>Porter #1 (London Porter) Recipe & Tasting

>After reading about White Labs’ Yorkshire Square yeast, I was intrigued by the description:

This yeast produces a beer that is malty, but well-balanced. Expect flavors that are toasty with malt-driven esters. Highly flocculent and good choice for English pale ales, English brown ales, and mild ales.

I’m a huge proponent of all yeasts English (WLP002 is my go-to yeast for just about everything), and it sounded like this one could make a tasty, malt-forward American Pale Ale. Frankly, the pale I made with it turned out to be pretty meh (I have issues with the excess of minerals in my ground water – more on this later), but the Samuel Smith Taddy Porter-inspired English Brown Porter I made with the washed yeast turned out to be dang tasty! It ended up a bit drier and roastier than the Sam Smith, but I’m still enjoying the heck out of it.

2011-011 Porter #1 (London Porter)

Brewed: 02/23/11

Racked to secondary: n/a

Kegged/Bottled: 03/02/11

Ready: 03/02/11

Batch Info

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Batch Size: 2.5 Gallons

Extraction Efficiency: 84%

OG: 1.049

FG: 1.011

IBU: 22

SRM: 32.5

Boil Length: 90 Minutes

Grain Bill

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UK Maris Otter: 3lb 8oz (75.7%)

US Chocolate Malt: 6oz (8.1%)

UK Brown Malt:6oz (8.1%)

US Caramel 80 Malt: 4oz (5.4%)

UK Black Malt: 2oz (2.7%)

Hop Bill

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UK East Kent Goldings (5.5%AA): 8 grams (12.8 IBU) @ 90 minutes

UK East Kent Goldings (5.6%AA): 8 grams (6.9 IBU) @ 30 minutes

UK East Kent Goldings (5.9%AA): 7 grams (2.3 IBU) @ 5 minutes

(variance in alpha acid due to use of two batches of hops with different AA)

Other

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Whirlfloc (1 Tablet) @ 15 minutes

Servomyces (1 gelcap) @ 15 minutes

Water

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Carbon filtered San Bernardino ground water

Yeast

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White Labs WLP037 Yorkshire Square Ale Yeast

500ml starter @ 1.040

Mash Schedule

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Sacch Rest: 154F for 60 minutes

Batch Sparge

Fermentation Schedule

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Pitch @ 66F

Finished @ ~69F in 5 days

Carbonation

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Shook for 30 seconds @ 30 Psi, let sit under pressure 1 hour.

Notes

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1. First time using UK Brown malt. I’ve read grist percentages of up to 35%, but I decided to go easy.

2. Starter was very active due to super fresh harvested yeast.

Tasting

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Appearance: Very dark brown, bordering on black. A bit darker than I had hoped, but still a good looking beer. Light tan head leaves some light lacing, and has fair staying power.

Aroma: Dark chocolate. Big toasty notes. The brown malt adds an interesting toasty/roasty character I like very much. Bready. A bit of smoke perhaps?

Taste: Chocolate first, with caramel quickly backing it up. More toast/biscuit in the mid-palate. A touch metallic (thanks, San Berdoo….)

Mouthfeel: Medium body. Pretty long finish. Slightly too much carbonation leaves it a bit drier than I expected.

Thoughts: For a recipe I threw together relatively quickly, this turned out very well! Unfortunately, I didn’t harvest the yeast, so this is a one-time batch, but I’ll definitely do another round with my preferred WLP002 to see how it turns out.

A note on recipe naming: I group my recipes by style, and then name each recipe individually. I also number each batch by year and sequence within that year (so 2011-011 Porter #1 [London Porter] is the 11th batch brewed in 2011, and the first porter recipe I’ve formulated.) I’ll write recipes out of pure boredom (I have almost a dozen Saison recipes), so If the order is odd, or a number is missing, that’s why.

Cheers!

Matt