First Brew - Taste Questions

ozymandias88 · 02-10-2010, 04:15 AM

I posted maybe a week and a half ago with concerns about off flavors in my first brew. I just opened my first bottle, wonderfully carbed, smelled good, but there were some issues.

First, the off flavors were still there but about 1/10 as dominant as they were before, which gives me hope that it will go away in 2 or 3 more weeks. Second, the beer had almost no body, it had an extremely light feel for a wheat beer. Will aging develop body as well?

weetodd · 02-10-2010, 05:00 AM

So I think you'll find age does help smooth things out. Young beers have a "green" flavor that mellow and meld together over a few weeks. Many folks recommend sitting a six-pack out of the way and waiting a few months to see how it ages. Some beers are better young than others.

As for body, I don't think you'll find that the body will increase. That is usually determined by the mash and could even thin out depending how clean your beer was (wild yeast).

If you post your process and recipe, we could maybe let you know what could add to more body...a couple of ideas would be a higher mash temperature (if you're doing all grain) or maybe adding some carapils (you can steep that if you are doing an extract brew)

Also, can you describe your off flavors? Maybe something will ring a bell.

ozymandias88 · 02-10-2010, 05:32 AM

I used the northern brewer honey wheat kit. The off flavors are... I don't really know. In my first post I described it as an astringency but that wouldn't be even remotely accurate now... "green" seems to fit it perfectly. Anywho, I'm not so concerned about the off flavor as it has almost completely gone away. I probably put too much emphasis on it above, when my real concern was how light the beer felt.

wyzazz · 02-10-2010, 12:40 PM

Did you add any honey or straight sugar to your recipe? That will thin out the body, however young beer also feels pretty thin.

ozymandias88 · 02-10-2010, 02:06 PM

Honey at the end of the boil.

wyzazz · 02-10-2010, 02:12 PM

That can do it! Give it some time to age and hopefully it will "thicken up". Just as an FYI, honey/sucrose/dextrose in your beers will thin it out and impart a "cidery" taste to your beer. Also, honey will impart NO HONEY FLAVOR to your beer since it all ferments out. If you want the honey flavor you can use Honey Malt. Maltodextrin will add body to your beer if you need to add sugars to increase the ABV.