Increasing Thickness/body Of Beer

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RichLum

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If I want to make my beer a bit thicker or have a bit more body when you drink it what should I add?

Mostly I've been doing a kit with a kilo of light malt.
Will adding more malt give it more body or just increase the alcohol?

The beer sometimes seems a bit "watery" - not in taste but texture in that the taste doesn't linger in your mouth.


thanks,
Rich
 
An easy way is to drop the batch size down a bit, make up to 18-19Ltrs instead of 23.
Adding more malt will both increase body and alcohol. It all depends on what style you are after too.
 
Thanks Shed.

I've started making up to 20L instead of 23.
I've only bottled 5 batches so far and only tasted 3 of them past 3 weeks in the bottle.

The lager was fine and I will probably keep doing that at 23L

The amber ale and porter though are what I want to get more body on.

Might try the more malt on my next one (amber ale).

What will lactose do to the beer?

thanks,
Rich
 
lactose adds sweetness.
For the amber ale - could add some Dark Brown Sugar 150gms - but this will incerease alcohol content as well.
 
RichLum said:
What will lactose do to the beer?
Lactose is a sugar which is unfermentable by brewers yeasts, so it will add to the body/mouth feel of the beer.

Although it's a sugar it's not very sweet, and if you taste some you'll see that it's hardly sweet at all. It usually has 1/6 to 1/3 the sweetness of cane sugar.

Cheers
MAH
 
If you want to add body to your beer I advise steeping specialty malts like crystal, chocolate and black patent. Which grains and how much will depend on the beer, try steeping 250g crystal and 50g chocolate malt to your amber ale.

Jovial Monk
 
Thanks guys.
Will have to right up a shopping list for my next trip to the hbs....

Will try the crystal and choc malt and see how that goes.

Rich
 
I dont want to make things more difficult, but if you're already doing an all-malt brew, i'd be looking at water or yeast choice to increase the body?

The "watery" mouthfeel you're describing could be due to the properties of your water, or the fermentation properties of your yeast.

Try using a yeast with slightly lower attenuation. Theres both liquid and dry yeasts out there that will suit your requirements.
 
Any suggestions on the yeast for an amber ale or for a porter?
I've used the Safale dry yeast and the kit yeasts and that's it so far...

thanks,
Rich
 
WY 1028 London is a beauty of a yeast for all sorts of Pommy beers

JM
 
Danstar Windsor is a dry yeast alternative too.
 
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