IPA Feels Thin...

[hamster]

Hi All,

Completed my first BIAB a few weeks back and finally had a taste of it today. Overall I'm damn happy with the results ! I've brewed many a kit and this is by far the best...

What I'm after though is some ideas on making it feel less thin in the mouth ?

Started with around 4.5kg of malt, OG started @ 1.048 and FG was 1.011...

My guess after some research is that all the sugars have pretty much been fermented which gives it a thin feel. Where do I ideally want the FG to finish, 1.015 ?

Then the question is how do I do that ?

I know the temperature of the mash can effect it but that was already at 66/67c (151/151f) which I don't believe I can increase without adding flavours that are unwanted.

I also read you can add flaked oats to the mash of around 10-15% of the grain bill so 450-675g worth in my above grain weight. This however again adds to an oat taste and also haze in the beer, of which mine is crystal !

Any other suggestions ? I've done some googling but come up a little short unless I've read wrong ?

Thanks
- Hamster

 

[Grizzly299]

Hi All,

Completed my first BIAB a few weeks back and finally had a taste of it today. Overall I'm damn happy with the results ! I've brewed many a kit and this is by far the best...

What I'm after though is some ideas on making it feel less thin in the mouth ?

Started with around 4.5kg of malt, OG started @ 1.048 and FG was 1.011...

My guess after some research is that all the sugars have pretty much been fermented which gives it a thin feel. Where do I ideally want the FG to finish, 1.015 ?

Then the question is how do I do that ?

I know the temperature of the mash can effect it but that was already at 66/67c (151/151f) which I don't believe I can increase without adding flavours that are unwanted.

I also read you can add flaked oats to the mash of around 10-15% of the grain bill so 450-675g worth in my above grain weight. This however again adds to an oat taste and also haze in the beer, of which mine is crystal !

Any other suggestions ? I've done some googling but come up a little short unless I've read wrong ?

Thanks
- Hamster

Your mash temp seems about right to be honest.

The number 1 suspect for watery body is beer that is not mature, or green beer. If you've ever tasted beer when you're taking a gravity sample, you'll know what I mean.

Can you give me an idea of your fermentation schedule? How old is the beer?

What you may be lacking is a little light caramalt to boost the body, maybe 5%. But a single malt IPA should be able to hold its own.

Base malt can also affect body, for example Maris Otter can be more complex than a plain pale malt.

 

[JapanBrew]

I would say you're on the low end. Not too low but that'll get you to the dryer 1.011 zone. Don't worry about off flavors. Those don't start until 78 and above.
My advice is now you've done that batch use it as a base line. Do the next one exactly the same but up the temp by 1.5 degrees and possibly add some wheat. Then see what happened. This will teach you about your setup and hone in your method.
My equipment is off by a degree or two so now I look for the upper scale on heat. Or I step mash over 70 minutes. My hot plate is only 800 watts so heating reacts slow but steady. I'll mash in low, 64 or 65 then set my controller to raise to 69. It takes about 30 minutes to go through those 5 degrees landing me at the alpha stage, unfermentable range. This seems to give me a good body.

 

[Leon103]

What is you water like? Soft or hard?

 

[BeerCat]

Have made some great IPA's with 10% Vienna malt. Finishes at 1010. I always drink most of as soon as it's carbed.

 

[hamster]

Your mash temp seems about right to be honest.

The number 1 suspect for watery body is beer that is not mature, or green beer. If you've ever tasted beer when you're taking a gravity sample, you'll know what I mean.

Can you give me an idea of your fermentation schedule? How old is the beer?

What you may be lacking is a little light caramalt to boost the body, maybe 5%. But a single malt IPA should be able to hold its own.

Base malt can also affect body, for example Maris Otter can be more complex than a plain pale malt.

Yeah to be fair I only kegged it 5 days ago in a Corny keg so it might just take a bit of time to mature... Not sure it'll last that long though :whistle:

Mine was mostly Marris Otter (3.8kg), bit of Pale Wheat Malt (450g) and a little Chocolate (80g). I do have a little Caramalt lying around maybe I'll add 5% of that in if that helps body...

