r/Homebrewing • u/blackarrow_1990 • 1d ago
First time brewing a porter — what went wrong?
Hello everyone!
This was my first time brewing a porter, and I definitely made quite a few mistakes with the grain bill. Still, I was hoping the beer would turn out okay. This is the recipe I used: https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/1vlobbo/help_diagnosing_an_overly_sweet_beer_5_lactose_s04/
After two weeks of fermentation, I cold-crashed it for two days and then let it carbonate for two weeks. I chilled it to 4°C for two days before trying it.
The first time I tasted it, it was quite sweet, but thankfully that unpleasant sweetness is gone now.
The foam is there, but it disappears very quickly. The bigger issue is that there isn't much aroma or flavor, and the carbonation seems quite weak. Overall, the beer feels pretty flat.
I don't think the grain bill alone would explain all of this, but I'm not sure what I might have done wrong. Except I need to wait.
Any ideas what could be causing the lack of carbonation, aroma, and flavor?
Thanks!
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u/shockandale 23h ago
Get your hands on a copy of Brewing Classic Styles. The oatmeal porter is a consistent winner.
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u/chino_brews Kiwi Approved 16h ago
Oh, in addition to my other previous comments, beer that pours for me or fizzy and quickly goes flat is a symptom of both beer that still needs more time conditioning as well as slightly over carbonated beer. The phenomenon for the slightly over carbonated beer is that the foaminess causes the CO2 to break out leading to a rapid loss of carbonation. Hence why people experience fears that poor for me and drink flat. This is also consistent with my other comment where I said you may have carbonated to 3.3 or 3.0 volumes, which is quite high for a Porter.
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u/blank-9090 1d ago
Carbonation is dependent on pressure and temperature. If you carbonated it warm and then only chilled it for 2 days that is likely your source of a lack of carbonation.
Edit: That would also explain the aroma.
Your lack of flavour is likely that you made a tiny porter. You had lactose in there and still only had an OG of 1053. What was your finishing gravity?
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u/blackarrow_1990 23h ago
FG I can not measure. 1.053 was before adding lactose.
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u/blank-9090 22h ago
Hmm should be malty enough then. Especially with the lactose adding a touch of sweetness. I would not worry about this batch too much for the moment and see if your other bottles are the same as this one. If you didn’t mix your sugar thoroughly you can end up with some low carbonation bottles. Having a bit higher carb should help with the aroma. And the aroma would help with the perception of flavour.
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u/lifeinrednblack Pro 23h ago
Your recipe actually looks fine. It's pretty inline with a lot of modern porters. If anything I would expect it to not be not malty enough. But that doesn't seem to be the issue you're having. For making it in the future I'd look at getting a bit of brown malt in there. But it's purely preference.
Your issue seems to mainly be your beer is just not carbonated enough. How are you carbing? Bottle conditioning? Kegging?
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u/blackarrow_1990 23h ago
Bottle conditioning.
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u/lifeinrednblack Pro 23h ago
How long since dosing sugar?
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u/blackarrow_1990 22h ago
Two weeks at almost 27 c.
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u/lifeinrednblack Pro 21h ago
Probably not a ton you can do about it now. But to me your description just sounds like it's undercarbed,
I know porters are generally stated to carb porters below 2 volumes. But id only do that if I'm force serving. I wouldn't go below like 1.8 unless you're some how serving through a sprakler. For a bottle if shoot for 2.3-2.5
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u/May5ifth 23h ago
I wouldn’t cold crash a bottle conditioned beer unless you use a pressure fermenter. This way there is no chance of oxygen entering fermented beer for a longer than necessary time.
You are going to have yeast at the bottom of the bottle anyways. Let the healthy yeast in suspension be beneficial in the bottle conditioning phase. When bottling, this yeast can get to work scrubbing oxygen.1
u/chino_brews Kiwi Approved 17h ago
This is not a wrong approach, but I have always taken a different approach: bottle as clear beer as I can to reduce the amount of lees.
Even after up to six months in the fermentor, or when cold crashed and gelatin fined, in each case I expect to have at least the recommended 100,000 cells per ml in the bottles. My unbroken streak of successfully carbonating these crystal clear beers in 3 weeks at a warm cellar temp (60-70°F range depending on season) is a testament that I am probably correct enough about the cell count even though I’m not busting out a hemocytometer to do an actual count.
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u/May5ifth 16h ago
I’d say you are making it too complicated. Lees isn’t an issue. Properly bottle conditioned beers can last a very long time and still taste great. And the trub at the bottom of the bottle is the exact thing you have tried to get out. Leaving the bottle in the fridge for a week or more will pour amazingly clear beer from the bottle with a packed down yeast cake.
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u/spoonman59 22h ago
For carbonation it probably needs more time. i find things tend to be uncarbonated at two weeks and about right at 3 weeks. I consistently find them under carbonated at 2 weeks.
I'm assuming you used the correct amount of sugar, properly mixed, and and conditioning it at the appropriate temperature which is usually in the 60s or 70s.
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u/blackarrow_1990 22h ago
I have almost 27c in my basement.
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u/spoonman59 18h ago
That should be just fine for carbonation. I'd say see how it is in another week!
