Porter colour

[pjc]

Hi,

I am trying to make a porter and I have found a few recipes which call for 86% Pale Malt, 7% Crystal and 7% Black Malt. The finished beer colour is stated as being around 65 EBC. All seems reasonable.

The black malt from my LHBS has an EBC rating of 1300. Plugging that into the recipe above I calculate the colour of the beer as 153 EBC which is way off. I can only bring it down to 65 by using around 3% black malt. It's the same calculation I have been using on countless other beers and they have all come out as the colour I have calculated.

So, should I just brew as per the recipe and not worry about the colour (and potential other effects) or should I use less black malt?

 

[BeerCat]

What software are you using? Says its 56 EBC in brewersfriend. Thats 1kg total grainbill for a 5l batch.

 

[Sandimas]

I've just plugged into into Brewmate (old version) and come out with 61 EBC, very close to your original. Something wrong with your software methinks.:thumb:

 

[peebee]

I plugged into Beersmith - 23L batch, 0.5 kilo black malt (7%) and it came out 80 EBC.

Long ago "Porter" would have been made with very variable brown malt, and the results would have been any shade of dark brown to black. In the 19th century pale malt replaced the brown malt and the colour (and to some extent, flavour) was restored to what everyone was expecting using new-fangled black malt (crystal malt became accepted much later). So ... who is saying 153 EBC is wrong, or 65 EBC is right?

 

[pjc]

Thanks all. I found a bug in my software! All sorted now.

 

[Martybhoy]

To me eye, 65 is pretty much black anyway.