Low abv- how to improve mouth feel/body?

Get advice on making beer from raw ingredients (malt, hops, water and yeast)
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scuppeteer
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Re: Low abv- how to improve mouth feel/body?

Post by scuppeteer » Wed Aug 30, 2017 1:10 am

rhubarb wrote:
Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:28 pm
One last question- does anyone have any experience re which adds most mouth feel / least haze between oats and wheat please?
Oats. :wink:
Dave Berry


Can't be arsed to keep changing this bit, so, drinking some beer and wanting to brew many more!

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simon12
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Re: Low abv- how to improve mouth feel/body?

Post by simon12 » Thu Aug 31, 2017 2:50 am

Just a thought, if you are force carbonating it could you stabilise it early like wine? This way you could have the FG as high as you want and very clear. I have never heard it done but can't see any problems as long as you can force carb it.

AnthonyUK

Re: Low abv- how to improve mouth feel/body?

Post by AnthonyUK » Thu Aug 31, 2017 7:56 am

simon12 wrote:
Thu Aug 31, 2017 2:50 am
I have never heard it done but can't see any problems as long as you can force carb it.
This is how most of the commercial stuff is prepared.
Pasteurised and filtered then carbed.

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gr_baker
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Re: Low abv- how to improve mouth feel/body?

Post by gr_baker » Thu Aug 31, 2017 11:34 am

I've made a few low alcohol beers around 1% abv with some successful and some not so successful. Stout and IPA were both good, probably because the stout gave the opportunity to use a load of different dark flavoursome malts that don't contribute much fermentability and the IPA was all about the hops.

I tried a few times to make a bitter with a simple grain bill of Pale and Crystal malts but it always lacked that certain something. Your grain bill may be more successful than mine.

I mashed high (around 72C) and used only the first runnings for best body for all three styles. This gave me a brewhouse efficiency of 43% but the malt bill is so low for these beers anyway that adding a bit more won't break the bank. I think the St Peter's low alcohol bitter that you can buy in Tesco is made this way but I think they've gone too far down the high temperature body route and come up with something that's a bit cloying.

I have made Brew Dog Nanny State to the recipe they published and my attempt was very close to the original. For that I mashed at 'normal' temperature and treated it as a standard bitter in other respects. It's very hard to tell when fermentation has started or finished as you don't get a krausen as you might expect with something stronger. It's more like making a 23 litre yeast starter :-)

I hope that gives you a few pointers.

Russell

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Re: Low abv- how to improve mouth feel/body?

Post by Jocky » Thu Aug 31, 2017 12:00 pm

simon12 wrote:
Thu Aug 31, 2017 2:50 am
Just a thought, if you are force carbonating it could you stabilise it early like wine? This way you could have the FG as high as you want and very clear. I have never heard it done but can't see any problems as long as you can force carb it.
Main issue would be making sure that yeast doesn't leave behind any off flavours it would normally 'clean up' at the end of fermentation (e.g. diacetyl, acetaldehyde).
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.

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