The mouthfeel says a lot about the beer and can be the difference between a good and a bad brew. A creamy, pleasant mouthfeel is appreciated by beer lovers, casual beer enjoyers, and cicerone.
Some beers have a distinctive mouthfeel that differentiates them from the rest, and it’s possible to tweak a few things in a recipe to improve the mouthfeel in homebrew beers.
When we brew at home we have the option to create or tweak existing recipes and understanding what affects the mouthfeel is super useful to any homebrewer. I’ll share tips I learned by experimenting with my beers at home and what I also heard from other brewers.
I’ll often refer to the beer head and head retention when talking about mouthfeel, so you can check my article on how to increase head retention in beer because it will further explain some chapter below. After all, along beer body, head retention is responsible for mouthfeel.
1. Use nitrogen as a base gas
Nitrogen may never be used alone and brewers usually use a mix of 80/20 in favor of nitrogen or a similar ratio but nitrogen is responsible for that creamy head that lasts forever on popular stouts such as Guinness or Belhaven.
Nitrogen isn’t just another gas homebrewers have at home and that’s unfortunate because it’s the best solution for creamy head and mouthfeel. If you get a chance to own a nitrogen keg, trust me it will introduce you to a whole new lever of brewing beers!
Nitrogen doesn’t fit all beer styles, but certainly makes them memorable!
If this is not an option other tips will also work great, but that unique creamy head with long retention is best achievable with a nitrogen mixture.
2. Pour beer with faucets
Whether you use Co2 or nitrogen, pouring beer with faucets makes a huge difference!
Faucets allow you to create pressure and send the beer through little holes which will help in the formation of tiny gas bubbles responsible for good head retention. If you follow other tips I’ll mention soon you can make a well-bodied beer with a nice texture and a strong, lasting head with help of faucets.
Ever paid attention to how an on-tap beer tastes different and perhaps, better than a bottled and canned beer? This is one of the reasons.
3. Use oatmeal
Oatmeal is a wonderful ingredient that increases the perceived mouthfeel by providing creamy silkiness in a beer. Just as oatmeal tastes great with milk and water for a breakfast, so it has a similar effect in a finished beer.
This is a nice trick for increasing creamy mouthfeel in stouts, porters, and some pale ales because oatmeal doesn’t leave the taste but rather just provides the beer with a silky texture. However, this applies for as long as you don’t add too much oatmeal, so while even 5% of oatmeal in the total grid will have a noticeable effect but you can go up to 10% in most recipes. To notice the oatmeal taste in a beer you’d probably have to add at least 20% of the total grid or for an obvious taste somewhere above 40%.
I usually add 5% to 8% of oatmeal in my stouts when I brew milk stouts because oatmeal with lactose has a beautiful synergy. When I brew an oatmeal stout I don’t use lactose but double or triple the amount of oats to increase the perceived silkiness.
Bear in mind that going above 10% will affect the consistency and make the sparging process difficult as you’ll have a lot of thick texture reminiscent of a pudding to deal with just as it’s the case with your breakfast oatmeal. This is not an issue if you brew BIAB, but for other methods bear this in mind.
4. Use lactose
Lactose is unfermentable sugar, so it’s ideal for back sweetening or for improving the perceived mouthfeel. Lactose increases the gravity in a beer and primarily makes the beer creamier and thicker, while it doesn’t make the beer overly sweet.
As a matter of fact, lactose won’t add any harsh sweetness as long as you are not putting more than 10% in the total grid. When I brew milk stouts this amount of lactose only adds subtle sweetness because the rest of the bitter, specialty grains neutralize it.
You should pay attention to what ingredients go into the recipe when determining how much lactose to put in, but it’s really difficult to make the sweet beer with lactose to the point where you’ll regret it. Speaking of this I just got inspired to brew an imperial stout with extra lactose and residual sugars which will technically make it a sweet or milk imperial stout.
So, don’t hesitate and add some lactose to make that creamy mouthfeel to your beer!
5. Use wheat malt
Wheat malt has a great influence on head retention and thus it also promotes a mouthfeel in a beer. In short, proteins that come from these types of malt are responsible for head forming and retention but head retention is always correlated with the beer body, so a fuller beer will typically result in a better mouthfeel due to texture but also to the head retention it promotes.
6. Use crystal malt
Crystal malt leaves lighter, caramel, and biscuity notes the less Lovibond it has and high Lovibond crystal malt leaves more of a dark fruity taste such as raisins. What every crystal malt has in common is the residual sugar it leaves in the beer after fermentation.
Once again, the residual sugar won’t make the beer noticeably sweet but will add some sweetness and the same residual sugars will affect the mouthfeel making it thicker and creamier to an extent.
However, this is not advice to use more crystal malt than what the recipe calls for or at least not too much over what other recipes suggest. In my opinion, everything up to 12% is okay, but an excess amount may take over the beer flavor profile and make it too caramelly like when you drink cola.
Furthermore, going above 10-12% may impact head retention which will have a negative effect on that creamy mouthfeel you are looking for.
Once again, the key is in moderation!
7. Mash at the higher temperature
Mash temperatures have a direct effect on how much will the sugars from grains become easy for yeast to eat and thus produce alcohol and Co2.
A normal range for mashing is 145°F – 158°F (63°C – 70°C) but the higher the temperature the harder the will sugar be and thus you’ll end up with lots of residual sweetness or in other words unfermented sugars. This leads to a more-bodied beer which as a result also affects the mouthfeel.
This is a fine method and it’s important to pay attention to mashing temperature when you have a certain style in mind because some beers must end up as dry as possible and others appreciate a fuller body.
8. Use low-attenuation yeast
Yeast attenuation is an important factor that can affect the mouthfeel of the beer. The greater the attenuation, the better is yeast at eating sugars so you can expect a drier beer. If the yeast has 70% attenuation values, it will do a decent job at eating sugars but the beer won’t end up completely dry and some residual sweetness may be perceived.
Just as it’s explained in the previous chapter with mash temperature, the yeast attenuation plays a role in how well-bodied will the beer end up and thus it has an effect on the mouthfeel.
If you want a super dry beer you’ll mash at a lower temperature and use yeast with great attenuation, do the opposite and there goes your full-bodied beer.
