Crepuscular Porter
Fall is here – time to do away with the lighter summer beers and start brewing rich, dark, beers that warm the soul on cold winters nights. Dark beers – browns, porters, stouts, olde ales & Scottish exports – are among my favourite beers. Of these, porters top the list.
Porters are not a commonly encountered style – at least, not here in Canada. It is too bad – aside from being important historically, porters stand as one of the most diverse styles of beer out there. On one extreme porters are medium-brown in colour, differing from brown ales in their extra hoppiness. On the other extreme are dark porters – would-be stouts but for a bit more dark malt bitterness. Between those two extremes is a huge range of beers – sweet to dry, mild to hoppy, some with toasty nuttiness, others with the coffee-like flavour of roasted malts. Swap out the ale yeast, substitute a lager yeast and lager fermentation conditions, and you get a baltic porter – every bit as diverse as the ale version, but with the mellower nature of a larger replacing the flamboyance of ale yeasts. For the brave soul, one can take a sweet porter, subtract the hops, add in some/all of vanilla, wintergreen, licorice root, sarsaparilla root, nutmeg, anise, molasses, cinnamon, clove, or honey – and you have a real rootbeer. Alcoholic, richly flavoured, sweet and spicy. Its the great-grandpa of the soda enjoyed by so many.
Today’s brew is a middle-of-the-road Porter. Crepuscular Porter is named after crepuscular animals – animals active at twilight and at the dawn. Accordingly, this beer lacks the midnight blackness of darker porters and stouts, bearing a medium-brown colour (30SRM). With a hoppiness on the higher-end for the style (32IBU), 5% alcohol, and with a rich nuttiness imparted by a rarer adjunct grain – pale chocolate malt – this beer will be a nice brew to enjoy while racking leaves or while warming up after a chilly bike ride home from work.
More Below the Fold…
This brews signature ingredient is pale chocolate malt – unlike classical chocolate malt, it’s not as dark (300SRM instead of the usual 350-400), nuttier, and has less of a roasted character. This grain should provide this beer with a mellow nuttiness, well balanced with a bit of sweetness and a counterbalancing bitterness. Rounding out this brew are hints of roasted and toasted barley, black patent, and bitterness imparted by Northern Brewer and Cascade hops.
Recipe Specifications: Boil Size: 27.14 l Post Boil Volume: 22.88 l Batch Size (fermenter): 21.00 l Bottling Volume: 20.50 l Estimated OG: 1.050 SG Estimated Color: 29.6 SRM Estimated IBU: 31.9 IBUs Brewhouse Efficiency: 68.00 % Est Mash Efficiency: 71.2 % Boil Time: 90 Minutes Ingredients: Amt Name %/IBU 4.00 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) 74.9 % 0.45 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) 8.4 % 0.40 kg Chocolate Malt (Light) (300.0 SRM) 7.5 % 0.20 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) 3.7 % 0.16 kg Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) 3.0 % 0.10 kg Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) 1.9 % 0.03 kg Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) 0.5 % 18.00 g Northern Brewer [9.00 %] - Boil 90.0 min 21.6 IBUs 12.00 g Cascade [6.40 %] - Boil 90.0 min 10.2 IBUs 1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 mins) 1.0 pkg Nottingham Yeast Mash Schedule:
Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 5.34 kg ---------------------------- Name Description Step Temp Step Time Mash In 4.15 l of water at 73.5 C 66.7 C 60 min Sparge:
Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, 18.58l) of 75.6 C water