Recommend a Porter Kit

[Alton_Bee]

I am looking to brew a Porter as 1 of my next brews...

Am thinking of modding a Coopers English Bitter with 1kg DME, 250g Medium Crystal, 200g Chocolate Malt & 100g Roast Barley Malt. Maybe also adding some Fuggles. This came from a post on the Coopers forum from down under.. How does this sound - would the Roast Barley take this into a stout (which I don't want) ?

Alternatively what would you recommend as either a 1 can kit with DME or Toucan kit ??

[twentyfootwilf]

Is that the Hop Gobbler recipe on Coopers site? I was thinking of giving that a go myself I've got some pale chocolate malt, some aromatic malt and some biscuit malt that I fancy utilising in a Coopers English bitter kit.
In answer to your second question, I would say a good kit for a porter would be Woodfordes Norfolk Nog, don't think you'll go far wrong with that everyone seems to give it a thumbs up!

[Monkeybrew]

If you are talking about this recipe post, then I can personally confirm that it's a good one!

If I brewed it again, I would add 250g of brown sugar to bump up the ABV slightly to match the full coffee smokey flavours

http://www.coopers.com.au/the-brewers-g ... #post14967

[Alton_Bee]

MB - yes it is that recipe - thanks for the tip on the sugar

[Cozzyb]

About the roast barley, most porters have it in, thats why they as dark as a stout and most do have a coffee taste, albeit smaller. So seems fine a recipe, I did a porter kit recently and honestly it tastes like a stout so I hate it, so hopefully yours will be more balanced.

[TonySan]

Woodfordes Norfolk Nog, agreed by all who raided my beer shed at our barbecue last week

[orlando]

A very simple difference between stout and porter is that the latter traditionally used brown malt whereas the former uses roasted barley (to be really pedantic it would have been malt kilned over oak, hornbeam and even straw, depending on where you lived, until coke of course). In the end of course brew what you like is the rule, but if you were in strict competition mode you might get pinged for being in the wrong competion class for using one for the other.

[Alton_Bee]

I have decided to tweak the recipe I posted initially...

Dropping the roast barley and replacing with Brown Malt - now wondering if I should go 200g Medium Crystal, 200g Brown Malt and 100g Chocolate Malt. Any thoughts on that combination...

As another tweak am replacing the kit yeast with Nottingham ........

Am planning to get this into the fermenter over the weekend....

[orlando]

I would up the brown malt otherwise it is in danger of being drowned by the other grains. My recent Porter had over a third of the grist as brown malt. By the 1800's Porter was no longer predominantly brown malt and amber malt had started to appear along with crystal, you could substitute Munich malt for amber. In the end your looking for a hint of smokiness/roasted and biscuity flavours. Brown malt will get you closer to the colour though so if you want to see what it might have looked like in its hey day then brown malt has to be much higher in the grist ratio. Take a look at the diastatic power of the brown malt you get as it is very reduced so you will have limits to how much you can use, no more than 1/3rd would be my advice.

[Alton_Bee]

Orlando - I am using a Coopers English Bitter as the base for this...

Would you go 300g Brown, 100g each Medium Crystal & Chocolate ??

[orlando]

I would, sounds lovely. I might just check what proportion the chocolate is. If it is full strength choc malt and not the pale stuff or the Carafa types it can be a little aggressive to my taste. Anyway, you don't really know till you try.

Having said all that a thought has occured to me. Because the crystal and the choc are non diastatic and to a degree the brown malt. You could try cold steeping the 3 grains seperately for 24 hours before you use them and then try blending them until you get what you want and then add to the fermentor along with the rest of the wort.

There how sophisticated is that, great fun this brewing lark.