Watered Down?

I made a slightly light Fat Tire clone that I added orange peel and cardomon to. I also squeezed a little orange into the secondary. Before I bottled I tasted the gravity reading and it had a really great flavor, could taste the citrus and it had really good body.

I popped a bottle a few days early of course just to see how it was coming along and it tastes SO watered down I couldn't believe it.

Please tell me tis will come back! If not what can cause something to become so watered down in the bottles?

Getting the bottles really cold will sometimes do the trick.

Other than that you can always add some maltodextrin at bottling time with the priming sugar.

Was it flat or actually watered down? How long has it been in bottles?

BTW, orange juice in secondary? I always figured that would not turn out well, but it worked for you?

I think the carbonation is going to be fine. Just tasted watered down to me. I will try taking the bottles downstairs to get them a little cooler.

They will have been bottled for three solid weeks on sunday. Im definetly going to give them two more weeks before I try another one.

I squeezed one wedge of an orange into the secondary so it wasn't really a lot.

zozo said:

I think the carbonation is going to be fine. Just tasted watered down to me.

Click to expand...

If you're saying that it still isn't completely carbed then that is your culprit. Carbonation has a whole lot to do with whether the mouthfeel is watery or not.

If it is completely carbed, then maltodextrin, like hb99 said, is a good idea.

If you took an orange and just cut it and squeezed it into your secondary, I would guess that's your problem right there. Fruit typically has TONS of wild yeast living on it, and you may have just squeezed some into your beer. It probably fermented every bit of sugar in there, leaving a thin watery (but high alcohol) beer.