Honey Porter Father's Day gift

The recipe is coming together nicely. I think using Honey Malt for the honey flavor is probably the safest way to go. I do think getting aroma and some sweetness out of honey can be done, it would just be a matter of when to add the honey. In the boil probably won't cut it. I found this link interesting if completely uncorroborated.
https://www.honey.com/food-processors/beer-1/brewing-with-honey

Good luck, keep us posted!

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By the way, I heard back from Sam Adams but didn't get any information on Honey Porter. :(
Some info on Boston Lager though...LOL.


We are glad to hear that you are interested in homebrewing. You may already know that Jim Koch, founder of The Boston Beer Company, started as a homebrewer. We take pride in our homebrewing roots, and every employee homebrews at least once per year for our annual employee homebrew contest.

While we don't send out our exact brew process/recipe (we keep those as a trade secret!) Here's a few tips for brewing Boston Lager, in case you're interested:

Malt: Two row pale and two row C60
Hops: Hallertau Mittelfrüh (late boil/dry hopping) and Tettnang Tettnanger (early boil)
Yeast: Clean German lager yeast

There are a lot of great books and websites for homebrewers. The Complete Joy of Home Brewing (Harper Collins, 2003), a book now in its 3rd edition, was written by Charlie Papazian, founder and president of the American Homebrewers Association. The American Homebrewers Association’s website is www.craftbeer.com. Another site, www.howtobrew.com, contains a plethora of free information.
 
Megary said:
The recipe is coming together nicely. I think using Honey Malt for the honey flavor is probably the safest way to go. I do think getting aroma and some sweetness out of honey can be done, it would just be a matter of when to add the honey. In the boil probably won't cut it. I found this link interesting if completely uncorroborated.
https://www.honey.com/food-processors/beer-1/brewing-with-honey

Good luck, keep us posted!

-------

By the way, I heard back from Sam Adams but didn't get any information on Honey Porter. :(
Some info on Boston Lager though...LOL.


We are glad to hear that you are interested in homebrewing. You may already know that Jim Koch, founder of The Boston Beer Company, started as a homebrewer. We take pride in our homebrewing roots, and every employee homebrews at least once per year for our annual employee homebrew contest.

While we don't send out our exact brew process/recipe (we keep those as a trade secret!) Here's a few tips for brewing Boston Lager, in case you're interested:

Malt: Two row pale and two row C60
Hops: Hallertau Mittelfrüh (late boil/dry hopping) and Tettnang Tettnanger (early boil)
Yeast: Clean German lager yeast

There are a lot of great books and websites for homebrewers. The Complete Joy of Home Brewing (Harper Collins, 2003), a book now in its 3rd edition, was written by Charlie Papazian, founder and president of the American Homebrewers Association. The American Homebrewers Association’s website is www.craftbeer.com. Another site, www.howtobrew.com, contains a plethora of free information.
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Most commercial recipes are pretty simple. And I believe I've seen clones of this.
 
OKAY.... I dove into some more of my books and found a recipe in "Brewing Classic Styles" that seemed to resonate well. My father also like the "Taddy Porter" and the recipe in that book for something similar included some of the malts I initially had (ie brown and caramel).

So, I think you all might agree more with this "subdued" recipe. 10% brown, 10% caramel wheat, 6.3% Honey malt and 5.3% carafa II:

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/994294/pop-s-honey-porter-tweaked-ii


I may add a touch of real honey at high krausen just to say there is some there... Not sure what kind yet... We'll see.
 
Blackmuse said:
OKAY.... I dove into some more of my books and found a recipe in "Brewing Classic Styles" that seemed to resonate well. My father also like the "Taddy Porter" and the recipe in that book for something similar included some of the malts I initially had (ie brown and caramel).

