struggling with all grain

first batch, VERY poor technique and equipment, yielded 1.030 wort, and beer that tasted like hoppy water.

second batch, better equipment, and probably 1.040-1.045 after boil but I had added 3 lbs wheat DME and 1 lb honey because the home brew store didn't have enough grain wheat for what I wanted, and I wanted a honey wheat beer, OG was actually 1.060

but used RO water, and I think I didn't have enough minerals, fermented down to 1.020, and was VERY sweet.

third batch I did 2 sparges and yielded about 8 gallons that I boiled down to 5, OG was 1.059 after boil. (still aging in fermenter, unknown how it'll finish, still "mineral-less RO water"

Im ready to start adding minerals to my water, and now I have my own grain mill, chasing both mash efficency and getting full fermentation out of the yeast.

anyway....long story short, does it sound like a good idea to try some "pale ale" by brewing with just pale malt and not trying to be crazy with specialty grains and techniques?

what's a good "simple beer" recipes?

Look up SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop) recipes. Or just come up with one. Any base grain + a couple oz of any hops and some US-05, WLP001 or whatever ale yeast you like.

Edworts haus ale is a good example

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/bee-cave-brewery-haus-pale-ale-31793/

Or to do your own, I would advise some specialties malts w/ the two row...say 1/2 to 1 lb C40...two row and crystal go together like bread and butter.

A pale beer may or may not solve some problems. You need to know the mineral content of your water and how the grist will interact w/the water to get into the proper mash pH range. You could add the necessary salts with RO for a grist w/little buffering capacity.

I've found lighter grists will reveal flaws easier than darker, YMMV.

This member is from your area. He may have the water profile for Marysville. I'm not sure he's still active here, though

Home Brew Talk - Mirilis

Yea keeping it simple would be good. Just made a kolsch that was pretty simple jsut two row and wheat malt

9lbs 2-row
1 lb wheat

1oz hallertau @60min

Mash @ 150 for 60min

Ferment at 64 for 21 days

Havent tasted it yet but I imagine it'll be a "lawnmower" type very drinkable and refreshing.

Hugh_Jass said:

A pale beer may or may not solve some problems. You need to know the mineral content of your water and how the grist will interact w/the water to get into the proper mash pH range. You could add the necessary salts with RO for a grist w/little buffering capacity.

I've found lighter grists will reveal flaws easier than darker, YMMV.

This member is from your area. He may have the water profile for Marysville. I'm not sure he's still active here, though

Home Brew Talk - Mirilis

Click to expand...

Thanks, but I'm "out in the sticks" in Marysville (a whopping 6 miles out of town) and the ONLY utilities available to me is electric and phone. I'm on a well, and thus, why I have RO water for drinking here in the house. our natural well water is rather heavy with iron. (I kid you not, in the summer time, my kids look like they have a "fake tan" sprayed on them from all the iron in the water "rusting" as it dries on their skin after playing in the sprinkler! --we always go from sprinkler, straight to the bath and wash all the orange/red off)

Are your ROing your water yourself or buying it from the store? (EDIT: Just read your post...must...type...faster...!)

I know other people have talked about this in other threads, but after getting fed up with my local water, I started using spring water and distilled water from the grocery store for brewing. I keep it pretty simple and use 1/2 spring and 1/2 distilled for lighter colored beers, and 100% spring water for darker beers. It costs a little more per brew, but my beers improved a ton...especially the lighter ones.

If you want to get into it full force, you can send your water to Ward Labs and they will analyze it for about 20-30 bucks. You can then take that report and use the John Palmer calculators at the "How to Brew" website to figure out what beers you're best suited for or how to treat your tap water.

I think that some others will echo the concern that using ALL RO (not sure if that's what your doing or not) will result in unbalanced tasting beer....

Just my two cents...

Yup, I'm RO'ing it myself. I have an "under the sink" unit. I'm not too concerned about making off flavors, and I'm not interested in adding certain salts for flavor, my concern right now is making sure I have the minerals needed for healthy yeast. Once I can get good clean solid fermentation, THEN I'll worry about chasing off flavors, If I can detect any.

I'm TRYING my best to keep all of this as simple as possible, I'm not trying to be a perfectionist, I just like good beer and want to make it myself at home! but...I also want to try to cut down the costs of my brews, I don't want to be spending $40 for a "kit" every time I want to make beer. a .60 pouch of dry yeast, average of 10-12 lbs of grain per batch, at an average of 1.50 a lb, and a few ounces of yeast, on average, I should be able to make good beer for half of what the kits cost.

...and have more control over what I'm making, since all of the extracts are a blend of different malts


I like single malt scotch, so the idea of a "single malt beer" sounds good!:rockin: and will allow me to focus in on my process before I start chasing flavors with complex grain bills, mutliple hops, different yeasts, etc.

Check out the sticky in the brew science section on water treatment. With AJs tips I was able to improve my beers a lot. Its a great place to start anyhow I have tweaked the process to suit the beer I am brewing and usually blend about 30% tap with the rest DI water. I then add calcium chloride and gypsum to get my water profile down depending on what style I am making.