Beyond trying to pin point what went wrong, I think you should focus on your process. When people start brewing, they're so excited, they want to brew everything (myself included). What ends up happening is you make a broad range of "good" beer.
IMO I think you should focus on one or two beers you really like and make them "great". Make them your "in-house" brews, focus on understanding your equipment, how the ingredients affect your beer, good fermentation practices and streamlining your brew day. Get these concepts down now while your learning so if an issue arises you'll pay more attention to the recipe and not your process. You can add all the extra goodies like oatmeal and chocolate later.
This. OMGWTFBBQ
THIS.
Within reason, of course.
Ibanous:
Some people are "slap it in a pot and see what happens" cooks. When they become brewers they remain perfectly satisfied with that - the adventure of experimentation is what they love, and if a batch doesn't turn out according to plan/dream/hallucination, no harm done. It won't kill you to drink it, it's still probably pretty damn good even if it
did miss the mark, and it probably still has an amount of alcohol in it sufficient to fuel the next "Gosh, I wonder what a Mocha Caramel Belgian IPA would taste like..." idea. If that describes you, then disregard the above and have a BLAST with my compliments and encouragement.
If not, if you want to make the best beer you can possibly brew each and every time you fire up your brewery, you need to spend some time perfecting process and letting the techniques of brewing settle into your bones. There's a reason why successful chefs make cooking look easy, like just "toss a little of that in there, BAM". They've spent years, often
decades perfecting their craft. All that studying and practice gave them the XP they need to instinctively know what flavors meld, and how a variation in technique will impact the dish. That's what makes their "let's see what's in the cupboard and throw together something" taste divine
every single time, while my attempts more often than not taste like, er, a bucket of poo: I don't have their experience, so I'm just doing the cooking equivalent of throwing things against the wall to see what sticks.
I subscribe to the "practice makes perfect" method, in case you can't tell. But you should give yourself time to figure out where you fit in! I advise you to go freakin' nuts for a while, dive head-first into this crazy hobby. Take careful notes of what you brew, how you brewed it, and careful descriptions of flavor, appearance and whatnot.* Then, when you get the WHOOHOO out of your system and the fascination with Apple Cinnamon Scotch Belgian Lager wears off - and it will - look back through your notes and pick out a couple or three simple recipes which you found really tasty. Then start brewing those like Scoundrel advises. When you get them dialed in to that you don't think you can make them any better, start going afield again.
Still and all, while you're first learning I advise to KISS. You'll be more successful that way, less likely to drop lots of dosh on ingredients for a beer that's at best disappointing.
Cheers!
Bob
* I use
the BJCP form, so if you want paper you can use that. Many brewing software applications have note-taking capabilities. Don't forget to refer to the
style descriptions so you have some idea of what the beer should taste like; that way your notes make sense.
