First beer questions

So I bottled my first batch of beer (nut brown ale) two weeks ago
and I sampled one last week and again tonight. The beer how ever
tastes thin with a strong alcohol after taste kinda like molson xxx.

My qeuestions are what did I do wrong? From what I can tell
I have good carbonation, it hisses when i pop the top and if I poor it
rough I will get a huge head. So I I can't figure out why it taste
thin , lacking body. Also the alcohol taste; the only thing I can think
of is that I used vodka in my air lock and it may have leaked alot
into the beer. I know the first few times i put the air lock on
I had to quickly replace the vodka like it had got sucked into the
fermentor because I pushed on the lid and created a suction.

So basically what is casuing my lack of taste. And can the vodka
cause a strong alcohol taste?

Ps.
I wrote this on my itouch so forgive the formatting

what is your recipe?

I did the two can dump, it was a malt and hops extract recipe

Stordl01 said:

I did the two can dump, it was a malt and hops extract recipe

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IMHO grains is where most of the flavor will come from. Next time try using some grains for extra flavor.

Can you give us your recipe and process ? This will allow us to give you a better answer.

I brought one gallon water to a boil, then added the two cans of extract to the water. Boiled at a gentle boil for an hour. Then I added about four gallons of water. I waited till the wort was till about 75 Then I pitched the yeast. I let sit in the fermentor for a week (fermentation was done) then I bottle . I let sit in the bottle for a week, then sampled, waited another weerlk then i sampled again.U

Stordl01 said:

I brought one gallon water to a boil, then added the two cans of extract to the water. Boiled at a gentle boil for an hour. Then I added about four gallons of water. I waited till the wort was till about 75 Then I pitched the yeast. I let sit in the fermentor for a week (fermentation was done) then I bottle . I let sit in the bottle for a week, then sampled, waited another weerlk then i sampled again.U

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steeping grains could help. you wouldn't have to modify your recipe much either. maybe like a half lb of crystal-40? ALSO: did you try to "cheat" up your gravity by adding any dextrose/sugars?

No I didn't add any sugar other than for carbonation at the end

Stordl01 said:

No I didn't add any sugar other than for carbonation at the end

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yea I would say its just from the lack of specialty grains. You can still use extract, but I would try to work some specialty grains into your recipe. I found this site very useful when I started trying to make recipes from scratch. good luck, happy brewing

http://www.2basnob.com/specialty-grains.html