OG not where I was excpecting for partial mash Kolsch...

[Snoogles]

Hey guys. I just did my first partial mash and something went wrong... My SG wasn't anywhere near where I was expecting. I was hoping to make a higher gravity (maybe 7% or so) Kolsch.

Here's the ingredients.

5Lbs German Pilsner grain
3Lbs DME Pilsner
.5 Lbs Munich
2 Lbs Honey
3oz Hallertau Hops
.5oz Coriander
2 Viles White Labs Kolsch Yeast (Yeah I know, 2 wasn't necessary with that gravity but we dumped both in right as I realized we hadn't checked gravity yet so we checked gravity right after pitching)


1.042 was the gravity...This would make sense to me if I didn't add two lbs of honey. Which leads me to believe something went wrong in the mash. I put the 5 lbs in a paint strainer bag and mashed in a cooler for 60minutes @ 150 (It dropped temp a few times, its a small cooler so we dumped hot water in to bring it back up to 150) I then batch sparged with about 1.5-2 gallons of 170 degree water.


Anyone have any tips on what went wrong or some suggestions on what you think the final product will be like? I guess it'll be a REALLY light dry crisp Kolsch? Thanks for any info guys.

 

[weirdboy]

Honey doesn't dissolve very well and it notorious for unpredictable hydrometer readings. It is quite likely you hit your OG (or near enough), but even if you didn't I wouldn't worry too much. 1.042 is a bit low, but not enough to freak out over.

 

[Snoogles]

Honey doesn't dissolve very well and it notorious for unpredictable hydrometer readings. It is quite likely you hit your OG (or near enough), but even if you didn't I wouldn't worry too much. 1.042 is a bit low, but not enough to freak out over.

Ok cool thanks for the info, I'm not freaking out too much, heh I'm sure it'll be good, just on the light side ...I just want to learn from any possible mistakes. I boiled the honey for like 30 minutes just to be safe (It came out of a honey jar that we had been using so I didn't wanna risk contamination) so the 30 minute boil should have definitely dissolved the honey I would think....Would the honey still cause unpredictable hyrdo readings if it was boiled for that long? Trying to determine whether I screwed up on the mash... I couldn't really find anything online about honey causing unpredictable hydrometer readings.

 

[Yooper]

The only thing I can think of is that if you dropped below 150, it takes longer to convert so you may not have been fully converted in an hour at those temperatures. But everything else seems fine, so I'd just try to maintain the temperature better (and longer!) next time. If you mash under about 150-151, you'll want to go with 90 minute mashes just to ensure conversion if you're not testing for conversion with iodine.