Judging notes: "Thin Finish"

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enohcs

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How can I get my beers to carry the fullness through the finish? I get this comment often, and I agree with the issue. I feel my brew's often lack a solid finish, but can't seem to remedy the issue.
 
Post your process and everything... we need something to go on. But also... what temperature do you mash at? Maybe mashing closer to 156 will help with that.
 
Marzen-
50% german pils
35% munich
11.5% vienna
3.5 caramunich

mash@151
OG 1.060
FG 1.016
6% abv

Sorry, don't know water profile
 
Try mashing at a higher temp... 151F will give you a drier, thinner finishing beer. 154 or 155 will leave you with a few more unfermentable sugars to increase the body and mouthfeel.
 
Try mashing at a higher temp... 151F will give you a drier, thinner finishing beer. 154 or 155 will leave you with a few more unfermentable sugars to increase the body and mouthfeel.

Agreed! Higher mash temp will result in more body and mouthfeel for a fuller finish!

If you are consistently having the same issues verify the calibration on your thermometer as you may not actually be mashing at the temperature you think.

A lot of this will depend on each individual recipe and you can also experiment using less attenuating yeasts as well per recipe.
 
As others have said, three places to start -


- higher mash temp;
- less attenuative yeast; and
- use carapils/dextrine in grain bill.
 
enochs, we're all grasping at straws and recommending "common advice" without specific information on your system, recipe, and processes; the more Objective information you can give us, the better the recommendations you'll get.


Calcium Chloride helps accentuate "maltiness" but it's another "straw" that I'm grasping at without meaningful information with which to troubleshoot.


IMHO, one of the biggest reasons US homebrewers end up with thin bodies is recipies that use super high enzymatic power US 2 row and things like recirculating mashes which together can cause conversion to finish within less than 30 minutes - then as your mash continues you just continue to break down large sugars into smaller ones (depending upon temperature).

My recommendation would to be calculate the diastatic power of your next mash by pulling the malt profile for each malt you use; write down the degrees Lintner rating (not the degrees lovibond rating), then take that number for each malt times the percentage that that malt represents of your entire grist and add all the numbers together to = your total mash Diastatic Power. A DP of 30-40 should complete conversion in 60 minutes; if you're mash is in the 60-70 range it could complete conversion in only 30 minutes.

My recommendation is to TEST for conversion by pulling a small sample of your mash after 30 minutes and filter it through a paper towel laid over a glass (to filter out husk and starch particles) then add a drip of iodine to a very small quantity of wort and if it turns bluish / black you still have starch and need to wait for conversion to complete; if it stays a normal yellowish iodine color then starch conversion is complete.

Switch your base malt to English Pale for your next recipe (check the DP) and leave everything else the same and see if its less thin. (The lower diastatic power should mean that conversion takes longer and you'll end up with more longer chained dextrins and sugars at the end of a 60 min mash.)


Adam
 
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