Issues with watery beers

Hey all,

I am having a problem with my recent beers, they are turning out tasting watered down with not near enough flavor. I am an extract brewer and I add about 3 gallons of water to my 2 gallons of cooked wort, generally. Could this be the problem or is it simply because my recipe's lately? GAHHHH!

Either way, i gotta go AG soon

would need to see your recipe. its generally not a problem to add top off water, as long as you're hitting the correct OG per the recipe. and fermentation will mix the water in with the wort even if you don't.

post the last recipe you did that was watery. keep in mind that using any adjunct like corn sugar or even honey, can thin the beer out since it ferments more completely than malt extract.

I do agree though, going All Grain has a lot of advantages, mainly control over more aspects of the wort creation. This gives you control over things like mouthfeel, residual sweetness vs. dryness...and its just damn FUN to do.

most likely your using too much top off water. you need to use your hydrometer and check your og after the intial 2 gal. boil and depending on your estimate at this time vrs. the final est. adjust the amount of water to add to hit the intended og of total batch. this is much easier if you use a brewing software ...ie; Brewsmith, Promash or whatever and then make it simpler by going AG also.

add malto-dextrin, i believe that it will add some body to the beer.

Here is the most recent recipe -

Honey-Wheat style ale -

OG - 1.049 *calculated* HOWEVER, actual OG when checked after aeration was 1.021
FG - 1.010
ABV - 5.2
Boil: 60 minutes

Crystal 10L - 1lb steep
Honey Malt - .5lb steep
Wheat Liquid Malt Extract - 5lbs @60
Honey - 1lb added in primary

1oz Mount Hood @ 60 mins
1oz Simcoe @ 5 mins (changing in next batch)

Cinnamon Stick .5oz in primary

Yeast: Wyeast 1010 - American Wheat Ale

SO, my program I use, BeerAlchemy, says it should be all good and in accordance to a wheat style beer. However, I do the right procedures like I always have such as only boiling 2 gallons of wort and adding 3 more to make 5 gallons of beer. But it tastes watery with no real distinct taste, we drank like 10 each tonight too and I could write an essay, its like there is no ABV. So I don't know whats going on here. Come to mention it, all my beers are also starting to have the same generic and non distinct tastes. What am I doing wrong???? This is actually starting to get on my nerves.

Your low OG that you tested was probably from not stirring enough...when you brew extract you cant hardly "miss" your OG...As far as your problem being an "extract" problem, I dont see that...I have only brewed extract at this point, and my beers turn out great....I dont have an answer for you because Im also a noob, but someone on here will...

As Malkore said, any recipe that has corn sugar and/or honey in it will tend to be thin and dry compared to other beers.

I'd suggest finding a "regular" recipe in the database without any added adjuncts (like corn, sugar, honey), and look for an ingredient like carapils in it. That will give you a beer with fuller flavor and good body and not be as dry.

Or try buying a kit from austinhomebrew.com that is a "proven" recipe and see how it comes out.

You can def do good beers with extract. But, like Yooper said, I'd try and avoid adding sugar (except at bottling) and instead maybe add some steeping grains before adding the malt, or simply adding more malt!

I'm with the others. Lose the honey and add another pound of extract.


TL

A couple other things to consider, though they may be minor details:

1.049 to 1.010 is almost 80% attenuation, which seems high to me (I'm used to 70 - 75 percent attenuation in my beers). Attenuation like that won't leave much behind in the way of residual sweetness, which could contribute to a watery taste.

How carbonated is the beer and are you drinking it really cold? I've noticed that beers with a lot of carbonation seem washed out. Drinking them really cold accentuates this. I like my beers to warm up some before I start drinking them; they seem to open up more this way.

As for the "sameness" you mention, well, that is probably because of the extract. The only way around that is to start doing minimashes or full-on AG.

Bring one over! I'll recommend what I can from a real taste

EamusCatuli said:

Either way, i gotta go AG soon

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I would wait until you do enough extract batches to get that down completely before moving to the more complex techniques. (In fact, that is what i'm doing )

z987k said:

Bring one over! I'll recommend what I can from a real taste

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Haha I bet you will!


Ill take all this advice and do my best, its just aggravating when I think im doing so well and the beers end up so-so. I didnt realize adding honey was so bad. Ill stray away from adjuncts until I move to AG. What I have taken from most of this is that things like cerapils and malto-dextrin can add flavor and body to my beers when using extract? Is there a better technique to the boil 2 gallons of wort and add 3 gallons of water method that im using?

html034 said:

I would wait until you do enough extract batches to get that down completely before moving to the more complex techniques. (In fact, that is what i'm doing )

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Oh I agree, I am def. not trying to go over my head, but I think im pretty close, plus I have already done a couple of AG's with a buddy of mine, z987k actually. When I make the leap I should have some help, so thats nice.

EamusCatuli said:

Oh I agree, I am def. not trying to go over my head, but I think im pretty close, plus I have already done a couple of AG's with a buddy of mine, z987k actually. When I make the leap I should have some help, so thats nice.

Click to expand...

Well that is a good thing. Having someone experienced help you should definetely ease the transition. Good Luck


Oh wait, I forgot, I don't believe in luck. In that case, Good Brewing

you could do full boils since you have a turkey fryer, don't know if that'll solve the problem but....

Tasted this beer yesterday and it was great. Light amber color, nice head, big citrus nose, and slightly sweet. Didn't taste watery at all... and thats after 2 glasses of a really big stout.