So, I think you all might agree more with this "subdued" recipe. 10% brown, 10% caramel wheat, 6.3% Honey malt and 5.3% carafa II:

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/994294/pop-s-honey-porter-tweaked-ii


I may add a touch of real honey at high krausen just to say there is some there... Not sure what kind yet... We'll see.
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If it is indeed a "touch" you're adding, my advise is as follows: Set the jar of honey next to the fermentor for 24 hours and call it good.... :D If you have some fairly strongly flavored honey and want to chuck it in, add about a pound and see if blind tasters who don't know it's in there can detect it or if they like the beer's body. If so, use more next time, or less, depending on how well you like it. If not, you can always use the honey addition technique I mentioned earlier....

Good luck with the brew!
 
Iliff Avenue Brewhouse said:
17% crystal malt is way too much for me in any beer but again that’s just me.
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I can respect that. Often times - less is more. I will more than likely work these numbers down as I did with the brown malt... I can also look back to some other recipes to see if I ever went so high in the past - my guess is NO. I tend to start high on many things and then research, research, research and then more conservatively dial in my numbers... The best approach would probably be 10% brown with 10% crystal and carafa for color. I just have reign in my radical side!

Thanks for the input!
 
Nosybear said:
If it is indeed a "touch" you're adding, my advise is as follows: Set the jar of honey next to the fermentor for 24 hours and call it good.... :D
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This made me laugh! I may just take this approach for simplicity sake! :)
 
Thanks all for your continued help and advice on dialing in this beer!
 
Okay - I think I have this thing dialed in. You won't notice much changes. Just the caramel wheat is just over 6% and the Honey just over 5%. Together I think they are 12%. Brown is still just over 10%. Whew. Thanks a ton for the help. Let me know if you see anything off with my adjustments. Or if you notice anything we missed. I might actually brew this tomorrow night or this weekend.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/994294/pop-s-honey-porter-tweaked-ii
 
Alright. Brewing his thing in the Morning... I just did a malt taste and to get a feel for Brown malt - Very tasty. I also decided I would try to see which I may prefer Chocolate or carafa II... I decided to go with chocolate malt. It tasted less harsh to me. So this may be more like a brown porter rather than a darker one...
 
She's in the fermenter and at 64F... I think I'll leave it there. Nottingham yeast for a clean finish!
I'd say I nailed it (as far as OG and Porter look...) Sample tasted awesome!
I may just set the honey next to the fermenter ;) (@Nosybear ).
BTW - I think all my beers end up darker than Brewer'sFriend predicts.... (A good think IMO)
Anyway,
20200516_090344.jpg
20200516_090352.jpg
Here's to hoping all turns out well!
 
Blackmuse said:
She's in the fermenter and at 64F... I think I'll leave it there. Nottingham yeast for a clean finish!
I'd say I nailed it (as far as OG and Porter look...) Sample tasted awesome!
I may just set the honey next to the fermenter ;) (@Nosybear ).
BTW - I think all my beers end up darker than Brewer'sFriend predicts.... (A good think IMO)
Anyway, View attachment 10102 View attachment 10103 Here's to hoping all turns out well!
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Nice clear looking sample!
 
Craigerrr said:
Nice clear looking sample!
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Thanks! I pitched onto a yeast cake and it took right of within an hour! High krausen was this morning but starting to settle down now.
 
UPDATE! :
So it has been 9 days and I took a gravity reading today and it is 1.015 - expected was 1.014 (since I was a point high on the OG). Gonna let it rest until next weekend before I keg it. It is in my Fermzilla so I set up the post connections and put it at 3 psi. I hope to rack it into a purged keg for a zero oxygen exposure transfer!

Anyway, definitely a "brown" porter! It tastes sort of like coffee (a nutty coffee) and dark chocolate. It's relatively dry on the finish so I doubt I'll add the honey as I don't want to dry it out any more or lessen what body it does have. I'm happy thus far with the results and look forward to trying it all carbed up!
 
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And we have a winner! It only took 10 years of brewing but I finally got the "oh wow" from the old man! Admittedly he's complimented my last couple of brews but this was the zinger! The one that hooked him!

Thanks for all the help! He loved the final product!

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