maltodextrin for body

[brynn]

My honey oat ale seems a little thin. I'd like to add some maltodextrin for body. How much per gallon is a good rule of thumb?

[Al-Loves-Wine]

I myself typically use half pound to a pound of dextrine malt depending on style per 5 gallon. You could also use small amounts of wheat as well to give yourself a bit extra body and head retention.

As far as using straight maltodextrine, I have no experience with it.

[jamie_savoie]

like Al said or mash higher next time

[Chris Craig]

My favourite way to add body is to just add more grain.  Alcohol = body   Most of my beers have crept up to 6 - 6.5% these days.

[Waterlogged]

I read somewhere that vigerous boil equels good body as well. 

[brynn]

The beer is a honey oat ale which finished at 1.006 with US 05. Im gonna add 400g maltodextrine at bottling. Ill post results here

[jamie_savoie]

that's a whole lot of dextrine!   That’s going to result in an overly sweet beer.  If it's drinkable right now I wouldn’t touch it but that’s just me.  I’d take a dry beer over a overly sweet beer anyday

[Chris Craig]

I wouldn't do this either.  I'm not sure how much sweetness you'd get, but in the future, I'd increase the grain bill a bit and increase the mash temp.  That should keep your ABV close to where you are and increase the body at the same time. 

[brynn]

i used beersmith and figured out that 200g would add approx 6.5 pts to the FG. i dissolved it with the honey I used to prime and added to the bottling bucket. Should bring it up to 1.012 ish which is what I was shooting for. Give it a month to carb and 2 months to age and well see whats up. I probably try one in a month. Will post results here

[pliny]

Does it really work that way?
There's still some amount of yeast left in there but one wonders if it will actually add body.
Either way it seems that you had your mind set on getting more body from the get-go.
Hopefully no bottle bombs.

[Al-Loves-Wine]

Yeah, I'm rather interested to hear how that is going to work out. I'm with pliny on this one, hope ya dont get any bottle bombs. I had bottle bombs once in a milk crate, took out every bottle in the crate, and 3 more in the crate that was stacked on top. 

[jamie_savoie]

Maltodextrin is unfermentable (like lactose) so bottle bombs won’t be an issue

[Al-Loves-Wine]

He mixed it with honey though, hopefully it won't blow the caps off. 

[Chris Craig]

Probably only enough honey for priming though.

[brynn]

I did some research when I was trying to make a sweet sparkling bottled conditioned cider. Maltodextrin is 97% unfermentable. I used northern brewers priming calculated so the 100g of honey should give me approx. 2.6 volumes of carbonation. Well see in a while.