c_e
Member
Hello, I've been brewing over a year now and thought I was getting pretty good at it until I put one of my brown ales in a blind tasting with a bunch of commercial beers. I honestly thought it was going to hold it's own, but during the tasting it was painfully obvious which one was my homebrew. It's hard to describe exactly what made it so different. The best I can come up with is that is was not nearly as clean and refined as the commercial beers. The aroma and flavor had yeast and hops and malts all over the place. After that night, I noticed that all my beers had the same messiness to them. When I drink them by themselves I don't notice unless I am thinking about it, but next to commercial beer it is really obvious.
So my question is... how do I make my beer better? Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. I thought leaving it in the fermenter longer would help clean up the flavors, but I just tasted one that was in for two months and it has the same stuff going on.
For the record, I do stovetop partial-mash brewing (in my tiny apartment). I try to mash about 6 lbs of grain in a big pot and fill in the rest with extract. I've done all sorts of recipes using all sorts of yeasts and grains and hops, so I am sure the problem is with my process and not my ingredients.
Thanks in advance!
So my question is... how do I make my beer better? Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. I thought leaving it in the fermenter longer would help clean up the flavors, but I just tasted one that was in for two months and it has the same stuff going on.
For the record, I do stovetop partial-mash brewing (in my tiny apartment). I try to mash about 6 lbs of grain in a big pot and fill in the rest with extract. I've done all sorts of recipes using all sorts of yeasts and grains and hops, so I am sure the problem is with my process and not my ingredients.
Thanks in advance!