Red Fruits Porter — Recettes maltées

Fermentation — Top

Top-fermenting yeasts, Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, must ferment at high temperatures, between 16°C and 25°C depending on the strain, or even up to 42°C for the Nordic “Kveik” yeast strains. They ferment more quickly than their cousin and are used to brew beers from the ale family. This is the best-known family of beer and the easiest for a home brewer to make. During fermentation, the yeasts reproduce, consuming oxygen and simple sugars to create alcohol and carbon dioxide. But that is not all: many compounds are consumed, transformed and recreated during this same fermentation, in particular esters and phenols. Esters give fruity aromas while phenols give spicy aromas. Fermenting a beer beyond the temperatures recommended for the strain tends to generate far too many of these compounds, which then become off-flavours. Hence the importance of properly controlling your recommended fermentation temperature. The foam that forms during fermentation (the “krausen”) this time works at the surface of the wort.

Family — Ale

Ales are the oldest beers, produced through « top » fermentation, carried out with the yeast "Saccharomyces cerevisiae", which acts at the surface of the wort and develops at relatively warm temperatures, between 15 and 25 °C. This mode of fermentation encourages the production of complex, fruity and spicy aromas, giving ales a richness of flavour that is readily associated with medieval and modern brewing traditions. Before the invention of refrigeration in the 19th century, all beers were necessarily Ales, as brewers did not have the cold, stable conditions required for other fermentation methods.

Category — Porter

A porter is a dark-coloured beer, with a very malty taste and a slightly roasted finish. A porter differs from a brown ale by being stronger, fuller-bodied, and darker, with a more roasted malt finish, but less so than a stout. Porters should be fairly well attenuated (dry), although sweeter porters are not uncommon. When held to the light, their colour is a deep ruby red. Historically, porters preceded stouts and had a character quite different from today's. This difference can be described as an acidity or sourness imparted by both the yeast and the malt. Porter was once brewed and stored in wooden barrels that harboured a yeast called Brettanomyces, which imparts a secondary fermentation, commonly described as a barnyard smell. The other dominant note comes from the use of brown malt, which was used as the base malt. The beer was then aged for about 6 months before being served, the aging time necessary to mellow the strong flavours imparted by the brown malt.

Style — Baltic Porter

The Baltic-style Porter is a smooth beer, cold-fermented with lager yeast. Due to its higher alcohol content, it may present very low or low complex alcohol aromas, as well as a subtle fruitiness typical of lagers, such as notes of berries, grapes and plums. On the other hand, banana or other ale-type fruity aromas coming from a high-temperature fermentation are not appropriate for this style.

The Baltic Porter combines the malty characteristics of a brown porter with the roast of a schwarzbier, while being notably stronger in alcohol and body. In general, this style presents a rich and complex malt profile, with flavours of chocolate, coffee, caramel and sometimes toffee, along with a balanced bitterness and a smooth, clean finish. This contrast between malty richness and the smoothness of the finish makes the Baltic Porter a beer that is both robust and refined.

Ingredients

🌾 Malts

Pale Malt Munich I Caramunich II Chocolate Malt Oats Wheat flakes

🧫 Yeasts

Kveik Yeastery - Eitrheim

✨ Others

Red berries