Straightforward · 20 litres · all grain
English Porter
Brown rather than black, and built on brown and chocolate malt rather than roast barley. Historically the beer that built the London brewing industry, and still the most drinkable dark beer there is.
Original gravity
1.050
at 72% efficiency
Final gravity
1.013
74% apparent attenuation
Alcohol
4.9%
by volume
Bitterness
25 IBU
Tinseth
Colour
26.3 SRM
52 EBC, Morey
Grain bill
4.65 kg
0.23 kg per litre
Brewed to English Porter, and all five computed figures land inside the published ranges for it.
OG inFG inABV inIBU inSRM inWhat decides this beer
Leaving out the roasted barley. Roast barley makes a stout; a porter's darkness comes from brown and chocolate malt, and that is the whole distinction between the two families.
Fermentables
| Malt | Weight | Colour | Extract | Of grist |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maris Otter | 3.70 kg | 3 L | 37 ppg | 80% |
| Brown malt The historical heart of the style. Dry and roasty without the acridity of black malt. | 0.35 kg | 65 L | 32 ppg | 8% |
| Chocolate malt | 0.30 kg | 350 L | 28 ppg | 6% |
| Crystal 60L | 0.30 kg | 60 L | 34 ppg | 6% |
Colour and extract are read from the malt reference, not typed into this recipe, so they are the same figures every other page on the site uses.
Crushing your ownGrain mill$92.90Hop schedule
| Hop | Weight | Alpha | Time | Contributes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| East Kent Goldings | 34 g | 5% | 60 min | 19.6 IBU |
| Fuggle | 20 g | 4.5% | 15 min | 5.1 IBU |
Alpha acid varies by crop year and lot, which is why it lives on the recipe rather than on the variety. Brew to the figure printed on your packet and the bitterness will move; the IBU calculator will tell you by how much.
Method
- 01Mash at 67C for 60 minutes.
- 02Boil 60 minutes on the schedule above.
- 03Ferment at 19C.
- 04Package at 2.0 volumes. It is ready in three weeks and better at six.
Numbers for the day
- Mash
- 67 C for 60 min
- Strike water at 3 L/kg
- 73.4 C
- Strike volume
- 13.9 L
- Boil
- 60 min
- Ferment
- 18-20 C
- Carbonate to
- 2.0 volumes
- Priming dextrose
- 89 g
- Yeast
- English AleSafAle S-04
Strike temperature assumes grain at 20C and priming assumes the beer peaked at 20C after fermentation. Recompute both for your own kitchen on the strike and priming calculators.
For the mashDigital thermometer$12.31
For the fermentTemperature controller$36.00Before you package
Take a gravity reading two days apart and only package when it has not moved. A beer bottled while still fermenting keeps fermenting in the bottle, and the sugar you prime with lands on top of whatever was left. At 2.0 volumes this one needs about 89 g of dextrose for the batch.
To know it has finishedHydrometer and trial jar$21.99