Baltic Porter

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Am planning to brew one for my next brew (all grain), I am a pretty experienced brewer got my brewlab diploma and some commercial experience, but for some reason this brew seems to be quite a challenge in making sure the malt bill works without making it into a stout. Its also a lager fermentation which again is fine as I have a keg fridge I can set to temp. I dont quite have access to the malts I would like so need to use carafa special for colour but no bitterness and munich, crystal 120 and brown malt no extra special here which I would have liked. Has anyone made one of these and can give some experience if it turned out to style and what malts you put in.
 
Izzy's 'Blackbird' is fantastic and isn't fermented as a lager (note the yeast), as a bonus it uses carafa special. You could perhaps sub the crystal 120 for caramunich and use slightly less crystal, as for the special B and chocolate wheat perhaps the brown malt would be acceptable, though not to style.

https://www.maltosefalcons.com/recipes/black-bird
 
Izzy's 'Blackbird' is fantastic and isn't fermented as a lager (note the yeast), as a bonus it uses carafa special. You could perhaps sub the crystal 120 for caramunich and use slightly less crystal, as for the special B and chocolate wheat perhaps the brown malt would be acceptable, though not to style.

https://www.maltosefalcons.com/recipes/black-bird
cheers will take a look
 
Attached the recipe I made, it was based off one I found online and first attempt at a baltic porter. I used a lager yeast and fermented at lager temps. It needed a huge starter but I didnt quite hit my OG so was a bit lower ABV in the end. I left at 6C for 6 weeks after kegging it but it definitely improved with a lot more aging. I bottled it after a couple of months as needed the keg and think I still have a few bottles left in the garage (according to brewfather it is now 273 days old).

It turned out decent, never tried any other baltic porter so not got anything to compare it to.
 

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  • Brewfather_Balticporter_20210302.pdf
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thanks for all the replies will go through, I am also planning a lager temp ferment with WLP830. Got a taste for these recently so hopefully I can do it justice
 
I've made a couple - the Greg Hughes one, and then last year the Josh Weikert one. Both were very good - it's possibly my favourite style I've brewed but strong so I try not to drink too many!

I'm not sure what recipe you were planning to use but I would recommend waiting until you can get the right ingredients, or at least something approaching the right ingredients. My thinking is it's a relatively big investment in terms of grain bill and conditioning time so do the job properly (Caramunich for example is about 45L I think and not a good substitute for Crystal 120L IMO - I have both, they taste completely different).

As you say, it's a lager fermentation so one would normally pitch extra yeast. But it's also a big beer so you may need extra extra yeast.

Main issue in my experience is dealing with the much larger grain bill than normal:
- I've never tried a reiterated mash but I would certainly consider it next time.
- Last big beer I did I used an overnight mash which I personally find increases the efficiency a bit.
- I also tried using a longer boil than normal to concentrate the wort more - you end up with a bit less less beer but my thinking is how much 8-9% ABV beer do I really need.

Take your time with it, be patient with the conditioning time and drink it when it's ready. Good luck 👍:beer1:
 
I've got a particularly pleasant BP drinking at the moment....2nd time I've brewed this recipe (developed over the course of around 6 brews)...(Recipe is for a 20L brew length from a Braumeister)...

Munich Malt (15 EBC) 4.1kg
Pilsner (4EBC) 2.0kg
Crystal 150 (175EBC) 0.15kg
Carafa Special 1 (900EBC) 0.1kg
Chocolate Malt (900EBC) 0.1kg
Munich II (23EBC) 0.1kg

Mash this lot at 67 degrees for an hour
Mash out for 15 mins at 78 degrees

In the boil I add...

0.85KG of Briess Munich LME (18EBC)

I need to do this because of the limitations of the Braumeister where mash efficiency drops significantly when you start exceeding 6.5kg of grain in the malt pipe. Its purely a method of getting the required gravity. If you mash in a system that allows you to mash more than 7kg then you dont need to add the LME....just up the Munich in the mash.

For hops...

Magnum (10.7%) 22g for 60 minutes to give 21 IBU
Saaz (4.4%) 15g for 15 minutes - 3 IBU
Saaz (4.4%) 20g for 5 minutes - 1.6 IBU

Ferment with Wyeast 2206 (Bavarian Lager) at 11 degrees for 7 days before rising to 15 degrees for 4 days, then cool to 4 degrees, rack to secondary and "lager" for 5 weeks before packaging. (For a BP you will need to make a starter to grow your yeast)

Vital statistics you ar looking for...

OG: 1072
FG: 1017
ABV: 7.2%
Bitterness: 26 IBU
Colour: 43 EBC

(Looking back....this isn't too dissimilar to xozzx's recipe with the exception that I've chosen to use more traditional European hops.)
 

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