Garbage Porter

Not going into too much detail about this brew.  Basically it was thrown together last moment as a brewing opportunity presented itself.  I used up some bits of malt here and there, a closet cleaner of sorts.

Base malt was mainly Domestic 2-Row (2kg) with some Light Munich (1.5kg) and Maris Otter (1kg) thrown in.  Special grains were Flaked Barley (1kg), Crystal 60 (600g), Chocolate (500g) and Roast Barley (100g).  I had planed for the gravity to be in the 1.060 range but over sparged and ended with 1.050 after the boil.

Hops were Challenger @ 60m (40g) and Target at flame-out (40g).  Supposedly ~45 IBU.

A thin 500ml slurry of BRY-97 pitched @ 17c, fermenting at 18c now.

Update Sept. 14th

Recipe Brewed

Update Sept. 15th

Yeast Pitched @ 9am

Update Sept. 17th

High Krausen last evening, 36hrs from pitch.  Temperatures hitting 18c.
As of 4pm this evening, the Krausen has started to fall (55hrs from pitch), increased the controller temperature to 20c.

Update Sept. 22nd

FG measuring 1.020 @ 68F, primary moved to ambient.

Update Oct. 10th

Kegged and sampled my first pint.  Very nice!  Can use more conditioning time to mellow out the Chocolate malt a touch.

New Malts! Amber, Brown and Pale Chocolate

I've received some unique malts, Amber, Brown and Pale Chocolate, all Thomas Fawcett & Sons.  I am really anxious to put them to use.  Here's what the Maltser has to say...

Amber	90 - 110	Bitters - Pale Mild
Brown	110 - 140	Milds and Darker Bitters
Pale Chocolate	500 - 600	Dark Milds - Stouts Small quantities used for flavour and colour enhancement on dark beers

Not a heck of a lot to go on.  I turn to OBK for a more info...

Amber Malt

Colour test.  Amber Left, Brown Right.

Amber Malt. This is a very rounded, biscuit like malt. Warm, pleasant, toffee, biscuit, bready notes with subtle coffee undertones. Great addition to red ales, Belgian ales, porters, IPA's, etc.

Brown

Brown Malt. Adds a mild roastiness flavour and bitterness to a beer. Great for use in many English ales, brown ales, porters, milds, stouts.

Pale Chocolate

Pale Chocolate Malt. A milder roasted grain than the typical chocolate malt. Adds colour and smooth chocolate, coffee, and nutty flavours to your beer. Great for use in milds, porters, stouts, brown ales, barleywines.

...  Looks like I'll have some Porters, Milds and Stouts in the upcoming rotation!  With summer fast approaching, I am not sure I want to have so many dark beers on tap, I may need to work in an IPA and a Red as well.

First order of business, Dark(ish) Mild.  Here's what the recipe is looking like.

OG 1.036 / IBU 13 / SRM ~20 / ~41L

69.0% Maris Otter - Muntons

08.6% Crystal 240 (90L) - Muntons

08.6% Flaked Barley

05.2% Amber Malt - Thomas Fawcett

05.2% Pale Chocolate Malt - Thomas Fawcett

03.4% Carafa II Sp - Weyermann

4.8 AAU of Willamette @ 45 min

3.9 AAU of Styrian Goldings @ 12 min  

WLP022 Essex Ale yeast

I really want to play on the bready/biscuit flavours from the Amber and Maris Otter malts and incorporate some nutty chocolate without going roasty (ie. Pale vs standard Chocolate  Carafa vs Black Malt).  The yeast should do well to further develop bready flavours.

Flavorful British style yeast. Drier finish than many British ale yeast. Produces slightly fruity and bready character.   

While my intent is a malt driven ale, the hop selection should bring a subtle spice and earthiness to the party.

I'll use a medium-high mash temperature, perhaps somewhere in the 153-154F range since there is quite a bit of unfermentables in the purposed grist.  The WLP022 is a decent attenuator, if I can get it to finish somewhere in the 1.012-1.013 range (~3% ABV), I think that would work really nicely.  

The hop schedule isn't completely locked in, I may decide to move the Goldings closer to flame-out which would mean a slight increase to the bittering addition or perhaps an additional charge somewhere in the middle of the boil.

