beer seems too light

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

kevinlassen

chefkevshomebrew
Joined
Nov 24, 2012
Messages
101
Reaction score
4
Location
washington dc
so i made a coffee porter a a few weeks ago and bottled it on the 22 of december. when i made it i cracked coffee beans and soaked them in whiskey for a week and added them to my secondary when i racked it over. aslo, i made the a cold brew coffee with half water and half whiskey and used that when i mixed up my priming sugar, instead of just using water. i let it in the basement, where is about 60 degrees and held a few bottles up in the kitchen, so they would carbonate a little faster.
i opened one yesterday, great head and smell. the flavor was a little lighter that i was expecting for adding as much coffee as i did. (4oz at secondary and 5 at bottling). it starts off with a nice coffee, smokey flavor. the mouthfeel is very light, not much body or viscosity. im not sure if thats due to the whiskey and water that was used to make the additional coffee. i wouldnt think it would make it too "wAtered down" considering you use water to mix with the sugar normally.
should i have let it sit in the secondary longer, to kinda help it "reduce/evaporate" and be more concentrated?
will aging it in bottles help it?

thank's y'all

cheers

also, it had abv of 6 percent.
 
In a little confused as to what flavor is too light. The coffee doesn't really increase the body of the beer but should lend a subtle hint of roasted/burnt goodness to the beer. I'd have to check my recipes but I think I usually use about half a pound of coffee, cold brewed with water per 5 gallon batch so your volume is about right. What was your porter recipe? I think your answer lies there
 
I guess what I ment was after you swallow the beer it had a bit of watered down mouthfeel/texture. I'm pleased with the overall flavor. Just not the viscosity of it.
 
How much whiskey did you use? A little goes a long way there. Also, I've found you can get just as good a coffee flavor with grains. That won't impact the recipe in a way you have trouble predicting and compensating for. I make a mocha porter that uses no coffee or chocolate additions but still has the flavors. I could easily adjust the recipe to be a coffee porter.
 
image-346816146.jpg
 
I make a coffee porter in almost the same way you described including the whiskey and crushed coffee beans. However, I do not use any actual brewed coffee for flavoring at all. As someone already stated it is likely that it is your grains not your coffee that lessens the mouth feel. Additionally the use of chocolate malt can give a very nice coffee aroma without the use of coffee beans. Most who try my porter without the addition of whiskey or beans note the coffee aroma right off. In fact most people preferred the porter that did not include whiskey or coffee. Check your grain bill and you may find a way to increase mouth feel and body with a slight tweak to your recipe.
Lastly I have not personally found that bottle aging Increases mouthfeel. In my experience it can actually do the opposite. However I do not claim to be an expert in this area at all.
Let us know how the next brew goes!
Ryan Davis.
 
How long has it been bottled? At what temperature were the bottles? How long did you chill one before pouring into a room temp glass?

Correct bottle carbonating is 3+ weeks at 70F followed by 5-7 days in the fridge. I would start there then see how it is.
 
Well, your grain bill actually looks pretty good. I don't really see any problems there and your OG being a little over the usual range means that you probably got better efficiency than normal or more unfermentables in the wort from soaking the grains a little on the warm side prior to the boil. Both would actually add malt sweetness and mouth feel.

That being said, the beer is a porter. From what I can guess, the additional water/alcohol from the whiskey soaked beans may have indeed thinned the mix.
 
Thank you for the advice and tips.

It was bottled on the 22nd of December. It was never put in the cooler. I drank it from room temp in a room temp glass. My kitchen is about 68 degrees.
 
Thank you for the advice and tips.

It was bottled on the 22nd of December. It was never put in the cooler. I drank it from room temp in a room temp glass. My kitchen is about 68 degrees.

Give it until the 19th, then chill a single bottle until the 26th and pour to glass.

Kit instructions are notorious for having you rush beer through the process, giving poorer results than if you were patient. Racking to secondary was not necessary for this batch, even with your coffee addition. I would have also brewed the batch without the coffee addition the first time and adjusted IF it needed it. Just because you want a 'coffee porter' doesn't mean you need to add coffee to the batch.

I also hope you didn't let it ferment at/around 80F with Wyeast 1728. It's temperature range is pretty wide at 55-75F, but many of us have found that keeping it under 65-68F will give you far better results. The listed temperatures on the kit, for fermentation, are [IMO/IME] too high. You would have needed to offset the hydrometer reading taken at 80F, since they are calibrated for 60F (should have been a sheet with it showing the offsets for higher temperatures).

I would recommend either getting/using better kits, or use recipes posted in the second of the main site, for your future batches. Also read up on current methods, like the lack of racking to a second vessel without a damned good reason (there are very few for batches using ale yeasts).
 
Back
Top