Watery beer!?!?!?!?!?!

I set out to brew cream of three crops in a 10 gallon batch and what I produced is now carbonated water despite one of the most vigorous fermentations I've ever had.

My plan is to go over all the steps and maybe include a pic or two and hopefully someone can tell me why this happened and if there's a way to save it although I suspect that it's a lost cause.

It smells like beer but tastes and looks like water.

My BK IS ONLY 71/2 gallons so I had to do a partial boil and top off.

MASH

mashed at 148 degrees about 6 gallons of water for 90 min.

Batch sparge with another 6 gallons for 15 min and simply shut the ball valve off once I hit my preboil volume.

BOIL

6.5gal boil for 90 min. 60 min hop addition and then had to cool.

COOLING

once the wort cooled enough for the auto siphon I siphoned 3 gals into each fermenter and topped off with water while I rehydrated a pack of us-05 for each fermenter.

FERMENTATION

fermented in the basement for 10 days at 66 degrees. One blew the bung and airlock out once and we sanitized and replaced it then moved to blowoff tubes and one of those got plugged and again the bung got blown out.

COLD CRASH

after 10 days we moved them to the kegerator at roughly 34 degrees to cold crash for 3 days. During which time they sucked up about a quart or less of sanitized water from the blowoff container.

KEGGING

I thought the beer in the hose looked too clear so I while siphoning I poured some into a beer glass and it looked like water.

So the moral is I don't know what went wrong I doubt a quart of water from the blowoff container created this mess. We're also buying a keg of beer for the party because I seriously doubt I can fix this by Friday.

I've topped off close to half the fermenter before and never had this happen. Also I can't believe that essentially water fermented so strongly.

Sounds to me you made Bud Light :rockin:

What were your gravity readings?

Unfortunately I brewed this at my dads house and my hydrometer got broken during transport so I have no gravity readings

You can't fully troubleshoot without knowing the gravity readings, but one problem with your method jumps out at me. That is about a 16 lb grainbill, correct? That would result in about 2 gal of grain absorption. For a 6.5 gal boil volume you should have started with 8.5 gals total, meaning you batch sparged with about 3.5 gals too much. If you leave that much behind you're going to take an efficiency hit. Next time either calculate that more accurately, or use the foolproof method of measuring your first runnings then only sparge with the difference to get to your boil volume. Alternatively you can fly sparge, and stop when you hit your volume.

I was really leaning toward the sparge being the problem because I got careless and didn't calculate the volume.

I think the biggest problem is because I've brewed this 4 times and the first 3 were delicious I got a little bit too cocky.

I wasn't a fan of brewing blind, and I think I need to move to refractometer because I have a terrible habit of breaking hydrometers.

I'm soon to brew a watermelon wheat recipe from here on hbt and I want to make sure I don't kill my efficiency again so it's 10.5 lbs of grain times 1.3 quarts rounds up to be 3.5gal and then I need to sparge with 3.8-4 gals of water to hit my preboil of 6 gals, I hope all this is right I don't want to make carbonated water again

Your Op stated that you split the batch into 2 fermenters and topped off. Is your recipie for a 5 gallon batch or 10? In general, 10 pounds of base malt makes *about * 5 gallons of beer. If you're splitting it into 2 x 5 gallon fermenters, IMHO you far too little fermentables

The one I messed up was a 10 gallon recipe and 17 lbs of grain the wheat beer I'm doing now is a 5 gal recipe and 10.5 lbs of grain

Dude you made cream of three crops. Of course its watery! It's supposed to be that way!

schematix said:

Dude you made cream of three crops. Of course its watery! It's supposed to be that way!

Click to expand...

I was about to post the same but he has brewed it three times before and enjoyed it.

I have respect for the CO3C recipe but I brewed it once and was not my cup of tea - watery is the word that comes to mind.

Co3c is not quite this watery lol I mean this is literally clear and tastes like a bottle of water. It almost tastes like u put a bunch of ice in your beer and let it melt and then drank ot

My guess: poor sparge b plus top off = lots of water and low efficiency
Low mash means no complex sugars, just shorter stains of simpler sugars that the yeast went to town on
Lack of any longer strand nonfermentables made it even more thin. No body, no sweetness.

That's why I'm trying to triple check the water volumes for this wheat beer, according to the grain absorption factor of .125 gallons I believe I need to mash and sparge with 7.3 gallons to end with 6 gallons preboil and then as I always have I'll top off with water to compensate for boil off

Tried beersmith?

Down 6 or 8 in a row and post the results.

