Need help with hoppy porter

Hi Gang,

I got my signals crossed and might have overdone the Magnum hops. Here were my ingredients for a 2.5 gallon batch. This was to have been similar to our host’s St. Paul Porter.

3.15 pounds dark LME
.5 pounds dark DME
.25 pounds crystal 80
.25 pounds chocolate malt
1 oz of Magnum hops (60 min)
.5 oz of Cascade hops (2 min)

I just put it in the fermenter this afternoon.

Any suggestions for what I think could be an overly bitter porter?

Yeah, it looks like this one’s gonna be a little on the bitter side. The ST Paul porter is one of my favorite NB recipes though. My favorite tweak to it was to add about a half pound of lactose and a tincture of vanilla bean at bottling (5 gallon batch). This might be an option for you since, (in my horribly inexperienced beer-making mind), the sweet might help to offset the bitter a little. But things don’t always work like that in the real beer world, so I will be interested to see what those who are more experienced than I have to contribute.

As a side note, the last St Paul I brewed turned out a little on the hoppy side, and it’s very good. As a matter of fact, I introduce it to friends as a “hoppy porter”. So I guess it could be good as is. In any case, best of luck and keep us posted.

:cheers:

Ron

I think you should brew up another batch with no bittering hops and blend.

I wouldn’t worry about the bitterness of the porter. If you want to tinker with this batch I suggest doing a dry hop…it will still be bitter but the dry hop will help move the focus.

You could steep some more chocolate malt and add until you feel it cancels some of the bitterness. I am believing that chocolate malt doesn’t add any fermentables. Use another .25 of a pound and a quart of water, steep, cool and add maybe a cup at a time and taste. Sneezles61

I still think if you want that beer to resemble the recipe kit you should blend. That recipe calls for 1oz of cluster for bittering you used magnum which is double the Alfa acid of cluster. So leave the beer in secondary and brew up another batch minus the bittering hops everything else the same after that fermentation is finished rack them both to your keg or bottling bucket. This will be pretty close to what you were trying to make. If you don’t care about making the original you might try one or both of the above suggestions. The other thing you could do is leave it alone try it when it’s done and maybe you like it, if not you could try to blend it in the glass. Keep us posted, it’s a interesting dilemma.

Bottle it and age it for a long time. It’s going to be a bitter one.

Perhaps you could add some chocolate or cocoa nibs to the secondary or to the primary after fermentation is done; sweeten it up some.

this. An overly bitter porter will be gross, as it will overwhelm all the malt character. And it won’t age out either.

Bonus though that you get to brew again and will have twice as much of it!

this. An overly bitter porter will be gross, as it will overwhelm all the malt character. And it won’t age out either.

Bonus though that you get to brew again and will have twice as much of it![/quote]
It’ll mellow with age.

Magnum is a very smooth hop and the beer may not be as overly bitter as you expect.

I use magnum a lot but I believe 1 oz in 2.5 gallons will be over 100 IBUs which is way to much for a porter IMO. I may be wrong though I’ll be interested in the posters opinion when he tastes it. Heck he can put a bunch of dry hops in it and call it a black IPA it s just not going to be what he was trying to make. Interesting dilemma.

Another good idea, among many. Learn from my error while pretending it was all planned.
Sort of like Barny Fife. But I’m from North Carolina so that works was well.
And hey, I like the occasional black IPA anyway. Thanks!

I think you should brew up another batch with no bittering hops and blend.

This is a very good idea. Thanks. Sadly, my time and fermenters are running short and I must, I say must make some summer beer before summer is over down here. :slight_smile:

I’ll post what I do and how it turns out. Thanks to all for the great ideas!

[quote=“MitchInNC”]I think you should brew up another batch with no bittering hops and blend.
This is a very good idea. Thanks. Sadly, my time and fermenters are running short and I must, I say must make some summer beer before summer is over down here. :slight_smile:
[/quote]

Brew a mildly hopped pilsner like beer and use part of it to blend for a black and tan.

Well, I left it in primary for 4 weeks and tasted it. It’s bitter. No surprise there. :expressionless:
So I added .3 pounds of lactose along with 3/8 cup of table sugar for conditioning. Then I tasted again before bottling. That did make it taste better. We’ll see how she is in a few weeks. I’ll pop one at two weeks and then maybe 1 a week for a couple more weeks.

I did something similar with a Mild ages ago. I had an over-hopped, over roasted barley-ed beer that was at 2.8% ABV and I was angry and debating dumping the whole thing.

Instead I put it in my basement. When I was about to move out I decided to try it before I left it as a surprise for the next renters and it was really good. It was still bitter, light and roasted tasting but it worked.

Just set it to the side and forget about it until you remember it again.

We popped a couple after 2.5 weeks. It’s bitter but not bad. I’m sure that the lactose helped. Next time, I’ll do it right. For this, I’m gonna leave the rest for a few weeks in hopes of even more improvement.
Now, what to do with the lactose I have left over… :?: