How do I add more flavour to a very bland beer?

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mattlamers

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I'm on about day 14 of my first batch and decided to give it a little taste after checking the gravity. It was extremely bland and basically tasted like water featuring a slight hint of alch. Are there any ways of adding more flavor at this stage? Or is it to late. I'd love to save my first batch. but I fear it may be too late!
 
Well it's complicated. I may have royally screwed this one. There was no direct recipe. I used a can of Blonde Ale extract, boiled it, added 1000g's of dex sugar and added the yeast after. I feel like many steps were missing in this process. Specifically the adding of any type of hops. :( I made the mistake of following the equipment kit instructions instead of using any outside sources.
 
Also, yeast strain is a new term to me, could you elaborate? :) As you can see I'm new to this.
 
Also, yeast strain is a new term to me, could you elaborate? :) As you can see I'm new to this.

Brewing yeast comes in hundreds of varieties. If you used a Cooper's yeast, or something like that, though, it doesn't matter.

Yeah, you got yourself a canned kit that isn't very good, plus added a KG of sugar which thins and dries the beer, leaving it with alcohol but no real body or flavor. Once it finishes up, and you add the priming sugar and bottle it you may find that it's drinkable so don't give up hope yet!

Next time, try to not use those canned kits and crap yeast, and use a quality kit to give you a good quality beer. Those canned kits will make an alcoholic beverage similar to light beer, though, so it may be drinkable when it's done.
 
Thanks, much appreciated. I have one more question. Is it okay to only boil a portion of the beer and add water to it? I'm looking into making 5 gallons and I don't have a big enough pot, so is it acceptable to boil the wort and add some water to compensate afterwords or will this have a negative effect?
 
Thanks, much appreciated. I have one more question. Is it okay to only boil a portion of the beer and add water to it? I'm looking into making 5 gallons and I don't have a big enough pot, so is it acceptable to boil the wort and add some water to compensate afterwords or will this have a negative effect?

Yes, that's very commonly done! There are some other techniques to make the beer even better (like adding the bulk of the extract at the end of the boil, to avoid caramelization-like flavors) and we can help you with that.
 
Awesome! They're so many different ways of brewing it's slightly over-whelming at this point haha, I wish I could find one concrete way of brewing and go from there. If you have any suggestions or have a specific way of brewing please let me know! :)
 
Other thoughts for flavoring your bland beer: you could dry hop, or if you wanted to change it up a bit, you could make a spice tea to add at bottling time. You could also add some fruit additions instead of dry hops. Maybe make your kit into a strawberry blonde. :)
 
When you drink them, put a shot of salt in the bottle of your glass. When I am stuck drinking macrobeer, I always add salt.
 
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