Lower gravity, same flavour and mouthfeel

[inthedark]

I'm interested in brewing a lower-gravity beer (don't panic, I'm looking at something in the 1038-1040 range) but have had poor experiences with e.g. GK IPA which are lacking in flavour IMO.

As always, I want the moon on a stick here - is it possible to adjust the mash to acheive the flavour and mouthfeel of a higher gravity beer, say one of around 1045?

I'm already mashing at around 67degC and 2.5L/Kg, would increasing temperature and/or mash thickness help here? What are the limits to this, and how much effect would this have?

Finally is there any way of estimating the resultant alcohol content after messing about like this?

Sorry for long list of questions....

[Aleman]

My ordinary bitter at 1.035 and 3.1% drinks like a much maltier beer, which I suspect is what you are looking for. You can't really mess about too much with this style as adding more crystal will just make it cloyingly sweet. The trick is to mash warm (you are doing that),, mash thickness doesn't have too much effect with beers of this gravity, its much more noticeable with stronger beers (1.060+). What I do is to add 50% more grain than called for in the recipe, use 3.0L per kilo at 68C. Simply Drain off the mash liquid at the end of the mash, dilute down to a suitable pre boil gravity, then boil. No sparge brewing is one way of increasing maltiness and mouthfeel.

You might want to consider using some of the lighter Crystal malts like Caramalt which are less over powering than standard crystal . . . but no more than 5% at this gravity.

[inthedark]

That sounds easy enough.

And I'm being an idiot asking how to calculate the alcohol - with same extract but less fermentables, the final gravity will be higher, won't it?

[Aleman]

Not by a huge amount . . . . while unfermentable dextrins do contribute to the mouthfeel, a lot does come from the betaglucans and protein in the wort as well.

The usual og-fg/7.23 (ish) calculation always seems to work for me for % alcohol.