So my complete timeline is
- 5 days vigorous fermentation dropped from 1.048 - 1.011
- Cold crashed for 5 days @ around 3/4c (basically in my garage)
- After the 4th day in the garage added 500ml water with 12g desolved gelatine
- Brought inside for 2 days to 'warm back up' and filtered into secondary fermentation barrel. Beer was clear as crystal.
- Another day in secondary I put 10 or so litres into corny keg, rest is in bottles having been primed with 750ml of wort I kept behind so it has ~= 2.5 CO2 vol
Gyle calculator used
- Now been maturing in corny and bottles for 5 days only

It's still pretty bloody drinkable so happy for my first AG brew but must do better haha !

I'll see how maturing it goes and next add parhaps some of the Caramalt I have... Thanks

I would say you're on the low end. Not too low but that'll get you to the dryer 1.011 zone. Don't worry about off flavors. Those don't start until 78 and above.
My advice is now you've done that batch use it as a base line. Do the next one exactly the same but up the temp by 1.5 degrees and possibly add some wheat. Then see what happened. This will teach you about your setup and hone in your method.
My equipment is off by a degree or two so now I look for the upper scale on heat. Or I step mash over 70 minutes. My hot plate is only 800 watts so heating reacts slow but steady. I'll mash in low, 64 or 65 then set my controller to raise to 69. It takes about 30 minutes to go through those 5 degrees landing me at the alpha stage, unfermentable range. This seems to give me a good body.

78c ? That is much higher than I thought. My belief was you can denature certain proteins @ 70c (I'm not even going to pretend I know what that really means, yet) but it's where the off flavour comes from...

I brew in a water heater so it could be the temp stat is controlled lower in the cylinder so I could certainly try knock it up a few degrees.

Does 1/2c really make that much difference though ?

What is you water like? Soft or hard?

To be honest no overly sure but my guess is water will be on the hard side fro sure

So no body recommends adding in a few oats ?

 

[hamster]

Oh the other point I was going to ask...

This has actually come out at 5% where I was shooting for more session based 4.4%. Increasing the boil liquid will dilute it all but surely this would also add to the thinness of the beer as well ?

Problem with not knowing what I'm doing... Want to change too much at once rather than controlled experimentation

 

[Leon103]

Yeah to be fair I only kegged it 5 days ago in a Corny keg so it might just take a bit of time to mature... Not sure it'll last that long though :whistle:

Mine was mostly Marris Otter (3.8kg), bit of Pale Wheat Malt (450g) and a little Chocolate (80g). I do have a little Caramalt lying around maybe I'll add 5% of that in if that helps body...

So my complete timeline is
- 5 days vigorous fermentation dropped from 1.048 - 1.011
- Cold crashed for 5 days @ around 3/4c (basically in my garage)
- After the 4th day in the garage added 500ml water with 12g desolved gelatine
- Brought inside for 2 days to 'warm back up' and filtered into secondary fermentation barrel. Beer was clear as crystal.
- Another day in secondary I put 10 or so litres into corny keg, rest is in bottles having been primed with 750ml of wort I kept behind so it has ~= 2.5 CO2 vol
Gyle calculator used
- Now been maturing in corny and bottles for 5 days only

It's still pretty bloody drinkable so happy for my first AG brew but must do better haha !

I'll see how maturing it goes and next add parhaps some of the Caramalt I have... Thanks



78c ? That is much higher than I thought. My belief was you can denature certain proteins @ 70c (I'm not even going to pretend I know what that really means, yet) but it's where the off flavour comes from...

I brew in a water heater so it could be the temp stat is controlled lower in the cylinder so I could certainly try knock it up a few degrees.

Does 1/2c really make that much difference though ?



To be honest no overly sure but my guess is water will be on the hard side fro sure

So no body recommends adding in a few oats ?

