Bottling Volume: 10.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.063 SG
Estimated Color: 28.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 33.1 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 78.6 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
19 lbs                Great Western 2-Row Pale Malt (2.0 SRM)  Grain         1        77.6 %        
2 lbs 8.0 oz          Weyermann Light Munich Malt (6.0 SRM)    Grain         2        10.2 %        
1 lbs 8.0 oz          Briess Crystal 40L (40.0 SRM)            Grain         3        6.1 %         
12.0 oz               Pauls Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)         Grain         4        3.1 %         
8.0 oz                Weyermann Dehusked Carafa II (430.0 SRM) Grain         5        2.0 %         
4.0 oz                Pauls Black Patent Malt (550.0 SRM)      Grain         6        1.0 %         
1.20 oz               Magnum [13.60 %] - Boil 60.0 min         Hop           7        27.1 IBUs     
1.00 oz               EK Goldings [7.20 %] - Boil 15.0 min     Hop           8        6.0 IBUs      
2.00 Items            Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins)        Fining        9        -             
1.00 tsp              Yeast Nutrient (Boil 10.0 mins)          Other         10       -             
1.00 oz               EK Goldings [7.20 %] - Boil 0.0 min      Hop           11       0.0 IBUs      
1.0 pkg               English Ale (WLP002) 3L Starter          Yeast         12       -             

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Equal Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 24 lbs 8.0 oz
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Mash In           Add 30.63 qt of water at 167.3 F        154.0 F       60 min        

Sparge: Batch sparge with 3 steps (Drain mash tun, 4.54 gal, 4.54 gal) of 168.0 F water

Notes:
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Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
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