🍺 Top-down Brew: American Porter

Enter the desired original gravity as specific gravity (1.0XX) or degrees plato (°P).

Style specification: 1.050 to 1.070; 12.4 to 17.1 °P

Enter the desired volume at the end of the boil. The volume units can be either liters, gallons, or US barrels.

Select the preferred unit of measurement for the inputs and outputs. Metric uses liters, grams, and kilograms. US uses gallons, ounces, and pounds. US Barrels (31 gallons = 1 barrel) is in barrels, pounds, and ounces.

Enter the anticipated mash efficiency percentage. If this is not known, try the following values based on the sparge method: Steeping (50%), No-sparge or brew-in-a-bag (65 to 75%), Batch sparge (80%), or Continuous (fly) sparge (85 to 90%).

Enter the name, fermentable %, Lovibond, and yield (SG or percent) with comma separations.

The base malt is usually American two-row or pale ale. The roasted malts - chocolate, black patent, roasted barley, and brown - provide the critical roasted flavor. Black patent and roasted barley can become acrid or too stout-like if the proportions are high. A recommendation is to keep the total percentage of roasted malts no higher than 10%. Crystal malts help to balance the roasted character and compose 5% to 10% of the grist. Oats, wheat malt, and cara-pils are optional malts for mouth-feel and beer head.

• Beer-analytics.com American Porter
• Brew United's grain database
• BYO magazine grain and adjunct resource

Enter the name, fermentable %, Lovibond, and yield (SG or percent) with comma separations. The grain and sugar percentages must add to 100%.

Sugars are not needed. Malt extract brewers can steep roasted malts like chocolate malt and crystal malts. The remaining fermentables can be from a pale malt extract. Using 100% dark malt extract is another possibility.

• BYO magazine sugar resource

Enter the desired bitterness in international bittering units (IBUs).

Style specification: 25 to 50 IBUs. The beer-analytics.com averages suggest a BU/GU of .59.

Enter the hop name, IBU %, AA %, and boil minutes with comma separations.

The hops are usually American or British varieties. One strategy is high-alpha bittering addition followed by low-alpha aroma varieties like Goldings or Fuggle. Citrusy varieties may be problematic by clashing with roasted flavors.

• Beer-analytics.com American Porter
• Brew United hop database
• BYO magazine's hop resources

Enter late boil additions like spices with the name and dosage (grams/liter), with a comma separation.

Spices are not needed for this style.

Enter dry hops with name and dosage (grams/liter), with a comma separation.

Light dry hopping may be used for hop flavor and aroma.

• 0.5 to 0.9 g/l: Light
• 1.0 to 2.0 g/l: Moderate
• > 2.0 g/l: High

Select the yeast type, ale or lager.

The yeast should have a neutral character. American ale varieties are a good choice. Relatively clean British strains that attenuate well are also possibilities.