Hard water maybe an issue. You need soft water for ipas

 

[Grizzly299]

Yeah to be fair I only kegged it 5 days ago in a Corny keg so it might just take a bit of time to mature... Not sure it'll last that long though :whistle:

Mine was mostly Marris Otter (3.8kg), bit of Pale Wheat Malt (450g) and a little Chocolate (80g). I do have a little Caramalt lying around maybe I'll add 5% of that in if that helps body...

So my complete timeline is
- 5 days vigorous fermentation dropped from 1.048 - 1.011
- Cold crashed for 5 days @ around 3/4c (basically in my garage)
- After the 4th day in the garage added 500ml water with 12g desolved gelatine
- Brought inside for 2 days to 'warm back up' and filtered into secondary fermentation barrel. Beer was clear as crystal.
- Another day in secondary I put 10 or so litres into corny keg, rest is in bottles having been primed with 750ml of wort I kept behind so it has ~= 2.5 CO2 vol
Gyle calculator used
- Now been maturing in corny and bottles for 5 days only

It's still pretty bloody drinkable so happy for my first AG brew but must do better haha !

I'll see how maturing it goes and next add parhaps some of the Caramalt I have... Thanks



78c ? That is much higher than I thought. My belief was you can denature certain proteins @ 70c (I'm not even going to pretend I know what that really means, yet) but it's where the off flavour comes from...

I brew in a water heater so it could be the temp stat is controlled lower in the cylinder so I could certainly try knock it up a few degrees.

Does 1/2c really make that much difference though ?



To be honest no overly sure but my guess is water will be on the hard side fro sure

So no body recommends adding in a few oats ?

I make it that Your beer is only 17 days old, is that correct?

If so then it's no wonder it is watery :nono:


Here's my fermentation schedule;

•3 weeks Primary (Dry hopping 4 days prior to bottling for IPA)

•Batch prime and bottle

•2 weeks conditioning @ Room temp

•2 weeks cool conditioning.

I may shorten the primary and room temp conditioning time time by a week for IPA's to preserve hop flavour.It depends on the brew.Lower abv brews(below 4.5%) also peak sooner, so their schedule should be adjusted accordingly.

That's 17 days grain to glass as opposed to my average of 49! I'm still in the fermenter at 17 days. It has finished fermenting, but what it's doing is bulk conditioning. As a minimum I would recommend 30-35 days grain to glass for your average 5% 5 gallon brew.

Your beer is nowhere near it's peak condition. Commercial brewers are able to brew and condition in times as short as you because they brew in huge volumes and beer conditions more quickly in large volumes.

As home brewers we only work with small volumes and so conditioning times are much longer.

The longer you can leave your beer without reducing the volume or splitting it up, the faster it will condition.

I hope this helps :thumb:

 

[wfr42]

I added oats to my simple ipa after an all pale malt smash was missing something.

I really enjoyed it (and just rebrewed it with 150g of light crystal).

5kg pale malt
200g porridge oats
Mashed at 64°c for 60mins
68% efficiency
1.047 - 1.005

@dan125 and @Clint have had a bottle in a swap so they might be able to comment.

 

[foxbat]

5% flaked oats in your grist works wonders for mouth-feel without adding as much sweetness as you'd get from the crystal/caramalts.

 

[strange-steve]

Hard water maybe an issue. You need soft water for ipas

Don't confuse hardness with alkalinity, hard water is good for IPAs.

 

[Leon103]

Don't confuse hardness with alkalinity, hard water is good for IPAs.

I thought I had read that soft is better, hard for darker less hoppy beers

 

[Covrich]

Also what yeast did you use?

 

[Bodleigh Head]

Also what yeast did you use?

Agree. It's what I would be looking at first before messing around with mash temperatures and adjuncts ... the yeast can make a HUGE difference to your finished beer.

 

[DethApostle]

All i'm going to add to this is that you should only change 1 variable before you re-brew otherwise you'll never know what impact what change had.
Next brew, feel free to change the recipe but if you plan to alter the mash/fermentation schedule then don't add wheat or rolled oats etc.

