Porter on the light side

Made a Porter today and it seems wicked light in body.

I used 10 lbs of Morris Otter

1 lb of Chocolate malt

1/2 lb of Crystal 60

1 1/2 oz Kent Golding for 60 minutes Boiled 6 1/2 gallons down to 5 gallons.

OG is only 1.040. Any ideas why it turned out so light?

Paul

paulthenurse said:

Made a Porter today and it seems wicked light in body.

I used 10 lbs of Morris Otter

1 lb of Chocolate malt

1/2 lb of Crystal 60

1 1/2 oz Kent Golding for 60 minutes Boiled 6 1/2 gallons down to 5 gallons.

OG is only 1.040. Any ideas why it turned out so light?

Paul

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By "light", you mean low OG, right? Yeah, 1.040 is pretty low for your grain bill. 47% mash efficiency by my count, where you should be getting 70%+

What did your mash schedule look like? How about your grains...did you crush them yourself, or did the homebrew supply shop crush them for you?

Also, in the future, get some 5-star pH Stabilizer powder for your mash water.

I had them crushed at a store that I don't generally trade with, too far away. But I happened to be in the neighborhood and stopped in to poke around and left with the makings of a batch in hand. I called them up this afternoon and the guy there told me that they have been having trouble with the mill.

Well hell, if you know you are having trouble with the mill why didn't you run it thru twice?

I guess it's no-one4s fault but mine. I grabbed a handfull of it and it looked pretty intact to me but I didn't question him. Guess I should not have assumed that I wiould be getting the same grind from a differetn shop.

Evan! said:

...get some 5-star pH Stabilizer powder for your mash water.

Click to expand...

Evan you sure are a fan of that stuff. Does it really make that big a difference? Do you just add prescribed amount to the initial strike water? Is it a typical item at on line supply shops?

The thing about this that has me confused is that I did an iodine test on it and it showed that it had converted. I don't get it. If the grains were still mostly solid starch why did the iodine change color? And if the grains had converted to sugar and been extracted, where did the sugar go?

Well, the grains that were crushed gave up their sugars and were converted. But the ones that weren't crushed that were still intact had no way to do that. The goodness is not in the husks, it's inside. So, the iodine test showed that what did come out DID convert.

Ya, I should have figured that out on my own. Duh! Working too much lately, I'm WAY sleep deprived. I regularly work overnights and did two day shifts this week for the filthy lucre. I'm all screwed up. Going to bed, goodnight.