Whitbread's London Porter (Durden Park)

[Zephyr259]

Thought I'd start a fresh thread for this brew since my brew day thread was never very active and I haven't been using it in over 6 months.

This beer is one that is listed on the DP website, I'm using Crisp chocolate malt instead of black as I just did a big cull on all my old grains and cut back to a much smaller inventory which covers most bases, as such my roast malts are chocolate and Fawcett's Roasted Rye which is much paler. I'm also using 12.7% alpha Admiral to cut back on the quantity of hops, given they're only added at the start of the boil they shouldn't make much difference. They're also a very nice, smooth English bittering hop which seems appropriate.

Here's my 10L recipe, I've knocked my mash efficiency down from 85% to 80% due to the bigger grain bill.

2.35 kg Golden Promise, 500g Crisp Brown, 150g Crisp Chocolate.
66c mash for 60 min then 75c mash out. Going for a slightly thicker mash of 2.3 L/kg in the GF instead of the standard 2..7 L/kg, this often helps efficiency by increasing the sparge, also important on such a small batch.

Boil for an hour with 25g of Admiral then cool and pitch Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire (so much for "London" porter...).

Targets are an OG of 1.060 and 61 IBU, should ferment down to 1.014 for 6.1%, then needs 4 months conditioning to allow everything to mellow. It's apparently a very good beer but there's not a lot of brew records of it about so hopefully this will add another Google hit.

Grain is milled and the water has been prepared, gone for a chloride heavy profile.

 

[matt76]

Sounds good - I've just brewed a couple of porters myself, albeit lower strength than this.

One was pretty standard and the other use chocolate rye malt which, based on a little taster, I think definitely adds something different.

The thing that leaps out at me in your recipe is the absence of and crystal malts. Will be interested to hear how this one turns out.

By the way, you mention it's a 10L batch in your grain father - I take it then that you have no problems brewing a 10L batch in what I assume is a 30/35L system?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

The thing that leaps out at me in your recipe is the absence of and crystal malts.

Crystal didn't really get used in dark beers until the 1890s, and didn't become common in bitter until after WWII - think it was a combination of trying to replicate the fuller taste of old barley varieties like Chevallier, and trying to help the body after the ABV reductions in WWI. But those mid-19th-century recipes can be delicious - having had "straight" and Bretted versions, I'd suggest the ideal is a 2:1 blend of fresh and aged-with-Brett-C.

See Ron Pattinson's book for how porter recipes evolved in the 19th century away from the 18th-century 100% brown malt version - here's a detailed recipe for the 1848 Barclay Perkins TT (but buy the book if you end up brewing from it).

See the current recipe for Fuller's porter for comparison :

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...m-the-horses-mouth.642756/page-3#post-8674860

 

[Slid]

Sounds good - I've just brewed a couple of porters myself, albeit lower strength than this.

One was pretty standard and the other use chocolate rye malt which, based on a little taster, I think definitely adds something different.

The thing that leaps out at me in your recipe is the absence of and crystal malts. Will be interested to hear how this one turns out.

By the way, you mention it's a 10L batch in your grain father - I take it then that you have no problems brewing a 10L batch in what I assume is a 30/35L system?

Sounds good - I've just brewed a couple of porters myself, albeit lower strength than this.

One was pretty standard and the other use chocolate rye malt which, based on a little taster, I think definitely adds something different.

The thing that leaps out at me in your recipe is the absence of and crystal malts. Will be interested to hear how this one turns out.

By the way, you mention it's a 10L batch in your grain father - I take it then that you have no problems brewing a 10L batch in what I assume is a 30/35L system?

.

Small Batch pipework is available for the GF. I would not dream of doing 10L in the GF, though! Too much of a faff for that.

 

[An Ankoù]

This beer is one that is listed on the DP website, I

I didn't know they had a website, but I do now! I see the recipe for Simonds bitter is on there. I can thoroughly recommend it, it's an excellent beer. Now into my third brew.
I'm having a bit of a Whitbread moment at the moment so I might join you in having a go at the London Porter.

See Ron Pattinson's book for how porter recipes evolved in the 19th century away from the 18th-century 100% brown malt version - here's a detailed recipe for the 1848 Barclay Perkins TT (but buy the book if you end up brewing from it).

Terry Foster's book "Brewing Porters and Stouts- Origins and History" is available as a free download and it's an amazing book.

 

[peebee]

It's been a while since I attempted historic porter (I think that's what is being discussed here, not the laughable limp wristed modern "porter" we're inflicted with now). I attempted the Durden Park "1750" recipe which had to be a "simulation" because at that time it had to be mashed from diastatic brown malt, and nothing else. I "emulated" brown malt from modern day ingredients rather than attempting to make it from scratch (as some have. It wasn't until later I learnt this was manner Meantime came up with their recipe (which they've stopped doing).