I had BS on my android and now I have an iPhone and am too stingy to pay the $7 again, it's really undrinkable, I mean of course I tried it but it's a lost cause

Would be interesting to see if I made alcoholic water

I think b u had low extraction. Getting 10 gallons out of a 7.5 pot isn't really possible without adjusting the recipe for low efficiency.
I have beersmith on desktop and I do enjoy it. I have seen screen shots of the mobile version. Looked dumbed down so I never bothered. ..
Also, 1.3 qt/lb is on the thick side
With wheat, aim for 1.5 at least. Sparge to volume.
Unless you are doing an infusion to bump the mash temp.

Was planning on single step mash at 152 degrees

Thanks for the info I had heard about the hop efficiency but didn't realize I needed to adjust the grist also

Have had 4 batches in a row that were watery. They literally taste like you put ice in them and let it melt.

Last one was a Vienna/Centennial smash

O.G. was 1.047

Used 11 lbs of Vienna mashed with 3.66 or so gallons

Batch sparge with 5 gals

Mash temp was 152 for 60 min

Boil for 60 min

Fermented for 18 days at 66 degrees or so.

Sample when placed into cold crash was very light and watery tasting.

I used a calculator for the water volume just don't understand where I'm going wrong. My beer used to be so good I wanted to open a brewery one day. Now I'm so frustrated I'm about to give it up.

The mash temperature is fine so I don't see that being an issue. If you'd mashed at 145 or something it would / could cause watery beer.

You didn't mention final gravity. An FG less than 1.010 can taste watery. Your OG of 1.047 is reasonable as well.

What were your water volumes?
How much volume pre-boil/after vorlauft?
How much volume after the boil?
How much after fermentation?

It looks like you had around 9 gallons for a 5 gallon batch, which is well, alot.

Perhaps do a longer boil or use less water alltogether.

I did have 9 gallons as the calculator told me to use somewhere around 8.73 total.

Pre-boil volume was in the neighborhood of 6.5gal

Post boil I'm unsure of as well as post fermentation

I could have been over the 6.5 gal but I'd imagine not too far, my pot is only 7.5 gallons.

I have been suspicious for awhile of both the calculator I use and the volume of sparge water I use

wtaylor3 said:

Have had 4 batches in a row that were watery. They literally taste like you put ice in them and let it melt.

Last one was a Vienna/Centennial smash

O.G. was 1.047

Used 11 lbs of Vienna mashed with 3.66 or so gallons

Batch sparge with 5 gals

Mash temp was 152 for 60 min

Boil for 60 min

Fermented for 18 days at 66 degrees or so.

Sample when placed into cold crash was very light and watery tasting.

I used a calculator for the water volume just don't understand where I'm going wrong. My beer used to be so good I wanted to open a brewery one day. Now I'm so frustrated I'm about to give it up.

Click to expand...

Cream of three crops and a 1.047 Vienna smash are not exactly big flavorful beers, especially if you taste them uncarbonated out of the fermenter like this one. Was 1.047 your target OG? And what size batch - that would be down around 58% efficiency for 5 gals. It sounds like you need to bite the bullet and do some accurate volume and OG/FG measuring if you want to get this figured out. It's really not rocket science, after one batch you should have the volumes dialed in. Some calculators are better than others, but all will only be as good as the numbers you put in. If you calculated previously as you said that you need 7.3 gals total then don't use 9 just because a calculator says so. If you can measure accurately your boil off, tun deadspace, etc. and post your numbers folks can help with the calculations.

Have you tried brewing one of your known recipes that gave you great beer before?

Sounds like the gravity was way too low.

I once did an Irish Red with badly crushed malt, just bought a roller mill and was so eager to use it I didn't check the factory setting which was super wide. SG was reasonable but tasted like hopped water.

Estimated O.G. Was 1.065
I've attached a screenshot of what the calculator said to use. Perhaps my crush was bad, I didn't boil vigorously enough, or the calculator was wrong?View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1444427462.426588.jpg

I don't know what program you are using but for 11-lbs of grain IMHO, 9 gallons of water is too much. Try the same recipe with 4-gal strike water and 4-gal sparge water ( or 3.5 each or 3.75 each ) and i think you will have better results. 9 gallons for 11-lbs of grains is too much unless you plan on doing a 2 hour boil.

Hope this helps.

Do you know what your actual boil off rate is?

I don't know my boil off rate and my OP was incorrect according to my notes it was 12.7lbs

When calculating your water usage with a "dry" run is it necessary to do a full hour mash?

I figured in the MLT you're simply check for dead space so the only place time is essential is checking your boil off rate.

I want to narrow down the cause of my watery beer issue as this is the time of year I really start brewing alot

I don't think so, I just tested how much water was left in my mash tun once it stopped draining. You should definitely measure your boil off rate though.

I'm also thinking a BIAB batch will help narrow the root cause, if I'm watery BIAB then the crush must be the issue and if not then the mash volume is the problem