Extract Porters - brown malt?

I’m researching recipes that I want to brew down the line and I wanted to try my hand at extract brewing using steeped grains before I move on to AG.

One thing I really want to brew is a Porter. One recipe I really want to try calls for Brown malt and has pale malt as the base along with some roasted barley and smidge of black malt. Would I be ok fudging it by using amber DME instead of the brown malt as I’ve read that brown malt needs to be mashed instead of steeped? Maybe I could add some crystal to the bill?

Or maybe I’m straying too far and I should find an extract porter recipe before I go all mad-scientist with my brews and maybe leave this recipe for when I eventually go AG

The Home Brew Company has a brown Porter extract kit which involves steeping the brown malt.

http://www.thehomebrewcompany.co.uk/hbc-full-extract-porter-23lt-p-1691.html

I once did a porter myself in this way and it worked - I got the flavour from the brown malt. It is a malt that has a powerful flavour and I've found the beer needs ageing for 3 months or so - it becomes really tasty once it has mellowed out.

Interesting. Thanks for the reply @clibit

From what I've read I'm pretty sure Brown malt needs to be mashed as it contributes starches but has no enzymes of its own to convert it? Would that lead to starch haze in the final beer?

Just reading another topic about it and someone has suggested throwing some base malt in with it to do a mini mash at 150F instead of 170F steeping temps. I'd assume I'd need to drop a portion of DME from the grain bill to account for this otherwise I'd end up with a higher OG.

I'm all for trying this after my first extract brew as it sounds like a nice little step towards AG and learning the mashing process, but is it a sound idea?

Also, ageing for 3 months?! Damn..that's a lot of time invested to see whether it turns out ok! Is that typical for porters?

ProjectBeer said:

Alsoageing for 3 months?! Damnthat's a lot of time invested to see whether it turns out ok! Is that typical for porters?

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I regularly make a BIAB Fullers London Porter (which has brown in the receipe) and its the Poodle's Privates after about 6 weeks conditioning

Doing a mini mash is the best way to do it. But haze in a porter is not really a problem, if it does create haze. And you are not looking for a sugar contribution from the brown malt, you will pick up a lot of flavour from steeping, I've done it. It's not meant to work, but it does. If you want colour and flavour, and accept you won't get any sugar contribution.

Any beer with roasted malts will mellow and (opinion) improve with some ageing. Brown malt particularly so, in my experience. I think it's possibly a good idea to cut the amount you use, reduce the dominance of the brown malt (10% is a lot), and allow it to take an equal footing with the other roasted grains in the recipe. Just my thinking. I made a pale ale that included a little brown malt once, and it was good. The brown malt still had a strong presence. Around 125 grams in 12 litres I think.

Yea I guess haze in a dark beer doesn't matter too much!

I haven't decided exactly on which recipe I want to use (there are a few versions), but the Brown malt varies between 13% and 19% - would that suggest that it contributes more than just colour and flavour?

The style I'm trying to go for is an India Porter (Barclay Perkins 1855 recipe), but using cascade and columbus hops instead of EKG - basically trying to get close to Kernel's Export India Porter which I love.

Does the Kernel India Porter use American hops?

If you use pale extract and steep the grains, then assume zero sugar contribution. In an AG brew the brown malt would contribute some sugars. but not when you steep them for an extract brew.

Like I said, though, your best option is a mini mash. In fact, if I was you, I'd make a small AG batch using the simple AG method I wrote for the how-to guide section of the forum. You will be amazed how good a porter or stout can be when you make it this way, on your cooker, in a big pan. I am pretty confident that some of my attempts are on a par with the Kernel one, and I'm no brewing wizard. My first ever stout was my first ever AG and I fell off the chair when I tasted it. If you make a 10 litre batch, you could get about 28 x 330ml bottles from it. It's easy, much more rewarding, and as good as you'll get. Just get the yeast choice right. Kernel uses US-05. A guy I know worked there as an 'intern' for a while!

clibit said:

Does the Kernel India Porter use American hops?

If you use pale extract and steep the grains, then assume zero sugar contribution. In an AG brew the brown malt would contribute some sugars. but not when you steep them for an extract brew.

Like I said, though, your best option is a mini mash. In fact, if I was you, I'd make a small AG batch using the simple AG method I wrote for the how-to guide section of the forum. You will be amazed how good a porter or stout can be when you make it this way, on your cooker, in a big pan. I am pretty confident that some of my attempts are on a par with the Kernel one, and I'm no brewing wizard. My first ever stout was my first ever AG and I fell off the chair when I tasted it. If you make a 10 litre batch, you could get about 28 x 330ml bottles from it. It's easy, much more rewarding, and as good as you'll get. Just get the yeast choice right. Kernel uses US-05. A guy I know worked there as an 'intern' for a while!

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Totally agree here. I mostly make stouts and porters. I think dark ales are more forgiving than the lighter ales as flaovurs from the darker grains seems to hide any mistakes. My daker beers are far superior to any of the pale ales ive tried to do. Personally I think the darker beers are easier to make than the pale ales as you've got nowhere to hide with the pale ales if something goes wrong. This is why I thing the coopers stout for e.g is so popular as it's so easy to get right

clibit said:

Does the Kernel India Porter use American hops?

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Yup it does! The copy writing is the same on most sites that sell the Export India Porter:

The Export India Porter relates to porter in similar manner to the way the IPA relates to the Pale Ale: they added more hops. We've taken Barclay Perkins recipe from 1855, but changed the hops to Columbus and Cascade (American varieties) and hopped it in the same way that we hop our IPAs. The result is a dark brown beer that smells of cocoa, roses, and some orange. The body is quite light, and it is carbonated more highly than usual for a porter to make it more refreshing. It's quite light in texture and tastes of Turkish delight dusted with cocoa powder – chocolate, rose water and fruit. Dry finish.


I was initially thinking about making this recipe AG due to the grain bill, and in the back of my mind I was going to leave it until I'd had a bit more experience, but then I had a bottle of it the other day and I wanted to get cracking! Probably going to pick up some more bottles from their brewery soon as they're only 20 minutes door to door from me.

It's still a ways off in terms of when I'll brew it, as I've got my Beavertown Gamma Ray extract clone that I want to do next. So I've got maybe about a month before I get round to it. So plenty of time to research and decide how to go about it - I'll keep this thread updated as I'm sure I'll want to check a few things along the way.

Good to know about the forgivingness of porters and stouts! I do want to make a black IPA as well at some point as well as a rye IPA (seeing a trend here? I love them hops!) before branching out and trying something else.

When I use to use extract I would always use light extract even in my porters, and use other dark grains (chocolate, black patent...) in a mini mash.
People always loved them, dark & flavorful.
Have fun experiment! Go all mad scientist! That is what make brewing so much fun.

MyQul said:

Totally agree here. I mostly make stouts and porters. I think dark ales are more forgiving than the lighter ales as flaovurs from the darker grains seems to hide any mistakes. My daker beers are far superior to any of the pale ales ive tried to do. Personally I think the darker beers are easier to make than the pale ales as you've got nowhere to hide with the pale ales if something goes wrong. This is why I thing the coopers stout for e.g is so popular as it's so easy to get right

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My fave's at present are darker brews for sure.

The last stout I did was a Coopers Stout plus a Wlko Stout, plus 150 Chocolate Malt and 150 Roast Barley, steeped and boiled with 40g Junga hops (because they cost me 1p per gram).

It's not just that it is a good beer to drink in its own right, it's that if you add one to a paler ale, or a cider, it always seems to enhance it. Without exception.

A good, dark stout has to be a fundamental element of any garage full of beer.