Let's Brew Wednesday - 1919 Fullers Porter

If you can remember that far back, in 1914 Fullers Porter was, at 1045.5º, quite weak for a London example. Well. The war didn’t do it any favours.

In 1918, the most difficult year for British brewing, its gravity hit a low of 1027.5º. The end of the war helped it recover a little. In the summer of 1919, it crawled back over 1030º. Though, in this example, that’s let down by a poor degree of attenuation. Which wasn’t always the case. Some others finished at 1010-1012º.

The gravity might have varied, but the grist has remained quite constant, at least in terms of its main elements. These were pale, brown and black malt. Accompanied by flaked maize, most of the time. Then various sugars, which varied a bit.

In this case, the sugars are Peruvian and a couple of types of caramel. Which I’ve taken to be brown sugar and, well, caramel. Though, obviously, the shade of it is just my best guess.

The hops were Poperinge (1914), Sussex (1914) and unspecified English (1918).

1919 Fullers Porter
pale malt	3.50 lb	47.75%
brown malt	0.75 lb	10.23%
black malt	0.50 lb	6.82%
flaked maize	0.75 lb	10.23%
brown sugar	1.50 lb	20.46%
caramel 500 SRM	0.33 lb	4.50%
Strisselspalt 90 mins	0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.00 oz
OG	1035
FG	1014
ABV	2.78
Apparent attenuation	60.00%
IBU	25
SRM	27
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1968 London ESB