unhappy extract brewer

I've been extract brewing for a year now and I unfortunately feel all of the beers I've brewed are not as tasty as they should be. I brew partial boils and then add water once the boil is complete per the instructions. Will full boils produce tastier beers?

What do you do for fermentation - and how much yeast do you use per batch?

I have used brewers best kits, more beer.com kits and other various kits from suppliers. Fermentation is in an ale pail or bucket.

I normally use one packet of dry yeast

Welcome, BeerSmithSonian. I love your name!

By 'tasty', what do you mean? It would be helpful to know more about the off-flavors you getting, or what you are perceiving as lacking.

Yes, full boils have advantages, but I will echo Luke's question about your fermentation practices. For new brewers, pitching more and healthier yeast and controlling fermentation temperatures will be their biggest need.

BeerSmithSonian said:

I normally use one packet of dry yeast

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Is it a high quality yeast, such as Fermentis's Safale 04 or 05, or Danstar's Nottingham?

BeerSmithSonian said:

I have used brewers best kits, more beer.com kits and other various kits from suppliers. Fermentation is in an ale pail or bucket.

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At what temperature are you fermenting? For how long?

BeerSmithSonian,
I've been brewing extract partial boil now for almost a year now. There are definitely aspects of my final products I'm not fully satisfied with, but overall I think the beer that my process produces is quite good, and I typically get great compliments. There are a couple things that can maximize the flavor potential:

• Pitch the right yeast cell count per mrmalty.com, and use starters. Complete and rapid attenuation with healthy yeast ensures minimal off-flavors.
• Late extract addition: add about 2/3 of the malt extract with 15 minutes left on your boil. Helps to reduce "extract twang", that flavor that makes an extract taste like it's an extract.
• Fermentation temps. Use the recommended temps or look online for experiments at other temps. Look up swamp cooler setups on this site for cheap fermentation temp control.
• And obviously, sanitization

Cheers

What's your fermentation process in terms of time left to ferment and to condition? Are you following the stupid and un realistic timeframes in the recipes that say to rack based on time rather than if the beer is finished fermenting or not (as indicated by hydromter readings) and are you letting the beer condition before bottling?

A lot of new brewers have found that by ignoring their instructions and leaving their beers alone longer on the yeast (and later in the bottles) that the flavor of the beer leaps exponentially.

As you read on here you will see that most of us have found that patience is usually the simple, magically ingredient to great tasting beer.

Many, many of us, for example skip secondary and leave our beer in primary for a month, it lets the beer finish fermenting, and allows the yeast plenty of time to clean up the by products of fermentation that leads to off flavors, and often stays with the beer if folks follow those crappy instructions and rush the beer off the yeast.

There's other important things to look at as well, proper yeast pitching rates, fermentation temp control and other little, and simple things that you can find on here. But I think the biggest one is to not rush the beer from the yeast.

I'm not going to assume anything until he chimes in but what I think he wants is more malt characture.. Maybe some unfermentables that leave some more sweetness behind or an english yeast that helps with malt characture...

To answer all the questions: I've most commonly used safale yeast packets and followed directions to a T except for length of time in fermentation. Generally speaking I leave primary alone for 2 weeks minimum then transfer to secondary for a week until I bottle. Once it is bottled I generally leave for 7-10 days until I cracked it open. My expectation levels are being set by other folks beer in my home brew club. Their beers are far superior to mine. So much that I'm almost scared to share mine. The taste in my own words is twangy. I want it to be smooth like a Samual Adams which is in my opinion very tasty.

Sam Adams is a Lager, which accounts for a lot of the "smoothness." Is it possible that you simply prefer lagers to ales?

Just my $0.02, but if you're a member of a homebrew club, the absolute best feedback is going to come from those people after they have tasted your beer. Don't be afraid, I imagine it's intimidating, but I also have to imagine that the point is to help everyone make better beer eve/especially the beginners. People on the internet can only do so much through speculation, people who can actually taste your beer will be much more helpful with nailing down what might be the problem.

