Brewday: Barclay Perkins 1859 EI Porter

As I type I'm brewing a beer from 1859, the Barclay Perkins EI Porter. Thanks to Ron Pattinson's dedication to the obscure and his relentless pursuit of historical minutiae, recipes and detailed information has been freed from the archives and put out there for anyone to read. His blog, Shut Up About Barclay Perkins is an internet treasure trove if you're into that kind of thing and well worth following. I've got a list of about 15 beers from there I'm hoping to brew my way through over the next year or two.

Not quite the right one

Here's part of Ron's introduction of the EI Porter:

EI stands for Export India. This is the Porter that Barclay Perkins produced for the Indian market. It's the Porter equivalent of IPA. As I keep reminding anyone who will listen, there was probably more Porter exported to India than Pale Ale. But for some reason that seems to have been forgotten, with everyone focusing competely on IPA. It's most likely a class thing, IPA having been drunk by officers and officials, Porter by the ordinary soldiers.

Normally I write my own recipes. It's one of my favourite parts of the whole process. But this time I'm just along for the ride. It's good though, it makes me try different things. I'd never write a recipe with 185 IBUs and I'd never write a recipe with nearly 20% Brown malt so I guess it shows what I know about it.

BPIAB: Barclay Perkins In A Bag

Barclay Perkins 1859 EI Porter (18L batch)
(The original recipe)
OG: 1.065
FG: 1.017
IBU: 185 IBU
ABV: 6.5%
EBC: 57

72.5% Golden Promise
19.3% Brown malt
4.8% Amber malt
3.4% Black malt

150g EK Golding @ 120 min
60g EK Golding @ 60 min
60g EK Golding @ 30 min
25g EK Golding @ Dry hop

I'm using WY1968 because that's what I have available at the moment but I'd like to give it a go another time with WY1028. Fermentation will kick off at 20C and probably go up to 23C over a week.

The mash is being carried out without regard for history, I'm going for a fairly highly fermentable mash so that the yeast doesn't give up on my halfway through. It's a 64/68/72/78C mash for 20/30/15/10 minutes.