I "emulated" brown malt by coming up with this boundary:

It presumes the colour of historic brown malt wouldn't have been very controlled (some malt houses burnt down making it!) so the overall colour would have been mix of some barely kilned through to some pretty charred, hence this boundary (positive skew distribution curve). I fitted modern malts, including crystal as some malt would have stewed in the process, under this curve; i.e. there would be a lot more brown malt (modern brown malt that is) than black.

The other ingredients would be a shed load of hops (80IBU I think) and Whitbread yeast (WYeast 1099, not the "dry" one, 1098) 'cos it has an old heritage (?).

Very good. I must try it again, but it does need six months or so storage. I've still got the piccies:

 

[peebee]

A terrific article I was reading put "porters" in "ages" (geological ages?). So you had the earliest "age" of 100% historical brown malt, the "age" representing Victorian times when brown malt was being replaced with pale malt, "modern" brown malt and black (patent?) malt, and so on.

Great idea, unfortunately I can't find it. Probably by Ron Pattinson or the like? I'd love to find it again. Anyone?


By comparison modern "porters" have no resemblance (if we really knew what it really resembled). Some books even make laughable claims to be historic. They contain recipes that might fit in some post-apocalyptic "age", like the recipes in Terry Foster's book (sorry @An Ankoù).

 

[An Ankoù]

A
By comparison modern "porters" have no resemblance (if we really knew what it really resembled). Some books even make laughable claims to be historic. They contain recipes that might fit in some post-apocalyptic "age", like the recipes in Terry Foster's book (sorry @An Ankoù).

Not at all, peebee, I was recommending the read rather than the recipes, which, former I thoroughly enjoyed. If I were looking for something authentic, I'd start with Durden Park before Pattinson. As I understand it ( and I might have misunderstood it) brown malt was made by insertingt firebands intro a mass of malt so that some of it burnt and some of it remained diastatic. Not too difficult to copy, I should think.
I think the article you were reading might have been by Roger Protz and CLive Lepensee. I'm not totally convinced by their take on things.

 

[Zephyr259]

Glad there's some interest in this one. I use the micro pipework for almost all my batches as my usual is a 15L batch but even 23L batches seem to work better with it if there's only 4kg or so of grain as the mash was below the regular pipework. I don't have many other options for brewing, I could use the 18L sparge water heater but then I'd have to jury-rig some way to cool it with the GF pump and CFC while not blocking anything and I don't have a bag for BIAB. GF doesn't seem much hassle for the small batch. But then it's your machine that always cuts out isn't it @Slid ?

Durden park have another porter which I think is 1750s, it's got crystal but is 1.090 OG so a trickier brew and as @peebee says it's a bit of a simulation as we don't have the malts they did. This one is a 1850s recipe I believe, interesting that crystal was a later addition to beers.

Brew day went very smoothly, pH was way under (5.08) and I realise I'd forgotten the bicarb, so with that added it stabilised at 5.37 but as usual that was well under brun water's estimate of 5.5. I've only got 12ppm of carbonates in my water so even setting it to zero doesn't help, but I'm always about 0.1 low.

I got 10L at 1.063 in the FB and it's happily bubbling away at 18c. Sweet wort was like chocolate malt, the final wort was extremely bitter as expected with 65 calculated IBUs in a 1.063 wort but it's meant to age for 4 months to mellow.

Got the Simonds Bitter planned too @An Ankoù , my wife got the decision on which I brewed first and she likes dark beers. I'm looking forward to seeing what the West Yorkshire strain does in some higher gravity beers as it mostly sees 4% bitters in my brewery.

 

[matt76]

I got 10L at 1.063 in the FB and it's happily bubbling away at 18c. Sweet wort was like chocolate malt, the final wort was extremely bitter as expected with 65 calculated IBUs in a 1.063 wort but it's meant to age for 4 months to mellow.

Holy moly, that sounds like a huge IBU number for a porter! BU:GU ratio round about 1 is fairly high for an AIPA, let alone a porter.

Don't get me wrong, I've no doubt you know what you're doing, it just comes across to me as odd is all.

Granted I guess it's mainly coming from early additions of less hoppy hops compared to later, hoppier additions you'd use in an AIPA.

Can't help wondering how that will taste, how it'll drink.....

Regarding the GF - that's interesting. I decided against the GF or a similar system because I wasn't convinced it would work too well with my 10L-ish batches. So you've pretty much justified my decision

 

[Zephyr259]

Holy moly, that sounds like a huge IBU number for a porter! BU:GU ratio round about 1 is fairly high for an AIPA, let alone a porter.

Don't get me wrong, I've no doubt you know what you're doing, it just comes across to me as odd is all.

