sweet Porter

[beer today]

i made a porter recently which seems a little too sweet for my taste.
Also i think i messed up by not using enough dark malt.
I want to add some bitterness and thoughtvabout experimenting with coffee additions.
I assume i could also steep some dark malt and add directly to my cornie does this sound right? I believe the darker grains are for bittering rather than sugars.
If so what is the best temp to steep at and for how long?
Cheers
Bt

[Jim]

I think you'd be better off dry hopping.

What yeast did you use, and what was the final gravity of your beer?

[beer today]

hi Jim
it was a biggy, 1080 and I used US05.
Do I understand right that the darkest malts are for flavour, and produce little sugar for fermentation ?
cheers
bt

[Jim]

hi Jim
it was a biggy, 1080 and I used US05.
Do I understand right that the darkest malts are for flavour, and produce little sugar for fermentation ?
cheers
bt

You are right that the dark malts provide virtually no sugar, but I don't know what the effects of adding them post-fermentation would be. If it's a big beer, more hops would have balanced it out better.

Did you measure the final gravity?

[beer today]

down to 1020, so not as far as it should, even after rousing, and more yeast added.

[Jim]

down to 1020, so not as far as it should, even after rousing, and more yeast added.

Well, with a starting gravity of 80 that means you've reached the quarter gravity stage, which is really all you can expect to do. And brews with a high starting and final gravity will tend to be sweeter than their lower gravity equivalents.

It's difficult to know what to suggest, as it seems that you've got the style of beer you would have expected.....

[Clibit]

Maybe you could boil some high alpha hops in a litre of water and add that?! Leave it for a couple of weeks. I wouldnt add malts at this stage.