1890 Truman Porter

[@antoniocisneros5451]

What an excellent video, nice recipe just like the good old days, if you liked the beer and think to brew it again, why not put it some oak chips or cubes just to get that touch of the vat? :) greetings from mexico

[@Homebrew58]

Hey Antonio. That is an excellent idea. I will definitely give that a try.

[@michaeljames3509]

Are you sure that the recipe is an historical recipe for Porter? Because if Porter is ale the high temperature used for producing the historic Porter denatured the low temperature activated enzymes that produce ale, Beta in particular, and a brewer that knows how to produce ale wouldn't do that. The person that came up with the historical recipe knew how to make single temperature infusion, American, home brew style, moonshiners beer that he or someone else renamed Porter. Single temperature infusion isn't the brewing method for producing anything historic except for historic moonshiners beer. It is the same brewing method that moonshiners use and in moonshiners beer it only takes one step for Alpha to release the glucose that makes moonshiners beer. When you followed the historical recipe for moonshiners beer you skipped the conversion, dextrinization and gelatinization steps because the steps are skipped in moonshining and when the steps are skipped the beer is moonshiners beer, regardless of the title on a recipe. Truman's brew masters wouldn't have used single temperature infusion because they knew the brewing method wouldn't produce ale, chemically or enzymatically, due to the way enzyme's function and chemical precipitation and that is why they used the triple decoction method. It wasn't until 1960 when ale and lager breweries went with the Hochkurz double decoction brewing method. Over 60 years later home brewers are still using the same brewing method and ingredients that moonshiners used 100 years ago during Prohibition for making moonshiners beer that went into a still. That is absolutely hilarious!! Porter is one of the most difficult and time consuming beers to produce and to use a brewing method that only uses one step that releases highly fermentable, simple sugar, glucose, which is responsible for only ABV, won't make Porter. In the 70's marketers invented CAMRA and renamed moonshiners beer and Prohibition beer, real ale, then they came up with stories, recipes and contests to set the hook. In the 80's a marketer made the statement, "when modern, high modified, malt was invented the decoction method became archaic and antiquated and no longer needed for brewing ale and lager because modern malt is superior to the malt back in the day and all that is needed now is single temperature infusion to produce ale." The guy was huckstering a book about the moonshiners brewing method to people that had absolutely no idea how ale and lager are produced and didn't know that single temperature infusion and high modified, malt is used only in grain distillation. They were sucked into believing that all it takes to make ale is to soak, inexpensive, high modified, malt in hot water at one temperature for an hour, easy, peasy. The guy never mentioned that people would be producing easy, peasy, moonshiners beer instead of ale and lager. They are the reasons why you use single temperature infusion and more than likely, high modified, high protein, malt. The reason why moonshiners use single infusion is because the brewing method is the quickest and simplest brewing method on the planet and very difficult to screw up, that way the master moonshiner gave Lud and Wingnut, his half-wit nephews, the opportunity to make beer without worrying about them screwing it up, while he stayed out of the limelight. All they had to do was soak malt at 149, 150F for an hour, dump in a bunch of yeast nutrient because of the high amount of glucose and in three days fermentation ends. The quicker things happen in moonshining the better. Chevallier malt is Maris malt turned up to 11? Maybe it is and maybe it ain't. You need to look at the malt spec sheets to determine the difference between the malts. Without a malt spec sheet you have no idea if the malt that you purchase is capable of producing ale without the addition of enzymes. Malt spec sheets are used in brewing for determining the quality of malt before malt is purchased and they are online from every malthouse. A recipe is worthless without a malt spec sheet, besides, when a person knows how to produce ale and lager recipes and brewing instructions aren't needed, just a malt spec sheet. The guy that came up with the story about modern malt didn't let anyone know about a malt spec sheet. The person that wrote the story about Chevallier malt was a real Hemmingway. According to the malt spec sheet Maris Finest malt is high modified, to over modified, malt, KI 43-48. The higher the modification the less enzyme content in malt and the less suitable the malt is for producing ale and lager. The good part about Maris Finest malt is that it is low in protein 8 to 10 percent, compared to Chevallier's 10 to 14 percent, which means Maris Finest, contains more starch/sugar than