I think your opening the beer before they are done bottle conditioning. I think if you give your beer 4-5 weeks the flavors will mellow out. I am finding with extract that patience with bottle conditioning, fermentation temp. regulation and quality of yeast are paramount. I would also consider giving it 4 weeks fermentation, give the yeast a chance to finish its job. (i use exclusively Nottingham yeast, except when i do lagers/cali commons of course)

I have been brewing extract batches for a few years now and the longer fermentation (for me 4 weeks in the primary) the more mellow and consistent the flavors are.

The hardest thing about brewing is being patient as far as I am concerned.

Edit: (just realized I pretty much reiterated what Revvy said, but that advice is well worth reinforcement)

IMO, controlling your fermentation temps is the best thing you can do to improve your beer. Are you doing anything to control that? Even in a basement at 65F the internal temp can get 10F+ over ambient. Use a swamp cooler method if necessary.

I typically don't care for beer made with LME but there are things you can do to improve them. Use fresh LME (online sellers who go through a lot), late addition, full boil can only help.

BeerSmithSonian said:

. . . My expectation levels are being set by other folks beer in my home brew club. Their beers are far superior to mine. So much that I'm almost scared to share mine.

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Just a word of empathy - the homebrew club I'm in has two brewers who have won a national lager competition, plus many others who are far more expert in both tasting and brewing than I am. I've gotten over it - I share my beer with them every month. Its especially helpful when I bring a beer that is in the 'style of the month' and is part of the club tasting, I find that feedback especially useful.

Plus 1 on the comments above about aging to help get rid of what you are perceiving as twang. Also, the late extract addition mentioned above will help. And, where you started this thread - a full boil will also help you make better beers. You'll need to get a big enough pot, have a powerful enough stove to heat that amount of liquid, and a wort chiller.

Cheers!

If you are convinced it is because of using extract do a small batch using the stovetop all grain method and prove yourself right or wrong.

Late extract addition and more time in bottles should make a big differance

Switching to DME greatly improved my beers. My first brew was a BB kit. Definitely had the twang..even after 6 months I can taste it. Probably because I have no idea how long that kit was sitting on the shelf. Definitely use the late addition to help.

Thank you for all the great feedback. Here is my takeaway. Full boil is essential. Add some malt toward end of boil. Pay close attention to yeasts that I use. Be patient during primary fermentation increasing the time in primary and let bottle condition for at least a month.

BeerSmithSonian said:

Thank you for all the great feedback. Here is my takeaway. Full boil is essential. Add some malt toward end of boil. Pay close attention to yeasts that I use. Be patient during primary fermentation increasing the time in primary and let bottle condition for at least a month.

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and watch fermentation temperatures - low 60s for most ales

unionrdr said:

Big time! I love how well the late extract addition works for lighter colors,& cleaner flavors. I also found out pretty quickly that beers carb faster than they condition.

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When doing late extract additions. You have to make adjustments to your bittering hops too. I read that you should use about 20% less, does that sound right? I'm intersted in trying this on my next batch.

hawkeyes said:

When doing late extract additions. You have to make adjustments to your bittering hops too. I read that you should use about 20% less, does that sound right? I'm intersted in trying this on my next batch.

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Nope! You want a little more for extract from what I can remember

BeerSmithSonian said:

Thank you for all the great feedback. Here is my takeaway. Full boil is essential. Add some malt toward end of boil. Pay close attention to yeasts that I use. Be patient during primary fermentation increasing the time in primary and let bottle condition for at least a month.

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I think you're a bit confused. Adding extract later in the boil is a method employed by those of us who do a partial boil. It reduces, or eliminates, caramelization of the wort, and improves hop utilization. It makes a huge difference when doing a partial boil.

If you do a full boil, you can add all of the extract at the beginning.

