Recipe Critique - Porterhouse's Plain Porter.

[northernnick]

I do love this porter. I mean really really love it. I basically thrust this in the hand of any visitor before they say "Lets go have a Guinness". This is my own put at a Plain Porter, a brief design in Beersmith and help from the Porterhouse's website. Feel free to make critiques to try and a get near the ball park figure.

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Recipe: Plain Porter
Brewer: Me
Asst Brewer:
Style: Brown Porter
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
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Boil Size: 16.48 l
Post Boil Volume: 12.48 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 12.00 l   
Bottling Volume: 10.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.041 SG
Estimated Color: 54.6 EBC
Estimated IBU: 27.1 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 74.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 74.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amt                   Name                                                        Type          #        %/IBU         
0.23 kg               Flaked Barley (4.3 EBC)                         Adjunct       1        10.6 %       
1.62 kg               Maris Otter Pale (4.8 EBC)                       Grain         2        73.6 %       
0.19 kg               Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (39.4 EBC)    Grain         3        8.5 %         
0.08 kg               Black Barley (Stout) (985.0 EBC)            Grain         4        3.7 %         
0.08 kg               Roasted Barley (1300.0 EBC)                   Grain         5        3.7 %         
4.00 g                Galena [12.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min             Hop           6        12.6 IBUs     
4.00 g                Nugget [13.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min             Hop           7        10.1 IBUs     
7.00 g                East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.00 %] - Boil Hop           8        4.4 IBUs     
150.00 g              Lactose (Boil 10.0 mins)                         Other         9        -             
7.00 g                East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.00 %] - Boil Hop           10       0.0 IBUs     
1.0 pkg               Safale - English Ale Yeast S-04 (Ferment   Yeast         11       -             

[Jacob]

Why do you want to use lactose?
It's been a while since I had Plain last time but it's not sweet, well not 'lactose' sweet.
Do you want to brew a stout/porter or milk stout?
Also, put all hops at 60. You're only using bittering hops anyway.

[northernnick]

I want to keep it akin to the original so I don't want it too sweet so I'll lose the lactose.

Why add all hops at 60? If that was the case and they we're purely for bittering, then they would have just used one type of the cheapest hops at 60 to get the IBU's up?

From their site

Grain: Pale Malt, Flaked Barley, Roast Barley, Black Malt, Crystal Malt.
Hops: Galena, Nugget, East Kent Goldings.
ABV: 4.2%

I could see either Galena or Nugget being swapped around for bittering, at either 60/50/40 area because of their high AA% but not the EKG, that would be primarily for flavour. No?

[Jacob]

Why add all hops at 60? If that was the case and they we're purely for bittering, then they would have just used one type of the cheapest hops at 60 to get the IBU's up?

Need to double check, but think that never ever used more that one hop variety in stout and it always was dropped in at 60.
With that amount of hops you probably wont get any difference taste wise, only lower IBU.