Can I reuse a beer that didnt turn out, for my mash water

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The Mad Brewer

The Mad Brewer

The mad brewer
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The ale is very weak, no body and a bit malty. So rather than dump it, can I use it for my next brew for mash water? Maybe to increase the new Beers body and flavor.
 
Only batch I had with less body than I wanted actually improved when I put it on nitro mix (kegged). If you also keg, that would be an option. Carbonation can help with some aspects of a brew. But if it finished really thin (low FG) there's not much you can do with it. Beyond what's already been posted.
 
joeoberfoell said:
The ale is very weak, no body and a bit malty. So rather than dump it, can I use it for my next brew for mash water? Maybe to increase the new Beers body and flavor.
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When did you check the beer? At the end of fermentation, after it had carbonated, or 3 months after bottling? What kind of beer was it?
 
RM-MN said:
When did you check the beer? At the end of fermentation, after it had carbonated, or 3 months after bottling? What kind of beer was it?
Click to expand...
Was supposed to be a lighter simple IPA, my APV was going to be low like 2-3%, i checked at the begingin and the end of Ferment, I have had it in the keg for 2 weeks, i could choke it down if it was the last beer on earth, unfortunalty it should be lower in the keg as Im malting this week for my next brew (maybe a 100 % oat or 75/25 oat wheat all or porter). So Im gonna have about 3 gallons left that I can dump into my garden, use for my wifes Cpap, maybe as plant food around the house or I get wild and do a small batch of beer using it for my mash water, like a gallon just to see what it does.
 
Two thoughts here, please take at face value:

1. A 2-3% abv beer is likely going to be thin and lacking body and complexity. Keep this in mind for future beers.

2. I’ve never done an all oat or 75/25 oat, wheat beer, so... I find it interesting that after asking how to fix an undesirable beer you’re considering brewing something that has a high likelihood of generating a “Help me fix my crappy 100% oat beer” post in a couple weeks.

All joking aside, this is the glory that’s home brewing, we get to brew whatever the Good Idea Fairy deposits in our brew brains.
 
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joeoberfoell said:
Was supposed to be a lighter simple IPA, my APV was going to be low like 2-3%,
Click to expand...

Hmm. Sense you were shooting for super low ABV anyway, maybe just turn it into a fruited beer by adding fruit juice. It will add body and usually will make the beer very drinkable. It will hit your ABV a little but you were never going to get a buzz off your intended beer anyway.
 
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Brew a beer you're familiar with, use it in the mash and let us know how it turns out! A little Lord Farquaad ("Some of you may die, but that is a risk I'm willing to take") as you'll likely end up with twice the volume of 'cooking beer' (??) but it'd be both interesting and entertaining for the rest of us! Well worth it I reckon.
 
Chuckbergman said:
Brew a high ABV beer and blend the 2 for a nice regular beer.
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Years ago in my brewing youth, I had a slightly off flavored/phenolic batch, 5 gallons. I didn’t want to throw it out, so I blended it with a good batch. Total 10 gallons.

Tasted it and learned my lesson. Human taste still detects the off flavored batch. So the lesson to be learned is don’t throw a good batch at fixing a bad batch. Then I had 10 gallons of off flavored beer to suffer through rather than 5!
 
superiorsat said:
Hmm. Sense you were shooting for super low ABV anyway, maybe just turn it into a fruited beer by adding fruit juice. It will add body and usually will make the beer very drinkable. It will hit you ABV a little but your were never going to get a buzz off you intended beer anyway.
Click to expand...

I agree with this suggestion. Bad beers just become shandys.
 
joeoberfoell said:
The ale is very weak, no body and a bit malty. So rather than dump it, can I use it for my next brew for mash water? Maybe to increase the new Beers body and flavor.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty cheap and hate to dump beer/cider/wine that I don't like. The first thing I try is "blending in the glass" with something else I have, usually cider. As already mentioned, you could go through the work of brewing another beer and blending with that. Sometimes if an IPA has too much hop presence, I'll mix it with a cheap commercial beer like Hamm's. You could try adding a few ounces of the Mexican beverage malta, which is made with barley malt, hops and sugar, (not alcoholic) that would provide some body and sweetness. But occasionally you just have to suck it up let it go down the drain. If you wanted to experiment with it, you could carefully pour off a few quarts to a gallon jug, then boil up a quart or so of strong extract wort, let it cool and dump it in. Let it ferment down and see what you've got.
 
madscientist451 said:
I'm pretty cheap and hate to dump beer/cider/wine that I don't like. The first thing I try is "blending in the glass" with something else I have, usually cider. As already mentioned, you could go through the work of brewing another beer and blending with that. Sometimes if an IPA has too much hop presence, I'll mix it with a cheap commercial beer like Hamm's. You could try adding a few ounces of the Mexican beverage malta, which is made with barley malt, hops and sugar, (not alcoholic) that would provide some body and sweetness. But occasionally you just have to suck it up let it go down the drain. If you wanted to experiment with it, you could carefully pour off a few quarts to a gallon jug, then boil up a quart or so of strong extract wort, let it cool and dump it in. Let it ferment down and see what you've got.
Click to expand...
I like the Malta idea, if I can find it. I might just take the left over hops, and a bit of wort from my next batch and try Frankenbrewing something
 
IMO, don't be afraid to dump a batch. If it's not good to drink, don't. It's pretty simple IMO/IME. Eventually, everyone makes a batch that they don't care for. To date I've only dumped one batch that simply came out too bitter due to mistakes made during the boil (plugged the chiller, so it sat too long at too high a temperature). Haven't made that mistake a second time.

I had another batch that came out thinner than I wanted it to. Ended up putting it on nitro mix and that saved it. Plus I split it with a friend (he brought a keg up for some of it).
 

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