Other things to help improve your beers:

1) Rapid cooling of wort after the boil is complete
2) Fermentation temps
3) Pitching plenty of yeast

hawkeyes said:

When doing late extract additions. You have to make adjustments to your bittering hops too. I read that you should use about 20% less, does that sound right? I'm intersted in trying this on my next batch.

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Depends on how much extract is added later in the boil. Most recipe calculators account for late extract additions now, and they adjust IBUs accordingly.

Hey gang,

Here is a pic of the same Hef recipe, DME vs LME. Not only is the color half as light, the flavor is wwwaaaayyyy better. The extract twang is gone, the Hef flavors really come through. I have even moved my English Porter to DME and what a difference. My first 3 Hef batches over 4-5 months were done with LME and they all looked and tasted the same.



I also agree with longer fermentation, controller temps and full boils

Rick

Toy4Rick said:

Hey gang,

Here is a pic of the same Hef recipe, DME vs LME. Not only is the color half as light, the flavor is wwwaaaayyyy better. The extract twang is gone, the Hef flavors really come through. I have even moved my English Porter to DME and what a difference. My first 3 Hef batches over 4-5 months were done with LME and they all looked and tasted the same.

I also agree with longer fermentation, controller temps and full boils

Rick

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Looks like the LME got scorched. I've done that in the past, and the off flavors (not to mention the color) produced by it are extremely noticeable.

But that can be remedied. You can brew a hefe that's lighter (not quite as light as DME, but very close), and just as much, if not better than the DME version.

First, add only 20-50% of the wort at the beginning of the boil, then add the remainder in the final 10-15 minutes.

Second, make sure your pot is off the burner when adding your extract. The heat at the bottom of the pot will burn some of the extract as you're stirring it into the water. When your water reaches boiling temps, take it off the burner and stir in the extract until it is fully dissolved. Then put the pot back on the burner.

When done correctly, beer made with LME arguably tastes better than beer made with DME.

I completely understand were you are. I'm about 6 months into this. And except for one oatmeal stout, I think I could have gone to the store and bought better beer than I am brewing. I still cant make a really good Pale Ale.

I came across this post a while back: 10 tips to better extract brewing

I have applied them to my last two brews, still waiting for results, about a month away.

On the recommendation of Bob, I did a late extract edition at flame out. 2/3 of my extract. There was plenty of heat in the full boil to sanitize the extract.

I also invested in a oxygen aeration system, if nothing else it is so much easier to aerate with this.

We will see how it goes.

Grossy said:

I completely understand were you are. I'm about 6 months into this. And except for one oatmeal stout, I think I could have gone to the store and bought better beer than I am brewing. I still cant make a really good Pale Ale.

I came across this post a while back: 10 tips to better extract brewing

I have applied them to my last two brews, still waiting for results, about a month away.

On the recommendation of Bob, I did a late extract edition at flame out. 2/3 of my extract. There was plenty of heat in the full boil to sanitize the extract.

I also invested in a oxygen aeration system, if nothing else it is so much easier to aerate with this.

We will see how it goes.

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Check out some of the recipes in this site's database. If you want a good pale ale, there's some really good ones available on this site. I haven't tried many, but I can vouch for Biermuncher's and EdWort's recipes. I've done variations of recipes from both, and they were outstanding. BM has a Sierra Nevada clone, and EdWort has a haus pale ale. Both are pretty popular.

They (or others, myself included) have converted some of their recipes to extract or partial mash.

Hey friend...

I'll tell you that I've learned to just be patient... and I've spent the majority of my time educating myself on yeast (luckily my wife is studying to be a biologist, and she has plenty of literature to work with). Fermentation and yeast have definitely had the biggest effect on my beer...

First off-- if you make a starter, it really matters! I've got 2 belgians I'm getting ready to bottle (same kit), and the only difference was the starter. There is far more "twang" in non-starter batch... when testing gravities.

I've bottled 2 beers, and have 3 conditioning in primary... I FIRMLY BELIEVE IN THE 3 x 3 RULE... 3 weeks primary, 3 weeks bottling...

