English Porter

It has been quite a while since I last brewed a Porter/Stout that wasn't an Imperial Strength.  These are very drinkable beers with a lot of complexity and bold flavor.  Now that I've started kegging I think I should have at least one on tap. 

For a recipe, I decided to try out a 1915 version of Porter from the Courage Brewery as published on the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins blog.  I've brewed a few of these old English recipes at this point and this, like many of them, gets quite a bit of their fermentables out of invert syrup.  This recipe calls for a #4 invert (I had previously thought #3 was the darkest) which is cooked until it reaches a black (or at least very dark brown) color.  I found this intriguing and wanted to give it a shot.

Otherwise, it's a pretty simple recipe with 3 grains (pale, brown, and black malt).  I'm using American Pale ale malt for this.  It's mashed in the low 150 Fs but then is projected to only reach 1.018.  Target OG is 1.050 so it would be expected to be about 4% ABV - nice and drinkable.

For hops it calls for Fuggle.  I don't have any of those so I'm swapping out Willamette (which I recently purchased a pound of).  Willamette are frequently called out as a good substitute for Fuggle as they were bred from Fuggle originally.

For yeast, it calls for the Whitbread Brewery's house yeast which Safale S04 dry yeast is though to be an isolate from.  This yeast produces a pleasant ester character.  Been a while since I used it but will be nice to revisit.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 7 lb Pale Ale Malt
• 2.25 lb Brown Malt
• 1 lb Black Malt
• 1.5 lb Invert #4
• Hops:
• 2 oz Willamette (Leaf, 5.7% AA) at 90 min
• 1 oz Willamette (Leaf, 5.7% AA) at 50 min
• Yeast:
• Safale S-04 - English Ale Yeast (Whitbread strain)
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 2 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Citric Acid
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 148 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 90 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 68 F
• Primary Duration:
• 4 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.055 (Target 1.050)
• Efficiency:
• 76% (Target 68%)
• FG:
• 1.018 (Target 1.018)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 66% (Target 63%)
• ABV:
• 4.9% (Target 4.2%)

Brewing Notes:

• 9/26/20 - Made up about 1.5 lb of Invert #4.  I'd made #3 before which is a dark brown.  Apparently Invert #4 is cooked just up to the edge of being burnt and should be a fairly black color. 
• Used a 1.5 lb bag of Demerara sugar, 2 cups of spring water, and 1/4 tsp of Citric Acid

• Heated it on medium low for about 8 hr until it was basically black.  It has a slight bitter flavor along with dark fruit and caramel.  I pulled it before there was any sign of smoke - probably could have gone a bit longer.  My thermometer finally gave up today so no temperature reading to aid me

• 9/27/20 - Brewday - 11:50 AM to 4:15 PM - Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 5 gal of spring water and 2 gal of tap water up to 170 F
• Milled my grain.  Added the gypsum, CaCl, and Citric Acid (to try to compensate for no Acid malt) to the grain after milling
• Moved 5 gal of water to the mash tun and then cycled this through the RIMS and grant until the system settled at 160 F
• Stirred in the grain
• Let the mash settle for 10 min.  Cycled the RIMS at 150 F for 50 min.

• Brought 7 gal of water up to 180 F for the sparge
• Fly sparged until 9 gal had been collected
• Started to heat the wort at 4 gal and had at a boil before sparging ended
• Added the bittering hops

• The invert sugar had solidified into a soft mass.  Over the first 15 min of the boil I transferred boiling wort onto the sugar, dissolved a bit at a time, and poured that into the kettle.

• Added the 30 min hops
• Rehydrated my yeast in some room temperature spring water.  Lots of signs of activity 20 min later

• Added the Irish moss at 10 min
• At the scheduled end of the boil I found we were still at about 7 gal.  Extended the boil to be 90 min
• With 5 min left I added the wort chiller to sanitize.  Removed the bags of hops first
• Chilled the beer to 80 F
• Transferred into a bucket fermenter.  Let the beer fall a couple feet to aerate.  Pitched the yeast during this transfer
• Measured the gravity as 1.055
• Collected 6 gal of wort
• Moved this to the chest freezer to cool down to the desired starting fermentation temperature.  The freezer is currently cold crashing another beer so just left it in for a couple hrs and then move to ambient basement temperatures.
• 9/28/20 - The airlock is bubbling vigorously today and there is a thick layer of krausen on the beer.
• 10/23/20 - Transferred to a keg today and set it up to carbonate at 12 PSI.  Measured gravity as 1.018.  Had an extra quart which I'll drink now
• 11/22/20 - Tasting Notes - I really enjoy a roasty flavored beer and this is a very enjoyable one.  It think the balance of this recipe is quite nice - has a small bit of sweetness that prevents the roast and hop bitterness from becoming abrasive but is by no means a sweet beer.  Makes for very good drinkability.  There isn't anything extraordinary about the beer but it is boldly flavored and offers a good amount of complexity to go along with it's drinkability (quite a bit like a Guinness I would say).
• 12/8/20 - The keg has been kicked.  Sorry to see it go.  Was a very good beer.