Recipe question: Am I brewing dishwater?

[StittsvilleJames]

Hello everyone,

I am brand new at making beer, and before I bought my starter stuff and made anything, I was convinced this was a great hobby because of forums like this one.

Thank you!

So I made a pre-hopped beer kit for my first one (which I am still waiting for... Waiting is definately the hardest part). I got bored and decided to make another, but not from a kit, but from just extract and hops and stuff.

I used 3 x 1.3 kg (about 8.5 lbs) of pale liquid malt extract, and to that I added 1 oz of 4.5% Williamette hops for 60 minutes, and then .5 oz 4% Fuggles at 15 minutes and .5 oz fuggles at 5 minutes.

I used a Safbrew S-33 yeast for this.

I did not do any grain steeping or anything. I was at the store, and they had grains, but I had no idea what to buy (and hate asking store people for help...always trying to upsell and what not) so I didn't buy any.

Is this going to actually taste like beer if there was no grain steeped in it, and it was just plain old liquid extract and hops?

I'm a little worried that I have a batch of dishwater to drink because I didn't add any grains for flavour and what not before boiling everything.

I am trying to do th whole rdwhahb thing, but I can't help it, because I have two in progress batches and no experience with any of this (except for reading online, which is awesome, thank you all again!!)

 

[Kaz]

Plugging that into Beersmith for a 5 gallon batch gives a beer with an original gravity of 1.061 and an IBU of 12.7. Its a little light on the bittering hops, Williamette is more for flavoring and aroma additions and not so much for bittering with its low AA. It will be beer, I'm not sure it won't be a little on the sweet malty side.

 

[GetLooseontheGoose]

You will be fine the malt extract also has flavor. It will in no way taste like dishwater, unless you have left your beer in primary way too long and the fatty acids break down. Unlikely.

Anyways steeping grains will give you more color and increase complexity of your beer.

Happy brewing to you.

 

[BenjaminBier]

Agree with GetLooseontheGoose. What you've got is going to be fine, it sounds like a beer I'd be glad to drink at a sunny spring brunch or on a hot summer day.

Save a couple bottles of this one for the future. For a future brew you could use the same basic recipe but add specialty grains and slightly increase the hops. Taste the two side by side and use it as a chance to learn how the grains taste in finished beer.