Lack of mouthfeel on my Brunch Stout

Greetings fellow Brewers,

Long time lurker, first time post. I would like to get some opinions on how I can add more body to my extract brews. I just tasted my latest batch which was a NB Brunch Stout. Brew day was flawless, aggressive primary fermentation and even pushed the secondary to just under 2 months. I ended up dry beaning for about 11 days which achieved the coffee aroma I was looking for. I always tend to err on the side of caution and slightly under carbonate when I prime, but that being said I was happy with each step of the process. Sunday was 14 days in the bottle so I cracked one to sample. A decent head when first poured that dissapated as it warmed up which I’m fine with. Nose was fantastic and the flavor was spot on. However, it just seems too thin to me. I now have about half a dozen batches under my belt (can never brew as much as I would like to) and this always seems to be something I am unhappy with in regards to my final product. Is there anything I can do to enhance the mouthfeel of my extract homebrews, or am I being unrealistic in thinking I can brew a beer with significant body unless I make the jump to all grain? I have a Bourbon Barrel Porter in the hopper and would love to improve my technique for that batch.

Thanks in advance for the guidance and I look forward to your feedback.

Cheers,
SJL

This may may a solution for you. A link to the online edition of “How To Brew”. I won’t even try to paraphrase.
http://howtobrew.com/book/section-4/experiment/increasing-the-body

Thanks flars. I saw that as well and will take it into consideration. Was more curious to others in this forum and their experiances and suggestions.

You have less control with extract, but there’s still things you can do. What kind of OG/FG are you getting on these beers? Some things you could do:

-Add Maltodextrin. You can add this at any time during the brewing process (8 oz will give you another 4 points or so to your FG on a 5G batch) . For a brunch stout, lactose is another good option (8-16oz per 5G is a good range).

-Some DME brands are more fermentable than others, so you experiment with switching to a different DME brand

-Change yeast. Try using a british yeast, in general they tend to attenuate less than other yeasts. Looks like this kit uses S-04, which should have been a good option.

-Dont add sugar or any other fully fermentable items.

-Steep some extra crystal malt.

That was my first thought to steep some extra specialty grains

Thanks guys. Will try these and also continue to research other options. Will let you know how the porter turns out.