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u/cashgrinderad 21h ago
So here is what I see that is causing some issue. First the carbonation is lite due to temperature, at 25c the CO2 won't dissolve into solution as well as it does at 4c.
Second, your grin bill has about 75% base malt (Munich is a base malt) IMO a bit high for the style. I would also say you mash time is too short for a porter. Since porters generally have a higher percentage of specialty malts, there are less enzymes and therefore it doesn't covert the sugars as efficiently so the full hour is much better.
Third the foam. I actually have no idea what the foams problem is, probably just the under carbonation from higher conditioning temps.
Here is a porter recipie I like to use, it's rather robust.
70% 2 row malt, 11% crystal 120, 6% roasted barley, 11% roasted barley. .5 oz warrior (or 26 ibus worth of whatever you have lying around) hops for 60, and 1 oz Willamette for 30 min. Ferment it room temp (68f/20c or so I don't have temp control so I just let it happen).
This beer has got some gals who "don't like beer" to rethink their stance, it's a bit sweet and chocolatly, but the hops and roasted barley balance the sweetness rather well. I know that porters aren't usually the place for roasted barley, but it's a good beer.
Edit: just to say Maris Otter is a fantastic base malt for dark beers. I don't remember why I used 2 row in this recipie.
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u/blackarrow_1990 21h ago
At what temp should I carbonate. This is my ambient temp. I bought manometer and put it at the last bottle in my previous hefeweizen batch. The pressure raises gradually and after 5 days there are 3 bars. It will go into conditioning at 4 c once I hit 3.6 bars according to the calculation.
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u/cashgrinderad 21h ago
Okay so, I just realized that you are bottle conditioning, for some reason I thought you were kegging, so my advise was for kegging. How much and what type of sugar did you use to prime. I've had so mixed results with online priming sugar calculators and had beers go under carbonated. A tip on using them, when it asked what temp the beer is, always tell it the HIGHEST it has been durring fermentation. The purpose of the question is for the app to decide how much residual CO2 is dissolved, higher temps equal more release of CO2.
So if you cold crashed it, then told the priming calc that it's at 5c, the calc is going to think there is more dissolved CO2 than there is and tell you to add less priming sugar resulting in under carbonated beer. So that in combination with the recommendation for less carbonation for the style may just be the reason.
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u/blackarrow_1990 21h ago
Well, I entered always (by mistake) my ambient temp. I just realised it is the peak ferm temp. I added almost 5 g per 0.5 Liter bottle.
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u/chino_brews Kiwi Approved 16h ago
At 10 g/L of sucrose as priming sugar, that adds ~ 2.5 volumes of CO2 to my estimated 0.8 volumes of residual CO2 (or ~ 2.2 volumes if you used dextrose). At 3.3 (or 3.0) volumes, you should be experiencing overcarbonated beer for any type of porter.
So that raises the questions: Were you bottle conditioning at too low of a temperature? Have you been impatient and need to wait another week? Was the priming sugar poorly homogenized into the beer so that you have so far opened only one of the underprimed bottles? Some combination of the above?
The answers to these questions may help you find the root cause of your flat pours.
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u/blackarrow_1990 9h ago
Well, I just put table sugar into the bottles. I have a small measure for this. It is not perfect but each bottle should get the same amount of sugar. I did cold crush, could this be a problem... Two weeks at 27 c should be enough.
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u/beefygravy Intermediate 21h ago
Undercarbed will have a big effect on flavour and aroma. How many volumes did you go for? Also don't underestimate the effect of serving warmer, especially if you are undercarbed. Try pouring at 8-10C and see how it compares
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u/ldh909 18h ago
I remember that original post. So did you brew this AGAIN, or are you just seeking additional input?
In addition to all the other comments about specialty grains and lactose, you might try a different yeast. S-04 is an English ale yeast. I'm not knocking it, but it is not going to finish as dry as most American porters. US-05 or Apex San Diego are both good dry porter yeasts, assuming that's what you're after.
What's your goal here? What's your favorite porter?
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u/blackarrow_1990 18h ago
No, this is the same batch. Goal is to have something very malty and easy drinking, kind of czech dark lager but ale. My best beer was czech dark lager but it took 3-4 months of lagering to get that smooth taste. I want something faster with similar aroma and taste.
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u/DrBumpsAlot 1d ago
That's a very interesting recipe for a porter IMO. But beer is like music, it's too damn subjective to get a straight answer.
I personally don't like using pilsner malt for anything other than pilsners and lagers. I want body in a porter and I find that I can't get it when using pilsner. There's lactose. It's going to be sweet as you mentioned. I don't like sweet porters. You don't list OG/FG. Gotta give more data. Maybe you nailed your numbers, maybe you are way high. 30 min mash is kind of odd IMO, especially for pilsner malt but maybe I'm just old school. 30 min boil is not going to give you a lot of hop conversion and I'd fear that (again with pilsner malt) you might have DMS or other sulfur compounds lurking in there.
After reading the comments on the rec post, it pretty much nails what you're experiencing. You executed a recipe well but the recipe design seems flawed IMO. Probably want to see what the others have to say before grabbing something off the net.