unhappy extract brewer

BeerSmithSonian · 11-30-2011, 02:50 PM

I've been extract brewing for a year now and I unfortunately feel all of the beers I've brewed are not as tasty as they should be. I brew partial boils and then add water once the boil is complete per the instructions. Will full boils produce tastier beers?

**luke2080** · 11-30-2011, 02:51 PM

What do you do for fermentation - and how much yeast do you use per batch?

BeerSmithSonian · 11-30-2011, 02:55 PM

I have used brewers best kits, more beer.com kits and other various kits from suppliers. Fermentation is in an ale pail or bucket.

BeerSmithSonian · 11-30-2011, 02:56 PM

I normally use one packet of dry yeast

**Pappers_** · 11-30-2011, 02:58 PM

Welcome, BeerSmithSonian. I love your name!

By 'tasty', what do you mean? It would be helpful to know more about the off-flavors you getting, or what you are perceiving as lacking.

Yes, full boils have advantages, but I will echo Luke's question about your fermentation practices. For new brewers, pitching more and healthier yeast and controlling fermentation temperatures will be their biggest need.

**Pappers_** · 11-30-2011, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeerSmithSonian

I normally use one packet of dry yeast

Is it a high quality yeast, such as Fermentis's Safale 04 or 05, or Danstar's Nottingham?

**Pappers_** · 11-30-2011, 03:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeerSmithSonian

I have used brewers best kits, more beer.com kits and other various kits from suppliers. Fermentation is in an ale pail or bucket.

At what temperature are you fermenting? For how long?

MikeSteele · 11-30-2011, 03:06 PM

BeerSmithSonian,
I've been brewing extract partial boil now for almost a year now. There are definitely aspects of my final products I'm not fully satisfied with, but overall I think the beer that my process produces is quite good, and I typically get great compliments. There are a couple things that can maximize the flavor potential:

Pitch the right yeast cell count per mrmalty.com, and use starters. Complete and rapid attenuation with healthy yeast ensures minimal off-flavors.
Late extract addition: add about 2/3 of the malt extract with 15 minutes left on your boil. Helps to reduce "extract twang", that flavor that makes an extract taste like it's an extract.
Fermentation temps. Use the recommended temps or look online for experiments at other temps. Look up swamp cooler setups on this site for cheap fermentation temp control.
And obviously, sanitization

Cheers

**Revvy** · 11-30-2011, 03:07 PM

What's your fermentation process in terms of time left to ferment and to condition? Are you following the stupid and un realistic timeframes in the recipes that say to rack based on time rather than if the beer is finished fermenting or not (as indicated by hydromter readings) and are you letting the beer condition before bottling?

A lot of new brewers have found that by ignoring their instructions and leaving their beers alone longer on the yeast (and later in the bottles) that the flavor of the beer leaps exponentially.

As you read on here you will see that most of us have found that patience is usually the simple, magically ingredient to great tasting beer.

Many, many of us, for example skip secondary and leave our beer in primary for a month, it lets the beer finish fermenting, and allows the yeast plenty of time to clean up the by products of fermentation that leads to off flavors, and often stays with the beer if folks follow those crappy instructions and rush the beer off the yeast.

There's other important things to look at as well, proper yeast pitching rates, fermentation temp control and other little, and simple things that you can find on here. But I think the biggest one is to not rush the beer from the yeast.

**edmanster** · 11-30-2011, 03:09 PM

I'm not going to assume anything until he chimes in but what I think he wants is more malt characture.. Maybe some unfermentables that leave some more sweetness behind or an english yeast that helps with malt characture...