jackgym
Well-Known Member
How do I get a more crisp mouthfeel with my kit beer?
Is adding cracked grains such as rice grains or crystal malt the way to go?
Is adding cracked grains such as rice grains or crystal malt the way to go?
Last edited:
Crisp mouthfeel.
- Thread starter jackgym
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Quite the opposite, you want to take things out not add more in.
A mash brewer could use some rice as part of a mash, as its almost pure starch it adds less protein than would an equivalent amount of base malt. As a kit brewer just adding rice would just add a bit of starch unless you mini mashed it. Similarly for crystal malt only more so, as it has a lot of complex sugars (dextrins) and is used to add body as well as colour and mouth feel to beer.
To get a "Crisper" beer, there are a couple of things you could do: -
Use a dry enzyme, this will chop up otherwise unfermentable dextrins and reduce the body.
Use a more attenuateive (hungry) yeast like a lager yeast, these eat more of the sugars than do ale yeasts, again reducing the body.
Lager properly, cool the finished beer down to -1 to 1oC and keep it there for weeks. Protein and Polyphenols will condense and fall out of the beer, rack the beer off the trub before bottling or kegging. If you let the beer warm up above say 5-6oC the trub will redissolve. Worth having a bit of a read up on lagering, it can sound a little complex but is a fairly straight forward process once you get your head around it.
There are a couple of cheats that might help a bit. Adding a little more bitterness, serving colder and upping the carbonation will all make the beer feel a little crisper, for a while (until it warm/flattens in the glass) but more of a fine tune than a real fix.
I would look at good lager yeast S-34/70 is excellent, and lagering properly is probably the gold standard, it’s slow and requires good temperature control but that’s how we get world class clean crisp lagers.
Mark
A mash brewer could use some rice as part of a mash, as its almost pure starch it adds less protein than would an equivalent amount of base malt. As a kit brewer just adding rice would just add a bit of starch unless you mini mashed it. Similarly for crystal malt only more so, as it has a lot of complex sugars (dextrins) and is used to add body as well as colour and mouth feel to beer.
To get a "Crisper" beer, there are a couple of things you could do: -
Use a dry enzyme, this will chop up otherwise unfermentable dextrins and reduce the body.
Use a more attenuateive (hungry) yeast like a lager yeast, these eat more of the sugars than do ale yeasts, again reducing the body.
Lager properly, cool the finished beer down to -1 to 1oC and keep it there for weeks. Protein and Polyphenols will condense and fall out of the beer, rack the beer off the trub before bottling or kegging. If you let the beer warm up above say 5-6oC the trub will redissolve. Worth having a bit of a read up on lagering, it can sound a little complex but is a fairly straight forward process once you get your head around it.
There are a couple of cheats that might help a bit. Adding a little more bitterness, serving colder and upping the carbonation will all make the beer feel a little crisper, for a while (until it warm/flattens in the glass) but more of a fine tune than a real fix.
I would look at good lager yeast S-34/70 is excellent, and lagering properly is probably the gold standard, it’s slow and requires good temperature control but that’s how we get world class clean crisp lagers.
Mark
jackgym
Well-Known Member
Thanks Mark, very informative.
I might try the dry enzyme for starters and see how it goes.
Cheers
I might try the dry enzyme for starters and see how it goes.
Cheers
