Advice needed. Complex flavor

[cpulley1]

I have recently finished my second brew, an amber ale with a little vanilla extract added when it was transferred to secondary. I'm not exactly a food critic, so bear with me, but my first brew had a rich flavor with a very diverse flavor profile. It started out warm and bold with fruity tones in the background, and finished with a sweet bite. My yeast were pretty much dead by bottling day and I know a lot of the sweetness came from the priming sugar, but I really enjoyed the flavor. When I brewed it, I didn't sparge, and only had a 30 min steep.

My most recent beer was a slightly different recipe, but I sparged with 2 gallons of water till it ran pretty clear, and steeped the mash for 90 min. I expected a lot of flavor from it! When I finally opened the brew it has a warm, smooth estery flavor, but no real bite. It's just....beer. It doesn't have the complexity of the first brew, and certainly not what I expected. I don't have my gravity reading log on me at the moment, but I have the recipie. If anyone can tell me how to improve the background flavors, let me know!


2)Vanilla Amber Ale

Ingredients:
Partial Mash
2.25 lb Briess 2-row
.5 lb40L Crystal
0.25 lb munich
1oz chocolate
0.25 lb Cara-Pils

4lb Pale Malt Extract
Irish Moss
Hops: 1oz willamette 30min, 1 oz fuggle 12 min, 0.5 oz willamette 3 oz
Cooper's Ale yeast

90 min steep, sparge, 60 min boil.

17 days fermentation
Added 5tsp vanilla extract. 17 days secondary.
1 small pk cooper's ale yeast on bottling day. July 26th

 

[shot0rum247]

ARG, i had a long response typed up with some advice, but i accidently hit the back button and lost it all! here is the sparknotes...I am usually more polite so please excuse it!!!

steeping should be done for about 30 min only at 150 *F, steep too long and introduce odd flavors like overdone tea leaves

sparging with 2 gallons of water could be excessive but wont hurt anything, if this is a pain in your but I would rather have you steep in a larger volume as to use your grains more efficiently

go ahead and use a liquid yeast, I recommend starting with a Wyeast smack pack. They are great, reliable, and produce a MUCH better and more complex beer...this makes a world of difference even to an untrained pallet (my girlfriend easily tells the difference...you will love it). Keep Coopers around just in case you ever find out on brew day that your liquid yeast is bad (i have never had this happen though, the stuff is just reliable these days!).

Make sure you are aerating your wort as best you can before pitching, this also makes a difference on how strained your yeast are during fermentation and will transmit how clean and yummy your beer tastes.

Im glad to hear your first 2 batches turned out well!!!! Sorry for the choppiness of this response.

 

[cpulley1]

I haven't used a liquid culture yet, I'll try that next. I gave been aerating the wort well, but the steep time and volume makes sense. Thanks for the input!

 

[Beernik]

Are you using pre-hopped extract? If not, run your longest hop boil time up to 60 minutes, you'll get more hop bitterness. If so, stop using pre-hopped extract and same advice.

Willamette is a good hop, but its a finishing one. So is Fuggles. Also, Willamette is a derivative of fuggles so you'll get similar tastes from both. You'd get more bitterness with something like Cluster or Northern Brewer with a 60 minute boil and keep with the same sort of hop style.