Yes, I’m still on the topic of Poor Richard’s Ale. Today I thought I’d share the extract-based recipe for Poor Richard’s that I devised based on the all-grain recipe (PDF)—for those of us homebrewers who don’t brew all-grain yet, or don’t have the time.

The recipe is a bit simpler than the original; it’s extract-based, for five gallons, and for a 60-minute boil with a two-stage hop addition rather than three. (You could stay with three if you liked, though.)

Ingredients:

• 6 pounds Light (Pale) or Extra Light Dried Malt Extract (DME)
• 2.5 pounds flaked corn
• 1.5 pounds Crystal or Caramel malt, 20°L
• 1 pound Special Roast malt
• 1/8 pound Black Patent malt
• 1 pound (1 1/3 cups) molasses (blackstrap is fine)
• 2 ounces Kent Goldings hops
• English or Scottish ale yeast (Wyeast 1968 or 1728, respectively)

Directions and notes:

Steep the grains and corn in your brew kettle as the water heats up (this is basically Papazian’s method for adding grains to extract, the easy way). Remove the grains and add the malt and molasses as it comes to a boil.

I substituted the biscuit malt from the original recipe with Crystal because biscuit requires mashing (whereas Crystal, Special Roast and Black Patent do not). Technically, the corn requires mashing too (though I don’t know if this is strictly necessary for extract—will the flaked corn still lend its characteristics to the wort even if not mashed?), so if you wanted to do a partial-mash, you could go back to the biscuit, drop the DME down a bit and use one pound of 2-row malt for the mash. If you do this, I’d follow the mashing guidelines of 154°F for about 45 minutes.

I’d suggest a hop schedule of 1.5 ounces at the beginning of the boil, and ½ ounce for finishing, with 15 minutes to go.

I bumped up the molasses amount from the original recipe to lend the more authentic flavor he suggested (he cut back the molasses for more "modern" sensibilities not used to it). I happen to like molasses in beer, and I’d push for the more Colonial style.

And I’ll be brewing this myself, sometime—gotta put my money where my mouth is. :)