Tasting - LowTech Brown Porter v4

The Mrs' and I have tasted several pints of the LowTech Brown Porter v4 brewed with WLP005 and I can say with certainty, the changes haven't been great.

Appearance

Pours from the tap very dark, with a light beige, somewhat airy head.  The head hangs around for a minute or so before settling back into the glass with a fine lace.  Subtle lacing throughout the pint. When held to light, beautiful garnet highlights shine through, on the fringe of being opaque yet very clear. 

LowTech Brown Porter v4

Having brewed this Porter on several occasions now, I've become accustom to the appearance.  I'd say it's on par with previous attempts, perhaps a touch darker on account of the crystal malt change.  For v4,  I dropped CaraMunich 1 entirely, subbing in a larger percentage of CaraAoma. 

Aroma

Very disappointed.  v3 had aromas of toasty bread, carmel and chocolate.  For v4, the Chocolate is very slight, mainly roast/coffee with perhaps some raisin?  The lovely toasty bread is gone gone gone.  I am guessing this quality was from the Melanoidin Malt used previously and dropped from the v4 grist?

Yeast brings nothing to the party here, completely washed out by the brew's roastiness, more Stout like than Porter.  Overall, quite generic.

Taste

To keep carbonation low, I intentionally pulled the Co2 on this early.  Carbonation is low and appropriate. At it's warmest setting, the keg fridge pours @ 5 degrees Celsius.

The flavours are young, quite generic.  Roast is prominent with just a hint of sweetness on the back end.  On a positive note, the beer is well attenuated, not cloying.  Unfortunately, nothing else really jumps out.  Previous versions have had a toasty bread quality that I absolutely loved, I am not getting this anywhere. The caramel notes have also been replaced with a harsher coffee like flavor, the Chocolate is present but somewhat muddled.

I think that the Chinook hops were a poor choice, the beer is too bitter, too harsh.  I need to drop the IBUs on the next version and stick with a hop lower in cohumulone content.

Drinkability

Not much more to say other than generic.  I think I need to go back a version on this brew!  5/10

LowTech Brown Porter v4

Quickly becoming a household favorite, I've brewed this brown porter on 3 different occasions, subtle changes each time.  For batch #4, the hop schedule remains intact.

However, due to limited supplies as well as an effort to reduce the malt bill's complexity, I've switched out the Canadian Two-row base malt in favour of Muntons Maris Otter.  The Maris Otter adds enough character that I figured the 2% Melanoidin used in previous version was redundant.  I've dropped the primary crystal malt, CaraMunich I, which had previously accounted for near 5% of the grist and increased CaraAroma from 2% to 7.5%.  I am hoping with a slight increase in the total crystal malt as well as increasing the mash temperature to 154F, I have enough dextrines to make up for 7.5% Flaked barley which has also been eliminated.

LowTech Brown Porter v4

OG 1.050/ IBU ~23/ SRM ~23/ ~41L

87.0% Muntons Maris Otter
7.50% Weyermann CaraAroma (130L)
03.7% Muntons Chocolate Malt
01.9% Muntons Black Patent Malt

8.95 AAU of Chinook @ 60 minutes
5.60 AAU of Willamette @ 15 minutes
5.60 AAU of Willamette @ 5 minutes

I am now brewing on a 50L Keggle so I was able to use two different yeasts.  One half received WLP005, the other a special Whitelabs strain, Essex Ale Yeast WLP022.

Recipe brewed March 17th

As noted previously, mash was conducted at 154F for 60 minutes.  I then batch sparged and boiled the wort for 60 minutes hopping according to the schedule above.  At the end of the boil, I whirlpooled for 20 minutes and then proceeded to chill the wort to 68F in 17 minutes.  The wort was given a chance to stand for 40 minutes where most of the cold break and hops and fallen to the bottom of the boil kettle.  

The wort was then transferred to each of the fermentation vessels where it was aerated with a Fizz-X wine degasser for 5 minutes.  WLP005 showed signs of activity within 3 hours.  The Essex Ale yeast was pitched directly from the Whitelabs vial and took near 30 hours before showing signs of krausen.  Should have used a starter.

