Looking to brew a very dry strong golden ale without sugar and will be using 3711 yeast. To make it real dry with an an abv of around 8-9%, I'll need a pretty decent malt bill and to prevent a lot of body I'll need to mash low. What's the lowest you've gone?
It is not necessary to mash really low with 3711. Just mash at 150 and you'll finish at or under 1.005.
What NathanJohnson said. I did a saison with 3711, mashed at 150, and finished at 1.002. And that's without ever raising the ambient temps from the usual 68 degrees.
Why the regrets? I'm interested in your experience. I've done a RIS at 145F and it's great. It did come out a bit drier than I wished, but not ridiculously so.
Did it on a DIPA a couple years ago that I wanted to be super hop-forward. I actually wanted to hit 148 but ended up at 145 and thought I'd just go with it. It was just too thin and dry and the hops were just too abrasive because of it.
147F. Was actually shooting for 148-149 for a german pils, and decided to just let it go. Will know the results in coming weeks, but it seems to have turned out pretty well.
11.9% Wheatwine at 147 for 90 minutes, further dried out with Reisling grape concentrate, and hopped with Galaxy, Nelson and Pacifica. One of my favorite beers to date.
No point in going lower than 145, which is what maximizes fermentable extract. We mash almost all of our beers in at that temp, ramping up to a saccharification rest after differing times depending on the fermentability that we are looking for.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/The_Theory_of_Mashing According to that link there really isn't much of a difference in the 140-149*F range. I do remember a statement that there is a limit to the amount ferment-ables that can be produced. I might be wrong but I think that one of the things to make sure of is not to dough-in high and cool off to that range. I'm thinking about the role of limit dextrinase and it being denatured around 150*F.
