Watery and tasteless homebrew

I looked and looked in the threads for help with this.

I have just finshed my second batch of homebrew. The first was a Irish Red Ale with WLP004 yeast (from my local HBS). It was was an extract brew with steeping grains (18 oz 60l crystal malt and 2 0z roasted barley). I followed the directions to the tee. I fermented for 10 days (not much activity) then racked to secondary for 3 weeks ( I had to go out to sea), then bottled for 3 weeks, I chilled one openned it yes it was carbed nice head but it didnt really have a taste and was pretty watery. Chalked it up to lack of experience and

A few weeks later start my second A Brewers Best English Brown Ale. This kit had dry yeast. I was thinking maybe it was the LME from the first kit that made the first batch the way it was. I substituted the 3.3 lb can of Amber LME for 3 lbs of dark DME and the kit came with 2 lbs amber LME. The steeping grains were 8 oz. Caramel 60L, 4.oz chocolate, and 6 oz Carapils. I made a yeast starter (why because i wanted to try it out) and pitched at 70 degrees. With in an hour I had active fermentation, two days later no activity out of curiosity i checked the gravity and it was finished so i racked it to the secondary for another week and a half. I bottled 8 and kegged the rest. forced carbed it then still waited 2 days. Same results watery with little taste.

Both instructions said use 2.5 gallons of water for the boil should i have used the full 5 gallons instead? I steeped at 158 degrees for both was that to little?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Do you like English Browns and Red Ales? Both tend to be relatively mild tasting beers with restrained aroma (which significantly impacts our perception of flavor). The only thing I can think of that would make the recipe come out watery would be if you ended up with too high a volume going into the fermenter - i.e. you added too much top-off water.

Maybe try a big, flavorful, higher original gravity beer for your next batch. A nice IPA kit from a tried-and-true vendor, or a full flavored big stout with lots of roastiness.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/big-honkin-stout-extract-kit.html
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/dead-ringer-ipa-extract-kit.html

Good luck!

steviesteve31 said:

Both instructions said use 2.5 gallons of water for the boil should i have used the full 5 gallons instead? I steeped at 158 degrees for both was that to little?

Click to expand...

A full boil is best if you can do it - need a big enough stove (often a propane burner) to bring 6.5 gallons to a boil, need an 8 gallon pot to hold the 6.5 gallons without fear of boilover, and an immersion chiller to cool off the wort post-boil (an ice bath won't do it).

But the partial boils you have done (which is standard for extract kits) is just fine and would not have any connection to the 'lack of flavor' problem you are perceiving.

Do you have any links or instructions for the recipe?

Also, be more patient and leave it in the primary a little longer, 2 days is way to little time.

Yes I really like brown and red ales like Killians and New castle I was hopeing for that taste but i did not get it.

I topped off to 5 gallons of spring water like the instructions said.

I was going to make a black IPA or maybe a requalr IPA.

Your English brown from your website looks very good.

this was the kit

http://www.highgravitybrew.com/productcart/pc/Brewer-s-Best-English-Brown-Ale-p842.htm

Please try your best to leave your beer in the primary for at least 2 weeks. Even after you hit your FG the yeast still have a lot of clean up work to do to the beer. Keeping it in the primary allows the full population of the yeast access to the beer to do the clean up work.

As someone mentioned earlier both of those styles you brewed are not huge beers and your yeast may have hit the high range of attenuation resulting in the watery beer.

I left my first brew for over a week then in the secondary for 3 weeks and then in the bottle for 3 weeks.

both kits had a lot of crystal.
some people think beer with lots of crystal tastes like overpowering caramel and some people think beer with lots of crystal tastes thin/watery.

you might just not like the recipes/styles your brewing without doing anything wrong.

If you only kegged the beer two days ago and "forced carbed", it's probably not even close to properly carbed up and ready. I'd keep it on the gas at 10-12 psi in the fridge and wait a week and try it again. It should be better.

That brewer's best English brown ale kit tastes quite a bit like Newcastle to me.

But as was already mentioned, both of those beer styles are thin, quaffable beers without much body or fullness, so maybe you just don't like those styles.

I'd suggest buying a good quality kit in a style you like (not Brewer's Best, although those are usually "ok") and seeing if a better beer is coming next time.

Just to cover all the bases, what kind of water did you use?

Yooper said:

If you only kegged the beer two days ago and "forced carbed", it's probably not even close to properly carbed up and ready. I'd keep it on the gas at 10-12 psi in the fridge and wait a week and try it again. It should be better.

That brewer's best English brown ale kit tastes quite a bit like Newcastle to me.

But as was already mentioned, both of those beer styles are thin, quaffable beers without much body or fullness, so maybe you just don't like those styles.

