1st Gravity reading, 1st beer...beer doesn't taste very good

I just took my first gravity reading at 1.5 weeks and the beer tastes watered down and a little bitter with no sweetness at all. The OG was 1.060 and FG 1.012 I think. I used the Wine Thief as a container to spin my hydrometer in and it didn't work very well. I Fermented at 62 degrees with1 smack pack of PACMAN yeast.

When I took my OG reading, the OG was 1.065 and my target was 1.060 so I added about 1/2 gallon of water to hit 1.060. My fear is that I added too much water and the gravities were wrong because I used the wine thief instead of a hydrometer tube.

I am planning on 1/2 of a week longer in primary and 2 weeks in secondary so I can make a porter with the yeast cake. I won't throw it away, but it may not turn out right. What do you think?

Recipe:
% LB OZ MALT OR FERMENTABLE PPG °L
82% 7 0 Light/Pale Malt Extract Syrup 36 5
6% 0 8 Vienna Malt 36 3
6% 0 8 Crystal 40L 34 40
6% 0 8 Special Roast 33 50
Batch size: 5.0 gallons
Original Gravity
1.058
(1.052 to 1.060)
Final Gravity
1.015
(1.013 to 1.015)
Color
10° SRM / 20° EBC
(Gold to Copper)
Mash Efficiency
75%
hops
USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA
boil 60 mins 1.0 Simcoe leaf 12.7
boil 25 mins 1.0 Simcoe leaf 12.7
boil 5 mins 0.5 Citra leaf 11.0
boil 1 min 1.0 Citra leaf 11.0
dry hop 7 days 0.5 Citra leaf 11.0

Boil: 4.0 avg gallons for 60 minutes

Bitterness
12.7 HBU
65.2 IBU
ƒ: Tinseth
BU:GU
1.12
yeast
Wyeast PacMan
ale yeast in liquid form with medium flocculation
Alcohol
5.7% A.B.V.
4.4% A.B.W.
Calories
190 per 12 oz.
misc
USE TIME AMOUNT INGREDIENT
boil 60 min 1 tsp Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate)
boil 20 min 2 tsp Irish Moss

And now you know what green beer tastes like.

Carry on.

Let it finish, bottle it and give it 3 or 4 weeks in the bottle before you try one and you won't believe it's the same thing you just tasted.

I guess that's that...hope it doesn't taste bad in the end. Perhaps I should just follow the recipe and toss the hydrometer.

Your numbers all seem good. My wine thief can't go far enough into the fermenter to get enough beer to float my hydro... I do 2 or 3 transfers from my thief to the hydro tube.

Adding the 1/2 gallon of water sounds like a great idea. In fact, I do this on most of my beers. Helps me leave space for the krausen, then (after krausen drops) I add water to get to my intended volume. Just like you did.

It is a great idea to taste your green beers often. You will find that none of them taste great (my holiday spice beer was an exception to this). 2 wks in the bottle and you will be surprised.

Follow the recipe until the beer is in the fermenter. After that, rely on your hydrometer to tell you when it's done. The recipe doesn't know what temperature your room is at, how old your yeast is or other things that can effect fermentation. Plus, you can just plain get a stuck ferment.

Don't worry a bit about how it tastes now. I've only had one of my beers that tasted good enough in the hydro sample that I wanted to take more than a sip of them. I taste them to see if anything is wrong with them, not to see if they're right because they never are at that point

Thanks for the help...I'm gonna go the full 4 weeks before bottling to make sure I do it right. Worst case scenario, it will probably still taste better than coors light. Maybe the citra dryhop will give it more flavor and the carving will make it taste less like water. Thanks for the info Cheshire, at least not many beers taste great at 1 1/2 weeks with no carbing. There is definitely some booze in the beer!

Sounds like you've done a good job so far. Now the hardest part -waiting for it to condition...

From my experiences, uncarbonated beer always has a watery taste. Once it's carbed it feels a bit thicker on the tongue and picks up some bitterness from the dissolved CO2.

As far as the OG goes, don't trust it on partial boil brews. It's way too difficult to get good mixing before the yeast have churned it for you to trust the numbers you can get from a thief sample.

Ok, Got it...My best guess is that I may have watered it down a little too much because of an inconsistent mix when taking the OG. In addition, the beer already tastes a little watery because of no CO2.

It's possible that you got an inaccurate reading due to poor mixing, or it could be that your beer is just green. Until it's been conditioned and carbed, it WILL taste different.

Next time mix well, gently, and that's the best you can do. I still bet your beer will pretty good after a month or two of sitting.

time heals all wounds. even with beer. my first ever batch was literally 1 can of pale extract and an oz of hops. I would have just as soon drank a miller light before that beer. went back after about 3 months sitting in a dark closet and poof: a good beer.

On my first beer, which was an extract kit, I misread my hydrometer and added like a half gallon of water more than was necessary. The final product tastes fine, not watered down at all, although Im sure the ABV is slightly lower than it should be.