hist-brewing: smoked porter

[Angus]

<snip>
>I will be brewing with a wood fire and no modern tools such as the
>thermometer.
>  < snip >
>Each day I will brew a different style of beer, one day a gruit, one day
>a spruce beer with braches of blue spruce to represent the colonial
>period of Qu=E9bec when spruce beer was very common, and I thought I would
>make a period porter with brewing licorice and possibly cardamon.
Uhm...what's 'brewing licorice'?  I've never heard of this.  Is it the same as whole licorice root ?
For OG I'd personally aim somewhere between 1040-60.  Sadly enough my copy of 'porter' from the Classic Beer Style Series is presently about 70 miles away from me =(.  When it comes to historic porter not much is known in terms of OG, FG mash temps etc.  What I remember from the book is that Mr Noonan suggested the colour to be lighter and/or more transparent than for most present day porters.
Smoked malt seems like a nice touch.  Just out of curiousity, do you smoke it yourself or buy it smoked and ready to go?
>>>
>   Go for it, gal!!  Sounds great!
>   I know two methods of reaching mashing temperature without a thermometer=
>: the 3-for-1 method and the 4-oz
>ladle method.  Sometimes I use one, sometimes the other.
<snip>
OUCH!  The heat capacity of various malts is something I've planned to investigate for quite some time but never gotten around to.  I know that the heat capacity is about the same for malt & water but I don't know how much they differ.  
IIRC 1 l of water brought to a boil mixed with 1 kg malt at room temp (20 C) will give you a mash of approx 68C.  I'm not 100% certain when it comes to this so a caveat for the final temp, it might go as high as 72C.
Good luck with your brewing and please keep us posted.
/Angus MacIomhair

==
There comes a time in every man's life when he must feel tempted to spit in his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats.
   --H.L. Mencken

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