1880 Whitbread Porter

The bad news is that I did not brew the Founders Porter clone. That means my Glengarry Glen Ross cast-mates did not get their "Coffee (Is For Closers) Porter. The good news is that I did finally get to brew on my new electric brewery the other day but instead of attempting the Founders clone what I brewed was a nearly 140 year old porter recipe found in Ron Pattinson's blog... or one of his books I can't remember.

The Brew Day!
With a small break in the weather last week and the last of the tweaks finished on my brew system it was time to dive in. Mistakes were made but all of them minor... I miscalculated my strike temperature and my mash began lower than planned. Better to start low and ramp up to the desired temp that start too hot and denature your grains, right. There were ball valves that were not turned on when they should be and others that were left open when they shouldn't. And one or two others which did not affect the outcome of the beer at all. My volumes all ended up where predicted and the gravity readings were only off by a few points (1.053 instead of 1.051 OG) due to me intentionally setting my mash efficiency a bit low for the firs run through.

In the end I finished with 6 gallons of Porter in the fermenter and it is chugging along happily as I write this. The recipe follows but keep reading to watch the video!

The plan is to compare this with the Founders clone recipe and see how they compare with the goal of developing my own "house" porter to keep on hand on a regular basis. Meantime, the "house" ale that I worked on last summer needs to be brewed again soon. I'm thinking that within the next week or two I need to make another batch of my Gabel Road Cream Ale. Until then, here is the video I shot of the 1880 Whitbread Porter session...