Thick Beer?
 

Hey Guys,

About a month ago I manned-up and attempted my first mini-mash. It was an IPA and the beer has been in the bottle now for about 1.5 weeks. First there's still no carbonation (I messed up on that, so it was expected...Didnt boil the priming sugar...DOH!)

I just tried the beer however and it has a terrible "thick" feel to it. I tried it out of the secondary, and i was a bit green, but did not have this thickness it does now. Its really weird. Have you guys ever had this happen to you and what could it be from?

Thick like j-lo or Big Momma?
Is it drinkable?
whats the recipe
It could be alot of unfermentables were used and/or ended up in the beer that could give the beer a heavy mouthfeel.
what was the og and fg?
what type of yeast?

did you do a proper mash or just steep and rinse?

Thanks for the response. I steeped and rinsed. What does a "proper "mash" consist of?

I will read the ingredients right off of the page i got with the kit.

Grains:
1/4 lb Honey Malt
1/4 lb Crystal 90L
2.5 lb 2-Row
1/4 lb Aromatic

Malt:
5lb Munich Extract
2lb Pale Ale

Hops:
2oz Centennial (Bittering)
1oz Cascade (Flavor)
1oz Cascade (Aroma)

The OG was right where the recipe said I should be at 1.067 and the FG was at 1.019.

Thanks for your help. I would love to know where I went wrong!

one thing I wanted to add. priming sugar does not need to be boiled to be effective. It needs to be boiled to be sanitized, but the yeast don't care if your priming solution was ever boiled or not.

I think you should give it a bit more time. I've occasionally had a batch that was pretty damn flat at 2 weeks, but great at 3 or 4 weeks.

The thickness *could* be due the fact that your priming sugar has not yet been eaten up by the yeast, but... that's a wild guess. I'm not sure I could tell any difference in thickness of unprimed beer from the secondary and primed beer from the secondary.

Anway, just wait another week and try another bottle.

-walker

That really is great news...I was really mad about that when it hit me. I was thinking the sugar would have been more apt to spread evenly throughout the brew if it were in liquid form in the bottling bucket as opposed to the powder form.

I will let it sit. IPA is really my favorite beer and I was really looking forward to it.

ooooooooh. You didn't even dissolve the sugar first? I thought you meant that you dissolved it but did not boil it.

Putting the powdered sugar in could be a problem. If might not have dissolved well or gotten mixed in nice and evenly, so some bottles may be flat, some fine, and some OVER carbonated. (keep an eye open for bottle bombs.)

Anyway... I still can't explain the thickness thing.

There is certainly nothing strange in this recipe to cause an unusual mouthfeel. Hell you did not even add anything for mouthfeel like... MD or Lactose....hmmm...... what a min.... 2.5 pounds 2 row.... you steeped it. I seem to recall in another thread we were talking about this. FYI, 2 row is generally something that you would mash. So a question for the more experienced is what happens when you steep 2 row instead of mash? I assume that's why the OG is where it is.....because you got the sugars out but did not convert them....? Still should not account for a "heavy" mouthfeel.....

If you crush 2-row and steep it at the right temp. then rinse it, I say that's mashing - just not particularly efficient because of the lack of a proper sparge.
I have done this in the past (and will probably do so in the future) to get a bit of grain flavour in my extract brews without the colour that comes with crystal malt (my LHBS only stocks quite dark crystal).

Steeping crystal and roasted malts disolves thier (readily available) sugars into the wort. 2 row needs certain time/temp to convert (via enzyme activity) its sugars.

If your gonna steep (mash) 2-row do it for 60 min @ 150-155F
if your gonna steep crystal/roasted grains do it for 30 min @ 150-155F

your mashing if youve got a base malt in there like 2 row, pale ale etc...

The problem with your beer is no carbonation. Just give it at least a week and try another.

there's been (slightly heated) discussion of this on here many times.

the first part of a mash is a grain steep, so you're basically doing the same thing, just in a sloppy kind of way (this is how I brew).

The main thing is (as mentioned above) steeping the grains for too short a time will lead to starches in the beer. That can lend body. AG brewers often check a sample of their mash with iodine. If it turns black, there is still starch there, and they keep mashing.

The porter I have now had some 2-row in it and that beer has a surprisingly nice body even with a lowist malt extract content. I'm sure I have some starch in there, but I like what it did to my beer. :)