Mashed Too Low?

[mfdes]

I made a brew a little while ago (all gone now), a light coloured golden ale with glacier hops. I had mashed at 65 degrees, for 90 minutes (I was playing with the effect of mash time on my efficiency), and the end result was interesting.
When fairly fresh the beer was quite thin, and too dry. It was almost like one of those enzyme-dried beers, or like someone had used a lot of simple sugar (it was all-malt).
But even more curiously, after 4 weeks or so of cold conditioning (and when there was not much left in the keg!) it seemed to fill itself up and the cidery-ness or thinness was far less noticeable.
Anyone seen this happen before? Could residual acetaldehyde have been contributing to this cidery impression? It was a long slow fermentation, at 16-17 degrees with WLP001.

MFS.

 

[Beer-Smith]

MFS,
Yes, the conversion temp can have a significant effect on the body of your beer. See the graph on this article for an idea of how much attenuation difference you can expect.

The cidery impression may not be directly related to the mash temp - and could be caused by several other reasons.

Also for reference here's an article on improving the body of your beer.

Cheers,
Brad

 

[mfdes]

Thanks!

I often mash at 65 degrees and get 75-80% attenuation with a similar grain bill.
I think the main difference in fermentability was from the 90 minute mash, rather than my usual one hour one.

MFS.