Full, Medium Or Light Body Beers

[Crusty]

Hi all,
Playing around with Beersmith today & deciding how to do my first AG.
Wondering if some of you can lead me down the right path with body selection for which beers.
1. Ales. Light, medium or full body?
2. Lagers. Light, medium or full body?
Any suggestions would be great with beers & body.
I am looking at possibly doing Dr Smurto's Golden Ale & trying to select which body for this beer in Beersmith.
Thanks,
Crusty

 

[lagers44]

Oh Wow it's Crusty....!! now the excitment's passed , best bet would be to try for medium and see how you like it , unless you really like thin bodied beers. I generally aim for thin or medium unless i'm doing a rich stout or bock.
The difference won't be too noticable if you like bitter beers as opposed to malty brews.

Lagers

 

[Snow]

Geez Crusty, it really depends on what kind of lager or ale you want to brew. Of course, I would suggest you go with medium so you have room for error if you don't hit your target temps. However, I will say that I think the default mash schedules in Beersmith are a tad too high in my opinion, i.e their light body is around 65.5c from memory, which I would class as medium. If I was going light body, I would aim for 63 or 64c, depending on the grist (eg, plenty of wheat, or no crystal, probably safe to mash a bit higher). Have a look at some of the recipes in the recipe database to get a feel for what temps people are using for particular varieties of beer.

Cheers - Snow

 

[Crusty]

Thanks guys,
I was actually aiming at a medium bodied beer & will type that in as my starter. Will see how it turns out.
Thank you,
Crusty

 

[devo]

I found that a simple Pale ale or stout is a great way to start. Odds are in your favour that you will produce a half decent beer that far exceeds your expectations and will aid in keeping you interested enough to keep going.

 

[trevc]

Hi all,
Playing around with Beersmith today & deciding how to do my first AG.
Wondering if some of you can lead me down the right path with body selection for which beers.
1. Ales. Light, medium or full body?
2. Lagers. Light, medium or full body?
Any suggestions would be great with beers & body.
I am looking at possibly doing Dr Smurto's Golden Ale & trying to select which body for this beer in Beersmith.
Thanks,
Crusty

Crusty, I'm doing my first AG this weekend. I'm doing the Dr Smurto's too, it sounds great.
Planning to mash at 66C.

I purchased Beer Tools Pro (since there's only macs here), but have found Beersmith to be much more intuitive. I couldn't figure out how to do batch sparging in beer tools without resulting in negative finishing volumes!

Good luck with your brew

 

[rude]

Geez crusty you are confidant ,me I want to AG but have just made a K&K come back first batch u/s 2nd very average the 3rd gives me hope its nice.

My biggest concern is & I know it will happen is that my beers will be very average to start with but I am keen to perservere to a decent standard (better than swill & what ever style I want).

Its gotta be practice makes perfect .You could never jump in boots & all & produce the perfect beer style could you.

I recon ya could go allright with the advice on this site though.

Good luck crusty what style of beer is youre favourite.

 

[Muggus]

I reckon balance should play a big role when considering what kind of body you want for you brew. More specifically how you want the beer to be balanced...cause lets face it, you're the one who's more likely to drink it.
If you're sticking to a certain style that is hop-oriented, then you may want to make the beer dryer to really let those hops shine through. Though it works both ways, if you've used ALOT of hops, particularly for bittering, it helps to have a malt backbone.
And on the other end of the scale alot of darker/stronger beers, particularly those with plenty of roasted malts and/or alcohol like stouts or Belgian strong ales, best to give them a richer, fuller body, to take the edge off and make it a smoother overall beer.
Having said that, its still up to personal choice. Aim for medium if you're not all too sure what would suit your beer.

 

[Crusty]

Thanks for the advice guys, much appreciated.
I will set it up do do a medium body & see how it pans out.

rude,
I really like Pale Ales & English Bitters. These are definately my favourites.

trevc,
Keep me posted with your first AG & let me know how you went with it all.

buttersd70,
In Beersmith with a single infusion mash, medium body batch sparge it tells me to mash in 11.08 litres of water at 76.7 deg c & step temp of 67.8 deg c for 60 mins. Batch sparge with 18.21 litres water at 75.6 deg c & add enough water to achieve boil volume of 24.09 litres & ending up with a 19 litre batch.
I am using a Rubbermaid cooler with stainless false bottom as the mash tun & wasn't planning on a mash out. Do you think this would be ok.
Cheers,
Crusty

 

[Screwtop]

Hi all,
Playing around with Beersmith today & deciding how to do my first AG.
Wondering if some of you can lead me down the right path with body selection for which beers.
1. Ales. Light, medium or full body?
2. Lagers. Light, medium or full body?
Any suggestions would be great with beers & body.
I am looking at possibly doing Dr Smurto's Golden Ale & trying to select which body for this beer in Beersmith.
Thanks,
Crusty

Make beer, it's your first AG :lol:

After 60 or so AG's you will understand the difference and how to achieve light, medium and full bodied using your equipment.

TIP: If you plan on doing a single infusion, remember you will be introducing water at around 10C higher than your desired conversion temp, if you are using a good quality high enzymic malt, some conversion will have taken place before your grainbed temp settles at the desired rest temp, so the body will be a little higher than your target anyway. So lets say if Beersmith suggests a mash temp of 66C for medium body it wouldn't hurt to drop that by a couple of degrees.

Cheers,

Screwy

 

[Batz]

Make beer, it's your first AG :lol:

How good is that ! :beerbang:

Your not really Krusty are you?

Batz

 

[browndog]

Believe it or not is is pretty hard to make a bad tasting AG (infections aside) anything you brew will end up tasting shitloads better than any megaswill. Just grab Sideshow Bob and get in and do it Crusty, hehehehey.........Uhgggg.......


cheers

Browndog

 

[trevc]

Will do Crusty, especially since we're both doing the Dr Smurto. My spiral burner hasn't arrived yet, so it's looking like we'll have a brew-day early in the week.