Historical English Porter

I recently kicked my keg of Milk Stout.  I've decided to always have an English Style beer in one of my 4 kegs and really enjoyed having a dark, roasty beer, so I've decided to try an English Porter to refill it.  I've decided to make another historical recipe from the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins Blog:  1881 Whitbread Porter.  

I have made quite a few beers based on these old recopies and have never had a bad one.  They often have some unusual ingredient choices which make things interesting  In this case, the beer is fairly aggressively hopped with low AA% hops (Hallertau and Goldings).  I guess they didn't have the strong bittering hops we have available today.  From previous beer it seems like the large amount of low AA hops produce a different effect than you'd get when bittering with a high AA hop.

The beer uses a brown malt and a black malt for color and flavor.  No caramel malts in this one.  I've used Brown Malt in the past and find it pretty interesting (most modern stouts wouldn't use it most likely).  Here post brew, I can say it produces a beer that is more of a dark reddish brown than black.  I'm shooting for a 1.055 beer here that ferments all the way down to 1.010 for a 5.9% ABV.  We'll be mashing at 150 F to help it take it down that fall.

The one change I'm making to the recipe is to use the Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale yeast rather than the Whitbread strain (S04) since I had it on hand.  This yeast is a fair amount different in flavor to the Whitbread strain but is still a very nice yeast - I don't think I can go wrong here.

Anyway, I hope to keg this beer in a few weeks and be drinking it by the end of the month.

This is how I determine my volume of wort

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 11 lb 2 Row
• 1 lb Brown
• 0.75 lb Black
• 2 oz Acid
• Hops:
• 3 oz Hallertau (Pellet, 4% AA) at 60 min
• 3 oz EKG (Pellet, 4.5% AA) at 30 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale (2nd Pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 2 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 Gal
• Mash:
• 150 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Ambient Basement Temperature (low 60s)
• Primary Duration:
• 3 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.055 (Target 1.055)
• Efficiency:
• 72% (Target 72%)
• FG:
• 1.012 (Target 1.010)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 77% (Target 81%)
• ABV:
• 5.6% (Target 5.9%)

Brewing Notes:

• 12/31/21 - Made a yeast starter using 100g of DME and 1 L of spring water.  My jar of yeast slurry has been in the fridge since January 2021.  Hopefully a 1 step starter will bring it back to life

• 1/1/22 - Brewday - from 12:00 PM to 4:30 PM - Including Cleanup
• Brought 8 gal of strike water up to 180 F
• Milled my grain.  Added the CaCl and Gypsum to the milled grain so I wouldn't forget

• Added 6 gal of strike water to the mash tun and then cycled through the RIMS until the temperature was down to 160 F
• Added the grain and stirred well to eliminate doughballs.  Let this settle for 10 min
• Cycled the beer through the RIMS at 151 F for the next 50 min

• Heated 8 gal of sparge water to 185 F
• At the end of the mash did a fly sparge until 5 gal were collected.  Started heating the boil kettle after collecting 3 gal and had it at a boil shortly after collecting 5 gal
• Topped up the mash tun with hot water and let sit for 10 min.  Then did another modified fly sparge until we were up to 8 gal.  Kept the drain rate slow enough to maintain the boil
• Added the bittering hops once the hot break had cleared

• Added the 30 min hops
• Added Irish Moss at 15 min
• Decided to extend the boil by 5 min to get down to the 6 gal target
• Added the wort chiller to sanitize with a few min left in the boil
• Chilled the beer down to 65 F (ground water is cold this time of year which is nice)
• Drained the kettle into the fermenter - let it fall a couple feet to aerate.  Pitched the yeast during the transfer

• Collected 6 gal.  Measured the gravity as 1.055.  Right on target.
• Left the fermenter in the basement to do it's business
• 1/2/22 - The airlock was bubbling away by late this morning (I'd been a bit worried about the health of the 1 year old yeast but it worked out for me this time).
• 1/22/22 - Kegged the beer today.  Measured the gravity as 1.012.
• 2/27/22 - Tasting Notes - A richly flavored dark beer.  Has a good amount of complexity and is fairly easy drinking.  At 5.6% I can have a couple of these and not feel too much of an effect.  I really enjoy having a dark, roasty, beer on tap.
• 6/1/22 - Kicked this keg.  Very sorry to see it go.