Chevallier malt and it has enough enzymes to liquefy the high amount of starch, and extract percentage is 80. Chevallier malt, depending on the bag that you get can be KI 34-51, which means that one bag of malt may contain under modified, malt and another bag may contain high modified, or over modified, malt or all three types of malt are mixed together in one bag. The span KI 34 to 51 is too wide to accurately determine the quality of the malt. The protein content is 10 to 14 percent and extract percentage is 76, not as good as Maris malt. The malt isn't really an 11 because it contains less sugar and lower extract efficiency than Maris Finest malt. This is only my opinion based on numbers but Maris Finest malt, modification wise, is more consistent, the numbers are closer together KI 43-48, versus, Chevallier KI 34 to 51. So, if you buy Maris malt you know the malt will be high modified to over modified. In the case of Chevallier malt, the malt in a bag may be under modified, high modified, or over modified which would drive an ale and lager brewer crazy. But here's the thing Chevallier sold Truman's brew master malt with KI less than 40. Brew master use the finest malt for making ale and lager. By 1890 the IOB was testing malt and malt spec sheets were being used by brew masters, previous to the IOB brew masters tested malt but to make life easier they taught chemists and biologists how to test malt and gave them jobs in every malthouse in the UK. The malthouse would have sent Truman high quality, under modified, malt, if they didn't Truman would have gone elsewhere for malt. The high modified, malt they produced went to grain distillers. This is only my opinion, I wouldn't use the malt because of the wide variance in modification. A brewer would never know if the malt in a bag is under modified or high modified. Truman's brew masters knew. But even if Truman's brew master used malt between KI 34 to 51, he used the decoction method which releases limit dextrin increasing the body and mouthfeel in the beer. Ale and lager are produced from dextrinous extract not from extract that contains mainly, highly fermentable glucose, and depending on how high the temperature is above 150F, more or less, sweet tasting, nonfermenting types of sugar, and the protein sludge that nothing is done with in single temperature infusion, which reduces the shelf life of beer. The rich, complex starch, called amylopectin, that contains the ingredients that forms body and mouthfeel in ale was thrown out with the spent mash, paid for. A moonshiner sells the starch for making baking ingredients. The decoction method takes advantage of amylopectin because mash is boiled, and the heat resistant, amylopectin rapidly ruptures and enters into the mash liquid. The boiling decoction is added back into the main mash where Alpha liquefies the amylopectin causing dextrinization and gelatinization to occur. The decoction method produces very clean, sugar balanced, chemically balanced, very stable extract and that is why beer produced from the brewing method can be aged for much longer without deteriorating. Single infusion beer has to be artificially carbonated because it deteriorates before natural carbonation occurs but since the conversion step is skipped the beer has to be artificially carbonated, anyway, because it doesn't contain fermentable, complex sugar, maltotriose, which is responsible for natural carbonation. Artificial carbonation forms quickly dissipating, soda pop fizz. Just so you know, a brewing system that recirculates hot extract through a grain bed for a long period of time causes a condition called over sparge, which extracts tannin. Tannin extraction is a time, temperature, pH thing and that is why vorlauf is kept within 10 minutes using a small volume of extract. To produce pseudo, ale and lager with an all-in-one system it will have to be capable of step mashing and reaching each temperature step within 10 minutes without recirculation. Pro tip before you go to a home brew store make sure the ingredients that you buy will make ale. Pro tip learn how to make ale that way you'll be honest when you tell someone the bottle or keg contains ale. Pro tip time is time why waste time on making low quality, moonshiners beer when the time can be spent on making ale. Pro tip it takes an extra step and more work to make malt liquor than it takes to make moonshiners beer.

[@Homebrew58]

Yes sir. Brewed it exactly as it was published. Thank you for you extensive input.

[@Homebrew58]

Just did a double check on the source to make sure I did it correctly and yes, this recipe came from the brew logs of Truman in 1890 and the mash was done at 157°. Just to be sure I looked up the recipe as published by another knowledgeable brewer of historic beers, Kristen England, and his version was mashed at 156°. And both indicated a single infusion mash. Many of the recipes I select are one-offs which were not brewed by the typical method. Many were one-offs or short lived versions.

[@DesertScorpionKSA]

That looks like an interesting beer. What was your final gravity, BTW?

[@Homebrew58]

FG was 1.009.