Brewing a Porter

I’m going to brew the NB Urca vanilla porter, the instructions tell me to mash at 156. Do all dark beers mash that high?

Not necessarily, but if a dark beer gets too dry, it can have a burnt, acrid flavor to it. Some residual sugars help to balance the roasted malts, hence the high mash temperature.

It seems that for the most part we mash at 152. Man I have a lot to learn.

Basically lower temps will produce more fermentable wort, higher more body. The lower temp will be more “dry”, higher more sweet. For a vanilla Porter you would want a more sweet taste with the vanilla.

BTW If you are off a couple of degrees, you will never notice the difference. Ten degrees is a different story.

My Belgiums are mashed at 142… APA,IPA, 152+, dark brews up into 158… I can’t tell you for a fact that there is a difference as I use sugar in my belgiums and that dries it out…Sneezles61

Just finished brewing, the mash started at 157 and down to 153 after an hour hit my OG on the number at 1.061. I think it’s going to turn very good.

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Just plain old good fun to brew and the process goes as planned! Sneezles61

This will be the first time everything went as planned. You’re right @sneezles61 it was fun.

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