Granted I guess it's mainly coming from early additions of less hoppy hops compared to later, hoppier additions you'd use in an AIPA.

Can't help wondering how that will taste, how it'll drink.....

Regarding the GF - that's interesting. I decided against the GF or a similar system because I wasn't convinced it would work too well with my 10L-ish batches. So you've pretty much justified my decision

Haha, yeah the durden park recipes only quote an OG. They give weights of hops and tell you what their estimate for Goldings and fuggles are which lets you calculate everything. Old beers generally seem to be higher bitterness but with 4 months aging it should mellow. The Simonds Bitter is 1.062 OG and calcs at 54 IBU, that's the one @An Ankoù has made. They also have an "original IPA" which works out at 200 IBU or something daft. The 2nd edition Pale Ale book (also by Terry Foster) has a bit where he tells you about brewing that beer and how it was indeed extremely bitter but aged into a good beer, although one you sip slowly I'm memory serves. So I don't really know what I'm doing with this one, it's the most bitter beer I've ever brewed, 2nd was a 1.082 barleywine with 58 IBUs. But I'm trusting the DP guys.

I'm not sure how I justified your decision, I find the GF works just fine for a 10L batch. Only downside is your brewhouse efficiency suffers the smaller the batch as my dead volume remains at about 1.5L whether I brew 10L or 25L. Mash efficiency is fairly consistent at 82-85% for me, assuming 1.050 or below, 1.060 and often over drops a touch.

 

[peebee]

Glad there's some interest in this one. I use the micro pipework for almost all my batches as my usual is a 15L batch but even 23L batches seem to work better with it if there's only 4kg or so of grain as the mash was below the regular pipework. I don't have many other options for brewing, I could use the 18L sparge water heater but then I'd have to jury-rig some way to cool it with the GF pump and CFC while not blocking anything and I don't have a bag for BIAB. GF doesn't seem much hassle for the small batch. But then it's your machine that always cuts out isn't it @Slid ? …

I got myself the "micro pipework", not to brew small batches but to brew "low-alcohol" batches. I've never used it. I quickly figured out the GF could be used for "full-boil-volume-mashes" (no sparge) and never looked back. Quickly? I was a bit miffed that having forked out for a single pot Grainfather mashing system I needed a second pot to heat the sparge water which focused my efforts to sort it out. It takes a little figuring out because the GF recipe builder seems to actively discourage "no-sparge" brewing, even to the extent of them publishing an article of complete twaddle telling people "no-sparge" makes inferior beer (they still publish it I believe --- and it is still complete twaddle).

I use the GF almost exclusively as a fancy BIAB system now (using the malt-tube as the "bag"). I'll do about 20L batches up to 1.050-55 OG.

… Durden park have another porter which I think is 1750s, it's got crystal but is 1.090 OG so a trickier brew and as @peebee says it's a bit of a simulation as we don't have the malts they did. …

Okay, I'll come clean. My version was "throttled back" to 1.070 OG. The 1.090 recipe would have resulted in some serious headaches.

 

[peebee]

… I think the article you were reading might have been by Roger Protz and CLive Lepensee. I'm not totally convinced by their take on things.

Thanks. I've got their book on Porter (CAMRA I believe) so had a hunt in it. No suggestion of the article or a writing style that might encourage more looking in that direction. So I'm still minus that article. But it's not important. I just remember it as a fine way of remembering the "evolution" of Porter.

 

[Zephyr259]

I got myself the "micro pipework", not to brew small batches but to brew "low-alcohol" batches. I've never used it. I quickly figured out the GF could be used for "full-boil-volume-mashes" (no sparge) and never looked back. Quickly? I was a bit miffed that having forked out for a single pot Grainfather mashing system I needed a second pot to heat the sparge water which focused my efforts to sort it out. It takes a little figuring out because the GF recipe builder seems to actively discourage "no-sparge" brewing, even to the extent of them publishing an article of complete twaddle telling people "no-sparge" makes inferior beer (they still publish it I believe --- and it is still complete twaddle).

I use the GF almost exclusively as a fancy BIAB system now (using the malt-tube as the "bag"). I'll do about 20L batches up to 1.050-55 OG.


Okay, I'll come clean. My version was "throttled back" to 1.070 OG. The 1.090 recipe would have resulted in some serious headaches.

It's a common issue with "all-in-one" systems which then want a sparge water heater. I've been thinking of trying out a full-volume mash to see how it goes and what the efficiency drop is but I'm curious how the pipework would get set up. I'm assuming that the top plate just gets lowered until it's under the liquid level rather than until it hits the grain? I've been watching "The Homebrew Challenge" youtube channel recently and a handy benefit to no sparge is you can track the mash SG and see when it's getting to your pre-boil figure, can't really do that with a sparge.