1.5 tsp Calcium chloride, 1/2 tsp Gypsum, 1/2 tsp Epsom and 60g Acid malt added to the mash for pH of 5.50.   Final water numbers:

Ca 44, Mg 6, Na 18, Cl 51, S04 64 

Update March 19th

Both batches are actively fermenting.  I've completed a first "brown skim" off the WLP022 and have top cropped the second rise.  The WLP005, which is fermenting in a glass carboy, is showing vigorous activity.  The WLP005 yeast had been reclaimed from a previous batch of low gravity bitter, it appears very happy in it's new Porter environment.  Ambient temperatures in the fermentation room have ranged from 62 to 66F. 

Update March 20th

Essex Ale Yeast has been skimmed a third time.  This crop was extremely clean. 

Update March 24th 

Essex Ale Yeast (WLP022) - Gravity tested @ 1.0185 (4.7°P), 64% Attenuation
British Ale Yeast (WLP005) - Gravity tested @ 1.0169 (4.3°P), 66% Attenuation 
I have roused the WLP022 and increased the ambient temperature in the fermentation room.  I'd like to see the attenuation higher.   The ratings on either yeast is near 75%, so I am well below at this point.  Since both yeasts are behaving similarly, I am attributing the low attenuation with my mash.  7.5% crystal malt and 154F conversion temperature may have produced more unfermentable sugars than I had planned for. 

Update March 25th

Essex Ale Yeast (WLP022) - Gravity tested @ 1.0182 (4.64°P), 64% Attenuation
British Ale Yeast (WLP005) - Gravity tested @ 1.0162 (4.13°P), 66% Attenuation 
It appears neither yeast is moving much.  I sampled both tonight, I'd say at this point, the WLP005 is the better of the two.  Finishes slightly drier, more bready although the nose on the WLP005 is fruitier.  The WLP022 Essex Ale smells slightly of green apple and clearly needs more time to condition.  As far as flocculation, it's close with WLP005 being slightly clearer. 

Update March 27 

WLP005 racked to keg.  Pressure set to 36psi.  Recovered 600ml of slurry (300ml x 2 jars), topped off with boiled and cooled water.  

Update March 29th 

Vented the WLP005 keg and dropped to serving pressure.  Pulled a couple pints tonight.  Nice beer.  A little too bitter, might consider a different hop at 60 on future batch.  I am also missing the complexity some of the dropped specialty hops had provided in previous batches.  Little cloudy still.  

Update March 30th 

Racked WLP022 Brown Porter to secondary.  ~ 250ml of slurry recovered from the bottom of the fermenter and added to a 500ml mason jar filled with boiled and cooled water.

Update April 1st

WLP022 wort currently sitting in secondary, looks very clean.  Almost completely free of all yeast and other materials. 

Update May 16th 

WLP022 beer racked to keg, pressure set to 38psi.

Favorites - "Sleepy Time Porter"

Robust Porter (12B)

Notes

Without question my best brew to-date.  Chewy mouth feel, huge floral hop aroma, chocolatey flavor with some back-end bitterness to balance things out.  Head lasts and last, you can't shake it out of the glass.  My inspiration was Flying Monkey's "Netherworld Cascadian Ale"  So good I don't want to drink it!

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Fermentis Safale US-05
Yeast Starter: Nope
Additional Yeast : Nope
Batch Size (Post Boil): 26L
Original Gravity: 1.067
Final Gravity: 1.017
IBU: 48
Boiling Time (Minutes): 65
Colour (SRM): 29
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7-10 @ 68F
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 5 @ 68F
Conditioning [Bottle] (# of Days & Temp): 21 @ 68F

Ingredients

80.9% Canadian 2-Row (OiO)
5.9% Crystal 110 (Muntons)
5.9% Chocolate (Muntons)

4.8% CaraFoam (Weyermann)

2.6% Black Patent (Muntons)

39.1 IBU Summit (25g @ 60 min)

4.6 IBU Willamette (14g @ 30 min)

4.3 IBU Willamette (28g @ 10 min)

57g Willamette @ Flame-out

57g Cascade (dry, secondary 5 days)

Water (City tap water treated with Campden)

Chalk, Gypsum, Calcium Chloride and Epsom Salt added, pH 5.52

Ca-106/Mg-13/Na-18/Cl-91/S04-102

Mash
Single infusion,  60 minutes (152F)
Mash-out (170F) , double batch sparge, collected ~30L into the boil kettle