Dry Hopping to knock down mouthfeel?

I just transferred my Dry Stout to keg tonight after 4 weeks in the carboy and upon tasting my hydro sample and its... for lack of better description... overly smooth and the smoothness seems to linger around for a while and distracts from the rest of the flavor of the beer. Its not terrible, just not what I was shooting for and not what you expect to taste after smelling the deep roasty coffee aroma. I'm guessing the issue may be a result of an over addition of flaked barley. I was thinking about doing a little dry hopping in the keg to add a little something else to it in an attempt to counter act it but I've got no idea if this will be beneficial at all...

Any of you ever combat an overly creamy mouth feel and thick body through a dry hop addition?

Might the carbonation alone be enough to mellow it out?

Thanks in advance.

Carbonation will help. A small amount of dry hopping might be nice, but won't "fix" that problem. Say maybe 20g or so.

Are you sure it was done fermenting? It sounds poorly attenuated.

Your beers not carbed yet, you have no clue what the finished product will be after it's carbed and conditioned...kegged beer needs time just like bottles need. And just because a beer is carbed, doesn't mean it still doesn't need conditioning time. Many keggers give their kegs time too.

I had No gravity change for about 2.5 weeks so fermentation was complete with a fg of 1.018 which was also inline with the recipe. I'll let it hang out in the keg for a while and see what happens.

I just brewed a dry Irish stout with 10% flaked barley. Curious: how much ended up in your batch?

bigbeergeek said:

I just brewed a dry Irish stout with 10% flaked barley. Curious: how much ended up in your batch?

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Extract Recipe:

1/2 lb Crystal 80
2 lb Roasted Barley
1/2 lb Flaked barley.
2 oz Golding hops @ 60 minute boil
6 lb Pale LME

S-04 yeast

30 minute steep on grains.

Recommended final gravities for dry stouts is usually 1.007 to 1.011. They are usually a bit lower alcohol beers. A final gravity of 1.018 is just too high for the style and the strength of the beer and that's why it has too much mouthfeel. I think S-04 is not the right yeast to use for a Dry stout. It's one of those fruity English strains with lower attenuation characteristics. This is not a yeast driven style so all you're looking for is a neutral yeast that attenuates well. US-05 would probably do a better job if you prefer dry yeast, or Wyeast 1028 London Ale is a good liquid yeast that should work well for the style. Carbonation will surely thin it out a bit, and a long aging will also help, but I think you'll just have to call this one a sweet stout.

beerhappy said:

Recommended final gravities for dry stouts is usually 1.007 to 1.011. They are usually a bit lower alcohol beers. A final gravity of 1.018 is just too high for the style and the strength of the beer and that's why it has too much mouthfeel. I think S-04 is not the right yeast to use for a Dry stout. It's one of those fruity English strains with lower attenuation characteristics. This is not a yeast driven style so all you're looking for is a neutral yeast that attenuates well. US-05 would probably do a better job if you prefer dry yeast, or Wyeast 1028 London Ale is a good liquid yeast that should work well for the style. Carbonation will surely thin it out a bit, and a long aging will also help, but I think you'll just have to call this one a sweet stout.

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Good call. Its definitely got some fruity character to it and my FG is obviously quite high. After I typed that out I realized something seemed funny and started digging around trying to figure out where my recipe came from. Looks like a yeast fail on my part. Still trying to rack my brain to figure out where the hell my original recipe came from in an attempt to sort out where I got the idea to use S-04. Thought I had pulled it from the BYO Shout for Stout issue and thought maybe I accidentally pulled the yeast selection from one of the Sweet Stout recipes but none of the rest of the recipe is really pairing up with anything else in there... guess I need to take better notes on where I get my recipes from

Oh well. I'll let it chill out for a while and see what comes of it. Maybe if I stop looking for dry stout characteristics in it it'll be a decent beer. Time will tell.

Thanks guys!

I was looking at your recipe and determined the beer should be totally unpalatable. As a fellow homebrewer, I just can't let you drink this stuff so I must ask you to send this batch to me as soon as possible.