I am currently doing an experiment that is really helping me understand all the theory I've read about:

I drink one glass of my homebrew a day (following A 3 WEEK primary ferm.), and take notes on flavor profiles, mouthfeel, etc. I'm on week 2/3 on my brews--and I am really beginning to notice a HUGE transition of the "twang" you are referring to. Right around the 3rd week of bottle conditioning--I have TASTED a smoother, fuller, more head retention and clearer beer!

Final note: Don't transfer to secondary... the research is out there, but my buddy that transfers to secondary has noticeably flatter beers...with harsher tones at first tasting.

My $.02...

Good luck!

Have your brews progressivly gotten worse. You may have a sanitation priblem. Boil everything. Try some One step sa
nitizer on the bottles. happy brewing

I've done my first 2 batches with just LME and they both came out just as dark as the LME. After reading threads on this site, I've moved on to DME at the start and used a late addition of LME. It improved the color and taste drastically. The last 2 batches I've done are all strictly DME and they've come out a big winner for me. IMO, LME is nice, but I think of it as a good extract for beginners just to work on fining the process without worries about the final product.

As everyone has stated before the "twang" will go away if you let the fermentation finish and have patience to let the bottle conditioning to go on longer. There's nothing wrong with sampling after a week or 2, but don't expect it to be tasting great until week 3-6 depending on gravity and conditioning temps.

As the others have said, give it time. You'll be amazed how some of your beers drastically change and improve after a couple more weeks of conditioning.

I did notice a small improvement going from LME to DME. Not only color, but also flavor. I've also tried late addition and I think it had an improving effect, but can't say it was dramatic. The biggest improvement I saw in my extract beers was when I went to full boil. Or at least as close to full boil as I could get. I still had to add about a half gallon of top up water in my old pot, but even doing that I saw major improvements compared to doing the traditional partial boil and topping off with 2-3 gallons.

I've gotta ask... how do the big craft brewers brew so fast and still maintain flavor? If the answer is more time... a small business fails.

I'd like to hear their tricks.... (and yes I know they don't use extract) ...

year2beer said:

I've gotta ask... how do the big craft brewers brew so fast and still maintain flavor? If the answer is more time... a small business fails.

I'd like to hear their tricks.... (and yes I know they don't use extract) ...

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There's a ton of threads about that on here. Just do some digging and you'll find them, most of the are title something like, "How do Commercial..." "How do the big guys..." "How come..." They're not too hard to find.

Just remember the old saying that "the last beer left in your inventory will be your best"! This is because of your bottle conditioning. I just gave away to a friend my last bottle of her favorite Wit that I brewed this past July. Wheat beers are generally pretty good for being so young, but this beer was leaps and bounds better than before. I am not touching anything I brew for months. Well ok, I might have a few, but the majority are being pushed to the back of the closet and forgotten about.
I have been brewing extract for a while and really like the simplicity and the garage space from not venturing further. About the only thing that was not touched upon in earlier posts is the mixing of the extract. Once you think that it is blended well, stir for another few minutes. Invest in a good long handled mixer and go to it. Your OG will begin to really hit its mark every time.

Just wanted to update everyone regarding my home brew outcome. I brewed a brown stout instructions said leave in primary for 4 days past fermentation. Instead I left the stout in primary for 5 weeks past fermentation. Then bottled it and waited 10 days. The stout is hands down the best beer I've brewed. It turned out smooth and very tasteful. I think for now patience is my enemy and best ally. I brewed a kolsch over the weekend and plan to bottle it towards the end of January. I will let everyone know how it turns out.

I'm also an extract brewer. 3 weeks bottle carbonating at room temperature, 2 weeks cold conditioning in fridge have really helped my beers start tasting a lot better. I've noticed "extract twang" in the very first bottles of a batch I've opened 2 weeks bottle carbonating and 24 hours cold conditioning and beers I open later after another week carbing and 2 full weeks in the fridge or cold storage taste so much smoother, no twang.