I'd suggest buying a good quality kit in a style you like (not Brewer's Best, although those are usually "ok") and seeing if a better beer is coming next time.

Just to cover all the bases, what kind of water did you use?

Click to expand...

What kist do you suggest? I used walmart spring water.

This has been touched on, but I will second it: under carbonated beer will taste thin and watery. In my experience, CO2 also "conditions" a beer a little bit too, so properly carbonating is pretty critical. My preferred carbing method is to crank to 30lbs and shake the corny back and forth...you'll hear the CO2 diffusing in. Wait 5 minutes and do it again, then dial back to 10-12 lbs for 4 to 8 more days. Release ALL pressure from the corny and let the beer sit overnight. It will re-pressurize a little bit. Release that pressure the next morning. Turn back to 10-12 lbs and enjoy. I hope this helps.

steviesteve31 said:

I looked and looked in the threads for help with this.

I have just finshed my second batch of homebrew. The first was a Irish Red Ale with WLP004 yeast (from my local HBS). It was was an extract brew with steeping grains (18 oz 60l crystal malt and 2 0z roasted barley). I followed the directions to the tee. I fermented for 10 days (not much activity) then racked to secondary for 3 weeks ( I had to go out to sea), then bottled for 3 weeks, I chilled one openned it yes it was carbed nice head but it didnt really have a taste and was pretty watery. Chalked it up to lack of experience and

A few weeks later start my second A Brewers Best English Brown Ale. This kit had dry yeast. I was thinking maybe it was the LME from the first kit that made the first batch the way it was. I substituted the 3.3 lb can of Amber LME for 3 lbs of dark DME and the kit came with 2 lbs amber LME. The steeping grains were 8 oz. Caramel 60L, 4.oz chocolate, and 6 oz Carapils. I made a yeast starter (why because i wanted to try it out) and pitched at 70 degrees. With in an hour I had active fermentation, two days later no activity out of curiosity i checked the gravity and it was finished so i racked it to the secondary for another week and a half. I bottled 8 and kegged the rest. forced carbed it then still waited 2 days. Same results watery with little taste.

Both instructions said use 2.5 gallons of water for the boil should i have used the full 5 gallons instead? I steeped at 158 degrees for both was that to little?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

You must keep it on the yeast cake longer. Yeast does more than ferment. Once it it is done with fermentation, it cleans up after it's self. I never do less than 2 weeks in primary regardless of air lock activity or gravity reading.

Brewmasters Warehouse said:

Please try your best to leave your beer in the primary for at least 2 weeks. Even after you hit your FG the yeast still have a lot of clean up work to do to the beer. Keeping it in the primary allows the full population of the yeast access to the beer to do the clean up work.

As someone mentioned earlier both of those styles you brewed are not huge beers and your yeast may have hit the high range of attenuation resulting in the watery beer.

Click to expand...

I saw this AFTER I posted.....Still, great advice.

What was the primary container? Could it have been filled too high? Did you rinse the lme out of the packaging with hot water?

Two weeks in primary. Minimum. I'll echo that.
Also, were the grains crushed properly? I remember my second batch ever was a Newcastle clone. I didn't order the grains crushed and figured I could do it myself. Well, I didn't do a very good job and the result was tasteless and watery.

badbrew said:

What was the primary container? Could it have been filled too high? Did you rinse the lme out of the packaging with hot water?

Click to expand...

I use a bucket that i filled to the 5 gallon mark, no higher no lower. I didnt use LME i used all DME for the second batch and yes i rinsed the first batch out with hot water.

doublebogey10 said:

Two weeks in primary. Minimum. I'll echo that.
Also, were the grains crushed properly? I remember my second batch ever was a Newcastle clone. I didn't order the grains crushed and figured I could do it myself. Well, I didn't do a very good job and the result was tasteless and watery.

Click to expand...

I was assumeing they were already crushed since it was in a kit. Do some kits come un crushed?

steviesteve31 said:

I was assumeing they were already crushed since it was in a kit. Do some kits come un crushed?

Click to expand...

Midwest Supplies, for one, gives you the option.

I've brewed 3 beers. Two I have transferred to a carboy after a week in primary and let them sit for 2+ weeks in secondary. And both turned out excellent.

My other brew was a wheat beer and I just left it in the primary bucket without transferring. I dry hopped it in the bucket after about 17 days and bottled it at 24 days and it too turned out great.

Personally, if I'm brewing a beer that involves dry hopping, I will never transfer it to a carboy and prefer just letting it ride in the fermenter for the 3+ weeks it takes before bottling. I've read enough to convince me that transferring it to a secondary vessel isn't worth the added effort.