My beer is very dry?

I have made my second AG batch, a SMASH (MO, EKG, Nottingham) and had a good OG and FG. My fermentation was about 3-weeks, although it was clearly finished at 3-4 days in. I keg'd it about 9-days ago, have of course tasted about every other day since carbing (can't wait!) and it is now VERY dry. I really like it, don't get me wrong. And I suppose that it has become drier over the course of the past 3-days. The taste is amazing (nutty front, tingle to the hop, and slight fruity bread tone from the yeast) but the finish is very dry.

Is this a character trait of the ingredients used? Is this something good to shoot for or??? I suppose I am just wanting to pay attention to the qualities so I can replicate or remove them in future batches.

Well, you've got a couple things going on. The first is that you have 100% base malt and no specialty malts. MO is going to ferment out very cleanly and leave some maltiest but not much "sweet". That is going to come across a whole lot more dry than if you added a crystal malt etc.

The second thing is the mash. The higher the temp, the more large sugars you will get. The lower the temp, the more simple sugars you get and the drier the finish will be.


So, if you are going for a really malt forward beer, you wouldn't want to do either of those things. If you were going for a really crisp pale ale or IPA, those could both be desirable.

AHH thanks -- and both of those make perfect sense. I prefer some maltiness-- I think the next batch I want to increase a bit on sweetness with one grain addition or so and will take the recommendation with crystal malt. And yes, the lower temp mash was true (probably 152 average mash).

I am slowing training my pallet, so this is beneficial to know how to adjust from here. Again, I am not complaining about this beer at all and very fond of it.. but most folks that drink/have tested say, 'man this is dry' but flavorful.

Also, I feel Notty has a tendency to dry a beer out.

Well then, I suppose I can put a tool in the belt, 'Notty' for a dry experience. Sounds kinda naughty now that I posted that.

When I started AG, I had a tendency to undershoot my mash temps, and my beers were noticeably drier than I was expecting them to be. Even moving from 153F to 154F has a detectable impact on how the beer finishes out. Make sure you hit your mash temps and you should be fine.

What was your FG?