Mouth feel on Northwest APA

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Lowlyf

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Hey guys,

All my beers so far have really been quite dry and missing the nice mouth feel of traditional west coast pales.
I've recently brewed this batch and am wanting to know how you think it'll turn out and if youd change anything.

2.5kg Liquid Light Malt Extract
1kg Liquid Wheat Malt Extract
1x Lager/Pilsner Grain Pack
30g Citra Hops (11.2% AA) ‐ 60 min boil
20g Citra (13.5% AA) & 10g Cascade Hops (6.8% AA) ‐ 10 min boil
10g Citra (13.5% AA) & 10g Cascade Hops (6.8% AA) – 0 min boil
20g Cascade (6.8% AA) – Dry Hop
Safale US‐04

It tasted amazing when taking the SG, and it's my first attempt at using US04 yeast as opposed to 05. I read on here somewhere that 05 can be dry finishing and the 04 not dry
 
I reckon stick to the US-05 as it's a US style ale yeast. S04 (not us04?) is associated with English ales.

I'll let somebody else chime in, but I think your pilsner/lager grains could be the reason for dryness as they are usually mashed at a lower temp?

Hop bill all good for style. Would be intetesting to see what swapping the timings around of the cascade + citra would do...
 
I reckon stick to the US-05 as it's a US style ale yeast. S04 (not us04?) is associated with English ales.

I'll let somebody else chime in, but I think your pilsner/lager grains could be the reason for dryness as they are usually mashed at a lower temp?

Hop bill all good for style. Would be intetesting to see what swapping the timings around of the cascade + citra would do...

Yes sorry S04. With that though I've also read that some people can't even tell the difference. It will be interesting to see how it turns out. If it's too yeasty then I'll be going back to 05 as quick as a flash
 
looks tasty

I recently tried US04 or S04? for the first time in a session IPA and will go back to it after doing back to back batches with it and US05. It could be my imagination but the S04 batch seems a bit softer and juicier. The US05 batch is a bit sharper. Might even try a blend of 2/3rds S04 and 1/3rd US05.

What are the numbers for your beer?

OG?
expected FG?
IBU?
 
Details of whats in the lager/pilsner grain pack and how you are using it would be handy. 'Im assuming probably only pilsner grain and you are mashing it?

If so you could mash at say 68C, add some carapils or wheat to it and you will start to get more body in it.
 
Details of whats in the lager/pilsner grain pack and how you are using it would be handy. 'Im assuming probably only pilsner grain and you are mashing it?

If so you could mash at say 68C, add some carapils or wheat to it and you will start to get more body in it.

I Just steeped 250g of grain for 30 mins and threw that into the boil. So what is the key to body hey? Why don't more recipes have It???
 
I Just steeped 250g of grain for 30 mins and threw that into the boil. So what is the key to body hey? Why don't more recipes have It???

The key to body is unfermentable carbohydrates.

If your wort is highly fermentable, and the yeast ferment most of the carbohydrates into alcohol, you end up with dry, thin beer with little body.
If your wort contains a lot of unfermentable carbohydrates, there are more left over after fermentation and the beer will be sweeter and have more body.

You have less control over this with extract brewing, you are mostly at the mercy of the fermentability of the extract you are using.

Pilsner malts need to be mashed, you cant really just steep them, but depending on how you steeped them, it may well have been enough to mash it. It wont add much body though as the starches will readily convert to fermentable sugars during mashing.

Try steeping some crystal/caramel malts . These contain more complex sugars that will add body and sweetness to your beer. For a pale ale I would go for around 100g of a light crystal or caramunich 1 or similar. Try that for a batch, if its too sweet, try another batch with 50g, if you want more body still, try a batch with 150g.
 
The key to body is unfermentable carbohydrates.

If your wort is highly fermentable, and the yeast ferment most of the carbohydrates into alcohol, you end up with dry, thin beer with little body.
If your wort contains a lot of unfermentable carbohydrates, there are more left over after fermentation and the beer will be sweeter and have more body.

You have less control over this with extract brewing, you are mostly at the mercy of the fermentability of the extract you are using.

Pilsner malts need to be mashed, you cant really just steep them, but depending on how you steeped them, it may well have been enough to mash it. It wont add much body though as the starches will readily convert to fermentable sugars during mashing.

Try steeping some crystal/caramel malts . These contain more complex sugars that will add body and sweetness to your beer. For a pale ale I would go for around 100g of a light crystal or caramunich 1 or similar. Try that for a batch, if its too sweet, try another batch with 50g, if you want more body still, try a batch with 150g.
Bloody hell! Makes perfect sense. Thanks heaps man!
 
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Knowing your previous recipe and technique might help work out why it was dry and how to proceed better in future
 
Re reading this thread I'm surprised you ended up with a dry beer as LME tends to lead to fairly high FG.

What was the FG of the beer?

If you steeped the pilsner malt, did you boil the resulting wort?

If not then you may have ended up transferring enzymes to the fermenter that have broken down some of the compelx sugars in during the fermentation, resulting in a lower than usual FG.

All guessing without the numbers though.
 
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