Baltic Porter

[ggltd]

I am working up a recipe based on Victory’s Baltic Thunder and the original Perkuno’s Hammer. Any thoughts on mashing in the Roman beans - i.e. will a pound do for a 5 gallon batch and should they be boiled or soaked first before adding to the mash? I was also thinking of using WL Cry Havoc for the yeast. Will this work or should I go with a straight lager?

[mediumsk]

what are roman beans?

[ggltd]

Roman beans are a large dried bean like Navy beans or Fava beans. Historically they were added to the recipe in the original versions of the brew in the Baltic region. Victory when they took over the recipe from Heavyweight went with Black Eye peas because of the cost savings. I tried to contact former Heavyweight owner and brewer Tom Baker who made the original recipe (Perkuno's Hammer) to ask some details about this to no avail.