Low gravity brews

[svenalope]

hey guys! I'm one of those guys who started off homebrewing by making mead, then moved on to various fruit/vegetable/koolaid wines that they call country wine. I just stumbled on a recipe I'm interested in because it sounds like a real nice session beer, and I think a session beer would be better than a 12% session wine. It's this one: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/cream-three-crops-cream-ale-66503/index162.html if you're interested. Anyway, here's my thing:
Most of the stuff I've brewed has been hooch (wine), with the sugars in there being essentially 100% fermentable. I've made, to date, three batches of beer, all high gravity (the lowest being about 1.080 OG). I've managed to get the two that have finished fermenting down below 1.010 (not quite accurate, since one of the brews was partigyle, so there's another beer in there, which came down to like 1.004, which is what I'm worried about). Anyway, my thing is - when making a normal/low gravity brew, I don't really trust the yeasts to stop at a reasonable spot, and leave some body and maltiness. The weakest ale yeast I've seen is rated at like 9%. So are we relying on unfermentable (by those yeasts) sugars to leave the FG at a pleasant point when fermentation is done? I guess my problem is mainly that I've never tried a 'low' gravity brew where the flavors involved are mild enough to put in on par with Bud or whatever. Anyway, maybe the question to ask here is: what's a good IBU target for a 'light' session beer?
Sorry about the rambling, I'm a bottle of mead and 2 quarts of local microbrew in.
So, we're depending on unfermentable sugars to provide body in the low to standard gravity brews?

 

[B-Hoppy]

Depends on what type of yeast you're using. There's plenty out there that'll attenuate to about 70% or a little lower which means that a 1.048 initial gravity will go down to about 1.014. Also, if you do an all grain batch with ALL malt, you can mash at a little higher temp and keep the final gravity up a little. Plenty of options.

 

[ChshreCat]

hey guys! I'm one of those guys who started off homebrewing by making mead, then moved on to various fruit/vegetable/koolaid wines that they call country wine. I just stumbled on a recipe I'm interested in because it sounds like a real nice session beer, and I think a session beer would be better than a 12% session wine. It's this one: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/cream-three-crops-cream-ale-66503/index162.html if you're interested. Anyway, here's my thing:
Most of the stuff I've brewed has been hooch (wine), with the sugars in there being essentially 100% fermentable. I've made, to date, three batches of beer, all high gravity (the lowest being about 1.080 OG). I've managed to get the two that have finished fermenting down below 1.010 (not quite accurate, since one of the brews was partigyle, so there's another beer in there, which came down to like 1.004, which is what I'm worried about). Anyway, my thing is - when making a normal/low gravity brew, I don't really trust the yeasts to stop at a reasonable spot, and leave some body and maltiness. The weakest ale yeast I've seen is rated at like 9%. So are we relying on unfermentable (by those yeasts) sugars to leave the FG at a pleasant point when fermentation is done? I guess my problem is mainly that I've never tried a 'low' gravity brew where the flavors involved are mild enough to put in on par with Bud or whatever. Anyway, maybe the question to ask here is: what's a good IBU target for a 'light' session beer?
Sorry about the rambling, I'm a bottle of mead and 2 quarts of local microbrew in.
So, we're depending on unfermentable sugars to provide body in the low to standard gravity brews?

In a nutshell, yes. There's plenty of things provided by the various malts you use that add to the beer. Some add sweetness that isn't fermented out. Some provide roasty qualities. Different flavors, characteristics, body etc.

In addition to that, your mash temperature determines the fermentability of the wort. Adjusting your mash temperature affects the balance between fermentability and not... or body vs alcohol, basically. One way, you get a higher alcohol, lower body beer. The other way you a lower alcohol, higher body beer. With varying degrees in between.

Mash temperature and your malt selection work together to give you the end product.

 

[rklinck]

You are correct that what controls the attenuation is the combination of sugars in the wort. As others have noted, mashing at a higher temp will result in a beer with more body because it will leave more non-fermentable sugars.

The recipe you have chosen seems to be designed specifically to get a low FG. Although I have never used these adjuncts, my understanding is that corn and rice make a beer dryer and generally result in a lower FG. If you want something with a bit more body, you might want to look for a blonde ale rather than a cream ale. These will generally be all malted barley. For example, here is one recipe: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/bombshell-blonde-ale-26312/

 

[svenalope]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Now that I read your comments and think about it, it becomes clear to me that in beermaking, we control the body of the final product with the mash. This is good, and bad in my eyes. In hooching (winemaking), we control our body with the specific gravity and the yeast we choose, but in beer, we have the option to make some of the sugars unfermentable. So the good news is that this opens up an entirely new dimension of experimentation for me - the mash. I think the next beer I want to make is something I can give to my parents and my lame/old friends who are most accustomed to, what is it called, the BCM beers? So I want to shoot for something with low OG and somewhere between 1.005 and 1.015 FG, maybe five percent or so alcohol in the end, and tasty to boot.
I'll definitely take from the cream ale recipe I posted and also from the blonde ale recipe posted by rklinck. I'm guessing that hops for this kind of mellow thing should be between like 1.015 and and 1.030. Does that sound pretty reasonable for a yard-work-hydrating session beer? Any more suggestions? Oh man, I'm just really excited about beer right now. So many things to do.
My lightest beer was a partigyle off a barleywine, which came out completely stupid for both batches. The smaller batch is bottled and sitting at about 6%, which is just too gnarly for those previously mentioned parents and old/lame friends. It was a hit, but not a 'drinking beer' sort of hit. There are just so many things to experiment with beer!