Chocolate Porter help

[Griff097]

Ok, so I am green as grass with brewing and I have been searching the forum and the net trying to find a supplier for all grain Chocolate Porter kits.

Am I being a numpty, do you have to buy all the different components separately or is there a supplier for crushed grain kits?

I enjoy a nice Chocolate or toffee porter, not tried a plum one yet and am keen to have a go myself, any suggestions much appreciated. :thumb:

 

[Ajhutch]

I've never brewed a chocolate porter so can't speak to the exact recipe, but both Geterbrewed and Malt Miller allow you to design custom grain kits so you wouldn't need to buy each individual malt. Geterbrewed has a forum discount code.


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[Zephyr259]

Have a read of this thread, it's a discussion of my chocolate cherry porter which truned out quite nice, and I intend to brew again without the cherry to see how the base beer is.

I've bought my malts online from the home brew shop, geterbrewed, the home brew company and the malt miller, as Ajhutch says, two of them do custom kits.

Best of luck.

 

[Snakeshack]

Feedback do a chocolate stout AG and extract kits

 

[Griff097]

Cheers guys, I will look into those tomorrow, left it too late for Christmas but there's all next year to think about :)

 

[GerritT]

Cheers guys, I will look into those tomorrow, left it too late for Christmas but there's all next year to think about :)

Try this: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/choconut-brown-porter/

I have one in the pantry in secondary right now.

 

[Zephyr259]

Cheers guys, I will look into those tomorrow, left it too late for Christmas but there's all next year to think about :)

Unless you're wanting something really strong you've plenty time before Christmas. 2 weeks primary then 2 weeks conditioning in the bottle will be drinkable, will probably continue to improve over weeks 3 and 4 in bottle. It's 8 weeks til Christmas so plenty of time to have tasty beer. I'm planning a saison for Christmas and I can't start it til the 2nd week of November, it's not going to be high abv and it'll be young but should still be good.

 

[Griff097]

Unless you're wanting something really strong you've plenty time before Christmas. 2 weeks primary then 2 weeks conditioning in the bottle will be drinkable, will probably continue to improve over weeks 3 and 4 in bottle. It's 8 weeks til Christmas so plenty of time to have tasty beer. I'm planning a saison for Christmas and I can't start it til the 2nd week of November, it's not going to be high abv and it'll be young but should still be good.

Am I right in thinking that they do get better with time though?

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
Having tried a bottle of Sam Smith's Chocolate Porter, I suggest you don't bother. Although I love porter and stout, this was not to my taste.

 

[Zephyr259]

Am I right in thinking that they do get better with time though?

Short version, yes beers will change over time, >5% won't only need 2 - 4 weeks in bottle to be great. Bigger beers can be aged but it's complicated (just read a book on the topic).

My brown ale was the most surprising, it was very clean tasteing and a bit disappointing at 2 weeks in bottle, then I went offshore for 12 days and when I came back it had developed all these chocolaty, malty flavours, I'd say it continued to develop for the first 6 weeks in bottle. The rest of my beers have been much more subtle in the changes. I start drinking all my standard strength brews after 2 weeks in bottle.

My wife was a star and bottled my porter last night, it was brewed 4th October, meant to be bottled a week and a half ago but things came up and I couldn't do it before heading back offshore. Apparently, it smells and tastes great already, so in another week or 2 it'll be carb'd and ready to drink, 5 weeks in all.

Strong beers need more aging to mellow, and things above 8% can be matured for years depending on the style. I can't remember who but someone on here likes making Russian Imperial Stouts, he likes them young but after about 6 months (i think) they change and develop a flavour he doesn't like. This flavour then goes away after the one year mark and he drinks them again.

 

[Clint]

Had this in an email from hb online...
Double chocolate oatmeal stout
4.5kg maris otter
700g choc malt
1 kg flaked oats
500g crystal malt
56g ekg
14g northern brewer
Mash 70°c 90 minute
Boil 60 minutes
28g ekg start
14g northern brewer start
28g ekg 50 minutes
Og 1070
Fg 1018
Abv approx 6.9

Haven't crunched the numbers but looks OK. ..

 

[Griff097]

Short version, yes beers will change over time, >5% won't only need 2 - 4 weeks in bottle to be great. Bigger beers can be aged but it's complicated (just read a book on the topic).

