With Mike posting the recipes of the beers he is going to brew this weekend, here is my autumn brew for 2007. I am bringing back the extract, baby, yeah! So all you beginners can follow along with me.
Maple Porter
Ingredients:
5.5 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract
1.5 lbs Crystal Malt (60 degrees lovibond)
1/2 lbs Black Patent Malt
64 oz Grade B Maple Syrup
2.5 oz Styrian Golding Hop Pellets
Step By Step
I will crush the Crystal and Black Patent malts and put them into a steeping bag. Since I have a kettle that can handle a full 6 gallon boil, I will let them steep in that volume of water. (If you just have a big pot, let them steep in 1.5 gallons of water or whatever you can handle on your stove top). To steep, I’ll place the bag of grains into the water and heat it up to 170 degrees. Once it hits that temperature, I will take the bag out and hold it over the kettle until all the liquid has flowed out of the bag. I won’t squeeze the bag or force liquid out of it in any way because everything I have ever read has told me not to do that for fear of yucky flavors in my beer. No squeezing! No tannins!
I guess tannin flavor is bad in beer.
Once the bag is out, I’ll be turning up the heat and bringing the liquid to a boil. After the boil is reached, I will add all of my Light Dry Malt Extract and 1 ounce of my hop pellets. These additions will kill my boil (wah), so I will wait until it comes up for a boil again. When the boil comes back, I will set my stop watch. I want to get a rolling boil going for 60 minutes.
At the 30 minute mark, I will add 1 more ounce of my hop pellets.
At 15 minutes left to go, I will add the last bit of my hop pellets and all of the maple syrup.
When the hour is up, I will kill the heat and cool down the wort to fermentation temperatures…around 70 degrees.
I will transfer the wort to my fermentor and then add my yeast.
Thoughts
I like porters. I like maple syrup. I have never had a maple porter before, but something about it shouts “Autumn in New England” with the maple leaves changing colors and the crisp air blowing through them.
I chose Grade B maple syrup because:
- It has a strong maple flavor
- It’s used mostly in cooking
- You need to use a lot in brewing to taste it
- Using a lot means buying a lot, which means $$$$
So, I am trying to get the most maple flavor for my buck. All the beer recipe calculators were thrown off by my maple syrup addition, so I backed off the malt extract a bit. I am hoping that the maple syrup gives me enough fermentable sugars to compensate for the reduced malt amount. (I would normally have at least 6 pounds of malt extract in a recipe.)
The hops I chose used often in the Porters. They are produced in Slovenia…so a little variation on the theme of this English style ale. I am hoping the amount will balance out the sweetness of the malts and syrup.
The yeast strain I chose for this recipe I used before for a Porter I made two years ago and I was happy with the results. It made for a beer with a nice, soft finish.
Not sure how this beer is going to taste and Mike doesn’t like maple, so I might get stuck with a lot of bad beer. Here’s to being optimistic! I hope to brew this beer some time in September.
See comments (#4) for updates to this recipe.
Rick
I’m getting ready to brew an Oatmeal Maple Porter. I’m not sure if anyone has ever done this, but my wife wanted a maple beer, and I want an oatmeal beer, so I’m combining some of your ingredients with an oatmeal porter I found online. If you are interested, you can check out the recipe on my blog at TheBrewBlog.com. I’m planning for this brew for Monday, December 3rd, 2007, so look for the article shortly after that date.
John
If I were to brew this recipe again, I would add a half pound of chocolate malt and I would add the half gallon of maple syrup to a secondary fermenter. I think these changes would make the beer even better.
Promisland brewer
Brewing one of these there maple porters myself but am finding, despite the facts that grade b works better you get a better flavor if you use a little extra dark malt and smoke the grd. A maple syrup and also used the smoked syrup for priming
Maltymadness
I have made maple porter before, but instead of using water I was fortunate enough to use concentrated maple sap. We have a sugaring operation the concentrated maple sap adds flavor and color. Additonal mable syrup was used as well. It was not overpoweringly maple, but just enough. I suggest if you can tap some maple trees to try making a batch with some concentrated maple sap.
Richard
Hi John,
I’m the founder of http://www.maplesyrupworld.com/ and we would love to add your recipes to our site, Give us a shout!
Richard
John
Hi Richard,
Please do.
John
Jay
“No squeezing! No tannins!”
Uhhh…. steeping 2 lbs of malt in a full 6 gallons will also leach tannins.
The rule of thumb that I remember is no more than about 1 gallon per pound.
John
Hey Jay,
I didn’t get any tannins in the finished beer, so rule of thumb or not I don’t think it matters much.
The “No squeezing” line is more of a comment on all the literature I was reading at the time where it seemed like you would lose your arm and first born if you dared to squeeze the grain bag.
I should do an experiment to see exactly what you need to do to extract tannins from your grains and make them a part of your beer’s flavor profile. I think you would need to do some over the top stuff to make it happen.
Doug
How long did you have this in the primary and secondary fermenters?
John
Doug – I would keep it in primary for two weeks and let it sit in secondary for two weeks to a month.
Bill
Just curious what you used for yeast. guessing Irish or English ale?
John
Hey Bill – I used White Labs WLP002.
Joe
I did this recipe but added a couple extra things when I added the maple syrup.I added applewood that I soaked in bourbon, vanilla beans, whole nutmeg, and star anise. Turned out amazing!
John
Hey Joe – that does sound amazing!