Personally i'd brew another IPA, same recipe but different hops (but only so you haven't got masses of the same tasting beer), and with a mash schedule 2-3 C higher.

What you learn from repeating brews with small changes will be applicable to every recipe you brew. If you change ingredients but not the process then you only learn about that recipe! D
DA

 

[hamster]

I make it that Your beer is only 17 days old, is that correct?

If so then it's no wonder it is watery :nono:


Here's my fermentation schedule;

•3 weeks Primary (Dry hopping 4 days prior to bottling for IPA)

•Batch prime and bottle

•2 weeks conditioning @ Room temp

•2 weeks cool conditioning.

I may shorten the primary and room temp conditioning time time by a week for IPA's to preserve hop flavour.It depends on the brew.Lower abv brews(below 4.5%) also peak sooner, so their schedule should be adjusted accordingly.

That's 17 days grain to glass as opposed to my average of 49! I'm still in the fermenter at 17 days. It has finished fermenting, but what it's doing is bulk conditioning. As a minimum I would recommend 30-35 days grain to glass for your average 5% 5 gallon brew.

Your beer is nowhere near it's peak condition. Commercial brewers are able to brew and condition in times as short as you because they brew in huge volumes and beer conditions more quickly in large volumes.

As home brewers we only work with small volumes and so conditioning times are much longer.

The longer you can leave your beer without reducing the volume or splitting it up, the faster it will condition.

I hope this helps :thumb:

That's mega advice thanks ! I know the longer the conditioning the better but never really come across 'bulk' conditioning. That does make sense though...

Seems I'm going to need to brew a few more so some have time to condition enough haha...

Good advice with the conditioning times with different ABV as well...

Thanks everyone, I've got plenty to go on here and run multiple experiments to improve it...

For reference my brew was done with basic safale s-05 dry yeast

Think my first port of call will be a slightly higher mash temp and rather than relying on the digital gauge of the water heater I'll use a thermometer so it's much more accurate !

Loads of top advice thanks !

 

[strange-steve]

I thought I had read that soft is better, hard for darker less hoppy beers

Low alkalinity is good for IPAs, higher for dark beers, but hardness is something different, it's a measurement of the mineral content of water, particularly calcium and magnesium which are both good for brewing water. Burton for example is famous for its IPAs and the water there is harder than Lenny Mclean.

 

[Brewmarc]

Hi All,

Completed my first BIAB a few weeks back and finally had a taste of it today. Overall I'm damn happy with the results ! I've brewed many a kit and this is by far the best...

What I'm after though is some ideas on making it feel less thin in the mouth ?

Started with around 4.5kg of malt, OG started @ 1.048 and FG was 1.011...

My guess after some research is that all the sugars have pretty much been fermented which gives it a thin feel. Where do I ideally want the FG to finish, 1.015 ?

Then the question is how do I do that ?

I know the temperature of the mash can effect it but that was already at 66/67c (151/151f) which I don't believe I can increase without adding flavours that are unwanted.

I also read you can add flaked oats to the mash of around 10-15% of the grain bill so 450-675g worth in my above grain weight. This however again adds to an oat taste and also haze in the beer, of which mine is crystal !

Any other suggestions ? I've done some googling but come up a little short unless I've read wrong ?

Thanks
- Hamster

Another way of increasing body (And sweetness) not allready mentioned here is to mash speciality malts seperately & adding the liquid to the boil
Malts such as Crystal contain no diastetic (enzyme) power, that is to say they cannot convert starch to fermentable sugars by themselves & require the presence of malts that do contain diastetic enzymes to do the job. Without these enzymes present the sugars that are produced are malto dextrins which cannot be fermented to alcohol by yeast. This also has the effect of of increasing your FG without really effecting your target ABV

 

[Robin54]

My water is as hard as nails, yet my IPA's come out spot on. I think you have another underlying cause