watery beer......

Last night I did my first all grain batch, had a lot of fun. The color was good smell was awesome......However, when the boil was done I poured into the fermenter and took a sample to check SG which was 1.040 and according to promash it should have been 1.057. Upon tasting the wort it was watery....kind of had the consistency of iced tea....a bit disappointing. I think my mash may have been the culprit as I was unable to get my mash water temp above 149....but I did read some where that between 148 and 158 degrees is sufficient. Any suggestions? Here's my recipe if that helps.

9 lbs two row pale malt
12 oz. Crystal Malt 60l
8 oz. Biscuit Malt
4 oz. Roasted Barley
1oz. Centinnial Hops 9-11 alpha% (boil 60 mins)
1/2 oz. Centinnial Hops (boil 20 mins)
1/2 oz. Centinnial Hops (boil 5 mins)
1oz. Centinnial Hops (Dry Hop 1 week)

American ale yeast

According to BrewR:
Bitterness (IBU): 45.9
ABV: 5.7
Color (SRM): 17.8

recipe notes: 3.2 gallons of mash water using Sparklets drinking water.
Added extra half gallon trying to bring temperature up.

at 1040 you'll have a 4% beer, not bad. the grain bill looks fine and i bet your beer will turn out just fine, fresh wort does not always taste like the finished beer.

Yeah, you're right....that is true.

It tastes watery because it's not carbed....it's still in the fermenter.


Until a beer is actually carbed up you really don't know how much body it really has. Co2 adds that feeling of fullness to the beer. Think about soda in a fountain dispenser, like at your favorite fast food joint. You ever pull some that wasn't carbed? It was thin and watery, not because the mix of liquids was off, but because the gas was not saturating the liquid.

Granted your recipe might be thin on body, but I'm betting the issue is more that everything is not fully developed yet.

A 4%,149* mash may not give it a lot of body,probably light and dry but the crystal malt should give it body,i dont seem to get loads of body and i usuaally mash in the 155 range generally even using more crystal malt sometimes doesnt seem to do it,but depending on a number of things it could be you may want to look into that, but you really dont know how it turns out till it carbs/conditions.And sometimes you just gotta let it condition longer(in the bottle) before you make any conclusions.