Notty Attenuation

To my surprise, my porter didn't attenuate as low as I would have liked. 1.019 with Nottingham... out of character from my other experiences with this yeast. OG was 1.065. I overshot my mash temp by 4 degrees, but had it down to 152 within minutes and mashed for over an hour. This was my first brew using a lot of specialty malt, close to 2lbs... think that was that the issue? My thermometer was calibrated correctly. Hydrated a pack and a half of Notty before pitching into a frothy wort. Fermented at 65 for 5 days before raising to an ambient temp of 70/72 to finish for another 10 days. The beer was clear and cake compact when I kegged and bottled it today...

I only got about 70% attenuation with this one. Thoughts?

Probably all the specialty malts. 1.019 for a porter really isn't that bad.

Could have been the specialty malt, depending on the type and proportion of the grain bill.

Could have been the mash temp. overshoot, which could have knocked beta amylase out of the picture.

Or the yeast could have just floc'd out early -- that happened to me once with Nottingham.

corax said:

Or the yeast could have just floc'd out early -- that happened to me once with Nottingham.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's sorta known for this, eh?

Yeah... I wasn't really aiming for a sweet porter though and even let the temp free rise at the end to ensure a complete fermentation. One of the reasons I went with this yeast... it always finished dry for me. Not that I'll be entering any competitions, but BJCP has a robust porter finishing at 1016 on the high end.

Never had any problems with Notty dropping out early. Think rousing the yeast will kick them back into gear? Won't matter much... I kegged most of the batch and its sitting at 37F, but did bottle a 12 pack with honey which could be problematic.