Yet another Porter

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I_used_to_brew
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Re: Yet another Porter

Post by I_used_to_brew »

MapperMatt wrote:109 and 122 both state that you need a brewing enzyme to get mash properly. I've always wondered how true this would be with modern malts.
I understand that Brown and Amber are not Diastatic and so I could see those two recipes needing this 'enzyme' hence why I decided to have around 50% pale malt. Pale malt should be able to convert an equal quantity of Amber and Brown, which it seemed to. I reckon you could push it further. Pale Amber, I think you can sub with Munich, sure I read that on Barclay Perkins somewhere.
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MapperMatt
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Re: Yet another Porter

Post by MapperMatt »

Pale Amber, I think you can sub with Munich, sure I read that on Barclay Perkins somewhere.
Hmmm yeah I read that, its in the back of the Durden book. You can sub to get the same colour but not flavour I reckon
Capn Ahab
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Re: Yet another Porter

Post by Capn Ahab »

Aren't those Durden Park recipes from the days when brown malt was diastatic? I thought that brown malt gradually got phased out after the discovery that coke could be used to kiln malt quickly and smokelessly, which then lead to the invention of pale malt. Therefore those recipes are potentially describing a very different product to that which is available to us now - wood toasted, smoky, diastatic and coming in a variety of shades of brown.

I can't imagine what this will end up like, but given that current brown malt is not meant to be a base malt, and is pretty roasty/toasty, this beer may be like supping on ashtray or heavy bitter coffee. Either way, astringency is likely to be high IMO. Guess we'll see at the winter warmer comp eh?
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Capn Ahab
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Re: Yet another Porter

Post by Capn Ahab »

MapperMatt wrote:
Pale Amber, I think you can sub with Munich, sure I read that on Barclay Perkins somewhere.
Hmmm yeah I read that, its in the back of the Durden book. You can sub to get the same colour but not flavour I reckon
Again, what Barclay Perkins may be on about is diastatic amber malt, which is not commercially produced anymore, and I imagine was a slightly darker kilned pale malt (hence 'amber') with a corresponding extra malty kick (like Munich). Current amber malt is like a lighter version of brown malt. It is toasty with coffee notes. Contrary to what lots of people spout online, it is NOTHING LIKE biscuit malt or Munich malt. This is easily verified by buying a bag of the stuff and having a chew on it in a side by side comparison with other said malts. Apparently the confusion comes from a malt produced in Belgium called Belgian Amber that is a good sub for Belgian biscuit malt.
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I_used_to_brew
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Re: Yet another Porter

Post by I_used_to_brew »

Nobody knows what these early beers were like and with modern malts you can probably be close in colour but not in flavour, but you never know. In the DP book the story about the 86 year old woman would make you think the flavours aren't far off :)

Pale Amber according to DP can be substituted by "Scotch malt" but they don't elaborate any further.

I know very little apart from enjoying the book, Matt, SteveW and Colin are the guys with experience.

Maybe good for next years WW comp, the maturation times on these old beers seems lengthy.

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alikocho
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Re: Yet another Porter

Post by alikocho »

Capn Ahab wrote: Current amber malt is like a lighter version of brown malt. It is toasty with coffee notes. Contrary to what lots of people spout online, it is NOTHING LIKE biscuit malt or Munich malt. This is easily verified by buying a bag of the stuff and having a chew on it in a side by side comparison with other said malts. Apparently the confusion comes from a malt produced in Belgium called Belgian Amber that is a good sub for Belgian biscuit malt.
The confusion is definitely there (and I think a reason why a number of English Pale Ales at the National showed a rather heavy-handed use of Amber Malt), and is a misreading of two Belgian maltsters producing a product with different names.

Biscuit Malt is produced by Dingeman's. FrancoBelge produce a similar product called Amber Malt as Biscuit is a proprietary term owned by Dingeman's. These two are effectively interchangeable.

In the US, Briess produce an equivalent called Victory.
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MapperMatt
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Re: Yet another Porter

Post by MapperMatt »

I thought that brown malt gradually got phased out after the discovery that coke could be used to kiln malt quickly and smokelessly, which then lead to the invention of pale malt. Therefore those recipes are potentially describing a very different product to that which is available to us now - wood toasted, smoky, diastatic and coming in a variety of shades of brown.
I don't think that most of the recipes are based on wood kilned brown malt. Breweries like Whitbread would have been using coke for most of the 19th century, so beers like the 1850 porter would have used brown malt that was kilned with coke.

Porter evolved from the early wood kilned 100% brown malt grists in the 18th century to become the first 'mass produced' beer of the working classes using pale malt as the base malt for the grist. It also varied regionally across the UK. Town porter was different to country porters and Scottish Porters were different to English porters. The Durden book doesn't go into much detail on this sort of thing in the recipes, so as you suggest we have to wait and see what the beers turn out like!

What I don't really have a handle on is why amber brown malts stopped being diastatic?
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I_used_to_brew
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Re: Yet another Porter

Post by I_used_to_brew »

Anyway, it's only a beer, it'll taste just fine. When I eventually bring it along to BCB I'll make it clear it's a pseudo-Victorian porter and there will be no obligation to try it :)
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Re: Yet another Porter

Post by I_used_to_brew »

Bit slow, down to 1.030 in 10 days, still going.
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I_used_to_brew
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Re: Yet another Porter

Post by I_used_to_brew »

1.021, dropped the yeast and kegged it. Quite interesting out of the FV, going to need some maturation time :-0
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