Baltic Porter Made with Red Shed

The Baltic Porter is a historic and majestic beer style born from the North Sea trade routes. When strong English porters were exported to the frosty Baltic region in the 18th century, local brewers—accustomed to making lagers—adapted the recipe, creating a unique and powerful brew. This adaptation resulted in a beer often fermented with lager yeast, delivering the clean, velvety smoothness of a lager with the rich, dark malt complexity of an imperial stout. Our take on this style uses Parkland Pale as a foundational malt, then builds the classic Baltic notes of chocolate, dark fruit, and molasses with light and dark chocolate malts and our signature Caribou (brown) malt. By relying primarily on Canadian-grown ingredients, we not only honor the style's tradition of using local resources but also prove that world-class, complex styles like the Baltic Porter can be brewed entirely from Red Shed's commitment to Canadian quality

Vital Statistics:

ABV: 9% SRM: 31 IBU: 30 OG: 1.086 FG: 1.019

Ingredients: 

Yeast: Escarpment Labs Biergarten Lager

Strike Water Temperature: 74°C

Water Profile: London, Balanced

Mash Rest Temperature: 67°C

Mash pH: 5.4-5.5

Brewing Process:

Mash:

• Heat strike water to 74c leave the ph of your strike water high

• Add all malt and brewing salts to strike water

• Adjust mash ph with appropriate acid to reach desired brewing target

• Mash rest temp 67c for 1 hour. Confirm with iodine test

• Mash out at 78c, hold for 20 mins with vorlauf if possible

Sparge:

• Sparge the mash with water acidified to a pH between 5.2 and 5.5.

Boil:

• Boil target volume of wort. Length 70 min

• East Kent Goldings, light brown sugar, Whirlfloc or Irish Moss at 10min

• Add Challenger, at beginning of whirlpool/steep

Cooling:

• Rapidly cool the wort with an ice bath or through a heat exchanger

• Add lightly diluted Yeast Lightening

Fermentation:

• Collect cooled wort into fermentation vessel

• Add oxygen through carb stone or by rapidly shaking volume

• Pitch Biergarten Lager yeast at 10c

• Step fermentation temp to 11c day 2

• Step fermentation temp to 12c day 3

• Allow beer to ferment until 3 days of same gravity reading

• Step the temperature down by 2 degrees until you reach 0c. 

• After reaching 0c count 4 weeks on the calendar and mark that as your packaging day. 

• Proceed to packaging in either canning, bottling or kegging

• Enjoy this beer at 2.4 volumes of CO2