Mouthfeel question

[bj2387]

this may be somewhat of a noob question as ive only done about 4 Biab's. All stove top and end up with 3 gallon to the fermenter. my pot can hold about up to 7 lbs of grain before spilling over.

my question is that ive made an oktoberfast,pale ale,ipa,heff. which i guess are all beers that arent heavy you could say. but to me all have a very thin mouthfeel. seem to be carbed up right but just taste very thin. compared to a commercial beer lets say.

just wondering any thoughts or if i need to provide more info let me know.

 

[tjmac5071]

The first question is what temperature are you mashing at? Second if you could post an example recipe that would help narrow down recipe vs mash temp

 

[bj2387]

i used this recipe https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=39021

if anything my temps during mash may have waivered a few degrees up or down since i was using a cheaper thermometer at the time.

i fermented for 3 weeks and bottles. its been in the bottle for 4-5 weeks now.

 

[Takuie]

Recipe you linked looks pretty solid. I would definately look at your mashing temperatures.

This is a pretty good article on mashing temps from beersmith.com

 

[bj2387]

good deal. i just stepped up. not to a thermopen but a more automatic temp gauge. so hopefully that will help. i have a blackberry wheat and a caribou slobber clone ill be bottling this weekend so we will see how they turn out

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Have you measured your gravity readings? Could be that your efficiency is lower and that might be why you're experiencing it being thin.

A great budget thermometer is the thermoworks RT600C, it's $20-$25 and has basically all the same features as the thermopen and is waterproof as well. Great thermometer.

 

[bj2387]

honestly i thought it has to do with efficency too. i havent taken the time or understood exactly yet how to figure that out. or maybe im just over thinking it haha

 

[bj2387]

sorry to bump this back up.

ive been using a 5 gallon pot with about 6-7lbs of grain. and if i do the full amount of water. it doesnt leave much room for the grain to move around. at some points even pouring over.

so might be a noob question but do you think that has anything to do with efficency or the thin mouthfeel i keep having on my beers

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Yup you're probably getting lower effeciency due to the smaller volume being used
. lower og could lead to thin mouthfeel.

 

[Foosier]

Priceless is right, full volume mashing does seem to lead to better efficiencies. All that said, it doesn't really matter if you aren't measuring. How much water are you using to mash? What is your pre boil gravity? What is your FG? These would sure help us understand your issue better.

I do fill volume mashes in my 10 gal pot and do not have any mouthfeel issues. I hit my gravities pretty much spot on though. Because of this I know the sugars are there to give me the mouthfeel I expect.

 

[bj2387]

Priceless is right, full volume mashing does seem to lead to better efficiencies. All that said, it doesn't really matter if you aren't measuring. How much water are you using to mash? What is your pre boil gravity? What is your FG? These would sure help us understand your issue better.

I do fill volume mashes in my 10 gal pot and do not have any mouthfeel issues. I hit my gravities pretty much spot on though. Because of this I know the sugars are there to give me the mouthfeel I expect.

I use beer smith and pretty much just go off of that. for example i did a caribou slobber clone. was shooting for 2.5 gallons to ferment. started with just over 4 gallons of water and 6.5lb of grains. Pre boil was 1.050(BS said it should be 1.047) and og was 1.062(BS said 1.060) and FG was a little high at 1.025(BS said 1.017)

 

[Kiichi]

I too would first check efficiency and such. After that you can go on to water chemistry though. There currently is a big thread concerned with getting a certain mouthfeel where a lot of good info is and ongoing experimentation too. Working on it myself. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=517721

The short concensus so far is that a controlled mash PH is important, as well as adding some chlorides, around 75-150 ppm aim depending on style, while keeping sulfates lower.