1st batch mishap....advice needed!!

Hello!
I am as noob as you can get. Wife bought me a "learn to brew" certificate for Christmas. I have never even considered brewing...it was a blast and now I am hooked!................BUT......

My brew that I chose to brew in class was a clone Odells 5 Barrel Pale Ale.
Followed the recipe exactly during the boil.....I followed all of his instructions.
The recipe predicted OG of 1.057.... actual OG was 1.054
The recipe predicted FG of 1.010-1.018.... actual FG was 1.010

** I asked what dry hopping was...he told me that would come later***

Brewed on Jan 11.....secondary on Jan 18....bottled Jan 25. When I bottled there was about a half pint left so I tasted it.
It was still sweet.
I asked my instructor about it and he told me it would continue to ferment in the bottles. OK....WTF do I know, I am a noob. Right?

So I open a bottle last night, Feb 12th. I taste it...same thing...too sweet.
I go back to check the recipe to see what went wrong....WE DIDN'T DRY HOP IT!!!

The beer is all bottled up.....what do I do? Let it sit for a year? Hoping it will fix itself?

Drinking it like that will just bum me out every time I have a sip.
I had high expectations for my brew....it was going to be the "New Meth", people were going to beg me to brew for them, supermodels were going to sleep with me because my beer was so awesome!! World leaders were going to gather in my town and world peace was going to become a reality while they were enjoying my nectar :rockin:.....

Any advice? Keep in mind...I am a noob, go easy on me.

dry hopping is really only for aroma...

post your recipe, the gravity readings look good...

Most beers get better with age, really. Not dry hopping just reduced some hop aroma. Your yeast is still eating sugars...are your bottles at around 70* right now? The colder they are the longer it takes to carb up. Just lay off it for a few more weeks and I bet it's much better. Next time, dry hop, meaning throw some hops in the secondary (or primary and just leave it in there the entire fermentation period)

It's beer right? Just drink it.

Let it condition in the bottles for a few weeks then try it again. It will only get better with age.

Yup. Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew (or something else, I suppose, until this batch is ready). The beer is still very green, and needs some time to mellow is all. You'll be fine!

Do everything suggested by everyone else above. And while you're waiting for your beer to become amazing, go out and get yourself a new kit, and start your second batch. Using your previous experience as the best learning method ever, dry hop this batch as directed. Taste the two beers side by side so you truly understand what dry hopping does for beer.

Years from now, you'll be laughing with supermodels over your first botched batch of beer, and they'll be impressed by how far you've come.

Cheers!

Was the bottle that you tried carbonated?

Thanks for the replies everybody. I will just let the bottles sit for awhile, they are in a controlled temp area @ 70 degrees.

Time to do another batch!! or 2.

The one thing the bottle had was nice carbonation so I am pleased about that.

Here is the recipe I used:

5 BARREL CLONE

Batch size: 5 gallons
Volume boiled: 6 gallons
Mash efficiency: 72%
Total grain extract: 8.69 lbs
Toal hops: 3 oz

Ingredients:
0.47 lbs American Caramel 30*L
0.22 lbs American Victory
8.00 lbs CBW Pilsen Light Liquid (malt extract); Briess
1.00 oz Centennial (pellets, 10.8%AA) boiled 60 min
0.50 oz Cascade (pellets, 5.4%AA) boiled 15 min
0.50 oz Cascade (pellets, 5.4%AA) boiled 1 min
1.00 oz Cascade (pellets, 5.4%AA) used as dry hop <--OOPS!
YEAST: Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05

Bitterness: 57.4 IBU predicted 40.00-70.00 IBU American IPA

Alcohol: 6.0% -7.5%

If that is too sweet for you, I see big beers in your future
You could add another addition of cascade at 30 mins.

Max232 said:

If that is too sweet for you, I see big beers in your future
You could add another addition of cascade at 30 mins.

Click to expand...

It's just too sweet for me now, we will see here in another couple of weeks when I crack another open. I hope there are some big beers in my future, this hobby is addicting!

I feel like i would let this go at least 2 weeks in primary and then rack on top of the hops in a secondary for about 10 days. That should give the yeast enough time to clean up and eat all sugars.

Did you taste it after adding the priming sugar? Because that will all ferment out. Also the carbonation will balance the sweetness a bit. Looking at your numbers you should be fine. I have had beers as high as 1.018 and they are not that sweet.

It was sweet when I tasted the small leftover from bottling.
Then I tried one of the beers weeks later and it tasted the same.
There was good carbination.

I'm going to let them sit and take the advice and brew the same batch but with the 1 oz dry hop this time, that way I can try them both side by side and actually taste the difference dry hop provides.