Thicker stout ideas, carapils or malto-dextrine?

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winvarin

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I made an oatmeal stout a couple of batches ago that got good marks at two separate competitions in all but 1 area (body). The longer it sat in the bottle, the thinner it got. Flavor was great but over time, it lost some of that "chewy" thickness I was looking for when I made it, and what the judges were obviously missing when they evaluated it.

A couple of judges suggested malto-dextrine. But as I'm looking over this recipe and considering brewing it again in the next week or 2, I am considering carapils as a possibility.

As a side note, head retention became a problem the longer this stout stayed in the bottle and I have had great results with carapils for both increased body and head retention. So my planned adjustments to this batch are as follows:

1. Increase the amount of toasted flaked oats used from 1.25 # to 1.75 #. The oats were faintly noticeable in the background. I was hoping to bring that toastiness out a little more

2. Bump my mash temp from 152F to 154F to decrease attenuation a bit and leave some residual body/sweetness

3. Add either 1/2# of malto-dextrine or 1# of carapils. Right now I am leaning toward carapils but am open to any advice you guys might have.

Thoughts?
 
Curious, what yeast did you use?

I no longer make any oatmeal stouts and porters with wlp002/wy1968/s04 as I found they lost their silky, full bodied mouthfeel over time. This was especially true with wy1968/wlp002 in particular.

Malto-dextrine will help, but only if you expect your beer to "thin" over time - or are shooting for a really full mouthfeel and cant achieve that through regular processes. For oatmeal stouts, I like using flaked oats at 10% of the grist. Same with flaked barley and flaked wheat when using them in stouts. Adds a really nice mouthfeel with a big, silky head that sticks around. I don't bother with carapils in darker beers.

I use Pacman for all my stouts/porters and have had superb results with it. The beers maintain their body for months and the yeast really helps with a malty, full mouthfeel.
 
Curious, what yeast did you use?

I no longer make any oatmeal stouts and porters with wlp002/wy1968/s04 as I found they lost their silky, full bodied mouthfeel over time. This was especially true with wy1968/wlp002 in particular.

Malto-dextrine will help, but only if you expect your beer to "thin" over time - or are shooting for a really full mouthfeel and cant achieve that through regular processes. For oatmeal stouts, I like using flaked oats at 10% of the grist. Same with flaked barley and flaked wheat when using them in stouts. Adds a really nice mouthfeel with a big, silky head that sticks around. I don't bother with carapils in darker beers.

I use Pacman for all my stouts/porters and have had superb results with it. The beers maintain their body for months and the yeast really helps with a malty, full mouthfeel.

Funny you mention yeast. I used wlp002 because I like the flavor profile. But I thought the Pacman was super-attenuative. The WLP002 lists attenuation of 63-70%. I wonder if there is another yeast out there that will leave a little more in the tank.

Honestly, I have wondered whether my process makes the wort a little more attenuative. Because my set up is a combo of back porch and kitchen (mash/batch sparge inside, boil outside), I don't usually start my first runnings on the boil while I am waiting for my second batch to settle out before sparging again. I've always wondered if I didn't get the grain bed hot enough on mash out and the wort sitting there after my first runnings is still going through saccarafication (sp.)

I am hoping to combat that this time by bumping the mash temp a couple of degrees and maybe adding another vessel just to collect the wort. I can leave that there to collect my sparge while transferring the wort collected out to the brew kettle and start heating it.

Or as a low tech solution, I can always just drink faster :D
 
I use 10% flaked oats, 10% flaked barley and 10% carapils in my oatmeal stouts. I mash at 158* and fire the boil kettel as soon as I start the first runnings.
 
I think you've got the solution pretty well figured out. My standard procedure for stouts is to mash at 154-156, and I've even gone as high as 158-160 when I want one with a lot of body and sweetness.

As far as malto-dextrin or carapils, I use malto-dextrin in all my stouts. I generally use about 8oz and find the results to be very good.

Good luck.
 
As some alternatives you could add regular wheat malt for body and head retention.

You might also want to look at splitting your mash between say 30 minutes at 152 and 30 minutes at 158. That will develop some unfermentable sugars but splitting the mash should prevent the beer from being overly sweet.
 
I did 2 batches of oatmeal stout this winter and used S-05 each time, really liked the results. The first time my recipe was recommended for -04 but the homebrew store was out so that made the decision easier. Second batch I stuck with the -05 because if it isn't broken, don't fix it.
 
Funny you mention yeast. I used wlp002 because I like the flavor profile. But I thought the Pacman was super-attenuative. The WLP002 lists attenuation of 63-70%. I wonder if there is another yeast out there that will leave a little more in the tank.

There's a VERY good thread on British strains and yeast behavior. The idea is that many of these strains are tuned to cask conditioning. When you transfer the beer for packaging, the small exposure to oxygen (or just agitation) re-activates a small fermentation that would normally be useful in the cask. Thus, re-activation plus bottling sugar equals a thinner beer than you intended.
 
I don't think carapils/ maltodextrine will help. They add to the body and head retention, but that silky chewy body is the flaked oats. If its been bottled for a long time, maybe all the proteins/ other stuff have settled out. Put the bottle on its side for a while or gently swirl it. See if that works
 
There has been no mention of the OP's brewing water quality. If the brewer is starting with a low alkalinity water like RO or distilled, its possible that the mash pH is dropping too low. That tends to enhance the fermentability of the wort and ends up making the body thinner than desired.

I do not find that maltodextrine is very helpful in body building. Increasing the beta-glucan content via flaked oats or barley is more effective in boosting body.
 
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