Yeah, I don't blame you reducing the OG of that one, I find getting about 1.070 is pretty difficult with the GF, the efficiency drops a lot so even getting to 1.080 takes way more grain than expected.

 

[peebee]

I fixed the top-plate (hose clamp) so it would still act as a "diffuser" for recirculated wort. The position isn't really important, above or below the surface. Can probably just leave it off.

Wasn't the limitations of my GF that had me reduce the OG. My bigger 3V system was in action back then (and is now again).

 

[peebee]

… I think the article you were reading might have been by Roger Protz and CLive Lepensee. I'm not totally convinced by their take on things.

Thanks. I've got their book on Porter (CAMRA I believe) so had a hunt in it. No suggestion of the article or a writing style that might encourage more looking in that direction. So I'm still minus that article. But it's not important. I just remember it as a fine way of remembering the "evolution" of Porter.

Found it!

Not an article but a book. And by an author neither of us guessed at: Cornell, Martyn. Amber, Gold & Black (p. 68). The History Press. Kindle Edition. Available from Amazon in Kindle format https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amber-Gold-Black-History-Britains-ebook/dp/B006ZNECZA.

A great read. But obviously copyrighted so I can only include a snippet here.

‘Palaeoporter’ (c.1720–c.1740) Brewed entirely from highly-dried brown malt; matured for a relatively short time in butts; strong and cloudy and quite likely with at least some smoky tang when young. Colour: dark brown

‘Early mesoporter’ (c.1740–c.1790) Brewed entirely from brown malt; matured for a long time (up to two years) in vats; fine, clear and strong; some may have been sent out as new, or mild porter for mixing in the pot with stale, or matured porter. Colour: dark brown

‘Late mesoporter’ (c.1790–c.1820) …

‘London neoporter’ (c.1820 onwards) …

‘Irish neoporter’ (c.1824 onwards) …

Like any summary, reality will be a little more complicated. But a fine summary all the same. Even goes into the "high cask", "low cask" stout serving system I'm often blagging on about.

 

[telenomus]

"This beer is one that is listed on the DP website,"

I've brewed this DP porter several times and it's a favourite of mine; actually just brewed a 3 gal. batch today. It does well after some aging, (I kept a few bottles for up to 2 years) but is quite nice when it is still young.

 

[Zephyr259]

"This beer is one that is listed on the DP website,"

I've brewed this DP porter several times and it's a favourite of mine; actually just brewed a 3 gal. batch today. It does well after some aging, (I kept a few bottles for up to 2 years) but is quite nice when it is still young.

Nice to hear from someone else who's brewed one of DP's beers, it's fairly unusual from a modern perspective that I'm glad it seems to be well liked. Have you brewed any other of their beers?

 

[Slid]

Glad there's some interest in this one. I use the micro pipework for almost all my batches as my usual is a 15L batch but even 23L batches seem to work better with it if there's only 4kg or so of grain as the mash was below the regular pipework. I don't have many other options for brewing, I could use the 18L sparge water heater but then I'd have to jury-rig some way to cool it with the GF pump and CFC while not blocking anything and I don't have a bag for BIAB. GF doesn't seem much hassle for the small batch. But then it's your machine that always cuts out isn't it @Slid ?

Durden park have another porter which I think is 1750s, it's got crystal but is 1.090 OG so a trickier brew and as @peebee says it's a bit of a simulation as we don't have the malts they did. This one is a 1850s recipe I believe, interesting that crystal was a later addition to beers.

Got the Simonds Bitter planned too @An Ankoù , my wife got the decision on which I brewed first and she likes dark beers. I'm looking forward to seeing what the West Yorkshire strain does in some higher gravity beers as it mostly sees 4% bitters in my brewery.

Yep, it's my GF that always cuts out at 82C or thereabouts. I have cleaned it as well as possible and got it up over 90C a couple of times, but in reality that is just worse.

To get a high gravity beer from the GF, I would go parti-gyle and use the first runnings for a strong beer and do a second mash after pumping out the first runnings by adding crystal and/or dark malts and adding water down the central pipe to underlet the second short "mash". After this, sparge a second brew as normal and add DME / sugar to bunce it out as desired.

 

[telenomus]

Nice to hear from someone else who's brewed one of DP's beers, it's fairly unusual from a modern perspective that I'm glad it seems to be well liked. Have you brewed any other of their beers?

I've made the Simonds bitter (#7) several times, and like it. I also made Mild Beer 1836 (#6) Rigden, Faversham and a High Gravity mild 1844,(#29) Tamar. These two were just OK. I have several others page marked but haven't gotten around to actually making them. There are quite a few recipes in the book that have rather high OG. I'm not into high octane; I like to be able to enjoy a few glasses !