Comments on grove's beer log: Brew #47: Imperial Porter

ted,Yes I do think that the beer will be somewhat ...

2007-04-20T23:32:00.000+02:00

ted,

Yes I do think that the beer will be somewhat sweet, and balanced by a soft roastedness. This is intentional. You're right that it has some similarities with a Schwartzbier hadn't it been for the high gravity, the crystal malts and the ale yeast.

I haven't actually used debittered malts before (husks have been removed). This will supposedly give a smoother roastedness than ordinary dark malts. I added the dark malts late to give the mash a change to properly convert itself before the dark malts where added and lowered the pH. Adding the dark malts late should cause less tannings and astringent flavours to be released. It should also cause a smoother roastedness as well.

In theory. We'll see. :)

It looks like this will be a nice big beer. The re...

2007-04-19T04:22:00.000+02:00

It looks like this will be a nice big beer. The recipe is very close to a Schwartzbier I made recently. The only real difference is in the crystal malts. Also with ale yeast, it may have a nice sweetness. I also used half pils and half munich for the base malts.

I wonder if adding the dark malts later in the mash will effect the overall taste. Have you tried that before? I'm interested to hear how this beer turns out.

I use an application[1] in which I enter all the i...

2007-04-17T22:24:00.000+02:00

I use an application[1] in which I enter all the ingredients and I can adjust the mash efficiency factor to get an OG value. Based on the actual (measured) OG it will tell me the mash efficency.

I'm sure most brewing software will allow you to calculate your mash efficiency. It is quite useful as you can change the amount of ingredients to hit a specific OG.

[1] http://www.haandbryg.dk/cgi-bin/beercalc.cgi

Congrats on the big effeciency! It sounds like yo...

2007-04-17T19:38:00.000+02:00

Congrats on the big effeciency! It sounds like you have that new mash-tun all dialed in now. I have not checked my effeciency on any of my new batches, I make OG and call it good.

How do you figure it out after the fact?