Thor's Hammer - Norse Porter

Todays brew is a blast from the past - a recipe which I developed way back in 1998, and which was my most brewed beer (or, at least, base-recipe) for the better part of 10 years. This beer goes back even farther - in the early 90's there wasn't much of a craft beer scene in Western Canada, but this one beer store used to bring in the odd European beer. There was this porter, from Norway, they'd bring in a couple of times a year - the name was unpronounceable (and long since forgotten), but it was good. In fact, it was the beer that started my love-affair with the porter style. Through a lot of trial-and-error (this was before there were many good online brewing resources) a friend and I managed to make a fairly respectable clone of the beer...but could never get it just right. We knew it was a baltic-style porter, and we did everything we could to learn about the style to find our error. One day a chance encounter with a Norwegian brewer online solved our problem - unlike most baltics, this brewery used an ale yeast instead of a lager yeast. Vola - the next batch was spot-on.

From there this brew evolved a lot - substituting English for noble hops, removing the darker malts, brewing an all-Munich/Vienna base malt version and the addition of cherries were all tested at one point or another - and each produced a fantastic beer.

Todays brew goes back to the first "eureka - we got it" recipe; the closest to cloning that one great beer that brought light to an otherwise fairly dark beer-decade.

EDIT: forgot to add, this brew makes use of the Nøgne Ø yeast, kindly provided by Sam of Eureka brewing (also, yeast #113, my commercial yeast bank). Historically I used the old wyeast Scandinavian ale yeast - which apparently was just goold ol' ringwood...

Recipe below the fold.

Norse Porter

Baltic Porter

Type: All Grain	Date: 18 Oct 2014
Batch Size (fermenter): 22.00 l	Boil Time: 90 min
Boil Size: 31.48 l	End of Boil Volume 25.48 l
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %	Est Mash Efficiency 80.2 %
Ingredients
Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 4.00 kg Canadian 2 Row Pale Malt (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 54.0 % 1.81 kg Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 2 24.5 % 1.00 kg Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 3 13.5 % 0.25 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 4 3.4 % 0.22 kg Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 5 3.0 % 0.11 kg Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 6 1.5 % 50.00 g Northern Brewer [6.10 %] - First Wort 90.0 min Hop 7 34.7 IBUs 14.17 g Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 8 3.3 IBUs 1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 9 - 15.00 g Saaz [3.75 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 10 1.1 IBUs
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.073 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.074 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.022 SG	Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.8 %
Bitterness: 39.1 IBUs	Est Color: 24.9 SRM
Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge	Total Grain Weight: 7.40 kg
Sparge Water: 19.59 l	Grain Temperature: 19.0 C
Sparge Temperature: 75.6 C	Tun Temperature: 18.0 C
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE	Mash PH: 5.20
Mash Steps Name Description Step Temperature Step Time Mash In Add 19.56 l of water at 77.7 C 68.9 C 45 min
Sparge Step: Batch sparge with 2 steps (3.72l, 15.87l) of 75.6 C water
Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).
Carbonation and Storage
Carbonation Type: Keg	Volumes of CO2: 2.3
Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage	Storage Temperature: 18.3 C
Notes
-fermented with Norge O yeast from Norway -Wet conditioned (2% v/w) using a smaller gap (0.3mm) -Hit mash temp dead-on 69C; did water temps and grain/mash tun temps exact! -CoOnversion not quite complete @ 45 min; added an extra 5 min after a vigorous stir -Sparge water @82C to warm grain-bed to 75C -Hit all numbers dead-on; exceeded OG by 1 point!
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