My brown ale was the most surprising, it was very clean tasteing and a bit disappointing at 2 weeks in bottle, then I went offshore for 12 days and when I came back it had developed all these chocolaty, malty flavours, I'd say it continued to develop for the first 6 weeks in bottle. The rest of my beers have been much more subtle in the changes. I start drinking all my standard strength brews after 2 weeks in bottle.

My wife was a star and bottled my porter last night, it was brewed 4th October, meant to be bottled a week and a half ago but things came up and I couldn't do it before heading back offshore. Apparently, it smells and tastes great already, so in another week or 2 it'll be carb'd and ready to drink, 5 weeks in all.

Strong beers need more aging to mellow, and things above 8% can be matured for years depending on the style. I can't remember who but someone on here likes making Russian Imperial Stouts, he likes them young but after about 6 months (i think) they change and develop a flavour he doesn't like. This flavour then goes away after the one year mark and he drinks them again.

Thanks for taking the time to explain that to me, it makes more sense now :)

Brewing like most things seems fairly simple at the start, but the more you get into it the more complicated it becomes with the various nuances of the techniques etc

I think I need to just get on and learn from my experiences to a certain extent, finding the time is the biggest thing.

My mate worked offshore but was away for 6 weeks at a time, sounded like a challenging way of life to me, but there have been huge redundancies in the industry the last few years, hope things are more stable for you.

 

[Griff097]

Had this in an email from hb online...
Double chocolate oatmeal stout
4.5kg maris otter
700g choc malt
1 kg flaked oats
500g crystal malt
56g ekg
14g northern brewer
Mash 70°c 90 minute
Boil 60 minutes
28g ekg start
14g northern brewer start
28g ekg 50 minutes
Og 1070
Fg 1018
Abv approx 6.9

Haven't crunched the numbers but looks OK. ..

When you say crunched the numbers, do you mean for your specific brew kit?

If say I were to use the above for a 23 liter brew, how would you split the volumes of wort for mashing/sparging?

Also why is full volume mashing not more popular, seems it would be easier or at least a high volume say 80% then a smaller sparge, I am sure there is a technical reason for this?

 

[Sadfield]

Hi!
Having tried a bottle of Sam Smith's Chocolate Porter, I suggest you don't bother. Although I love porter and stout, this was not to my taste.

Any chance you could list everything else you don't like? I could save a few of us from wasting our time. :lol:

 

[Bigcol49]

Any chance you could list everything else you don't like? I could save a few of us from wasting our time. :lol:

Hi!
:thumb:

 

[Griff097]

I have tried a few Chocolate Porters and quite liked them, also tempted to split the batch and have half in a barrel with some dark treakle and see how each turns out :)

 

[Zephyr259]

Thanks for taking the time to explain that to me, it makes more sense now :)

Brewing like most things seems fairly simple at the start, but the more you get into it the more complicated it becomes with the various nuances of the techniques etc

I think I need to just get on and learn from my experiences to a certain extent, finding the time is the biggest thing.

My mate worked offshore but was away for 6 weeks at a time, sounded like a challenging way of life to me, but there have been huge redundancies in the industry the last few years, hope things are more stable for you.

No problem. :-)

Brew is fairly simple, and you can approaching it form a standpoint of "here's my recipe and a set of timings" but a lot of people (especially ones who end up on a forum) tend to want to know more because that lets them make something that is truly their own. I'm a chemist at heart and find the history interesting so I delve pretty deeply into the topic, even though I've only been brewing for a little over a year.

Yeah, been a rough couple of years, not a lot of work 2015 then got laid off 2016, been back as a consultant for 6 months now but things are starting to look a bit more steady. Thanks. 6 week hitches sound awful, I do 3&3 and 3 weeks is long enough.

 

[Clint]

Yes it's for 23 litres. You'll need 2.5 litres of water per kg of grain for the mash. I heat to 79 to 80 c as the grain will drop the temp (for a 65 mash).The grain absorbs around 1.1 litre per kg,this is lost so then your sparge water plus your remaining wort leaves your pre boil volume. For your sparge volume you need to know boil off losses for your equipment and any kettle losses to trub and hops. If you are a little either way it's no big deal as you can top up or plumb for a slightly weaker beer.
It's all learning and establishing a set routine that works for you. Also learning what you can do with your equipment.