Watery dull taste in beer

[object]

I'm struggling with watery taste in my beer.

And not only in my, in vast majority of homemade beers I've tried I miss crispness and brightness of beers from a store. It goes like, ok semisweet some hop aroma some bitterness, but all tastes disappear very quickly leaving you with simple watery aftertaste. In commercial beers I can clearly distinct malt layer with supportive hop aroma on top; or a caramel backbone with strong bitterness; or bready maltiness with balancing hops, etc. In short, it's obvious what the brewers meant while brewing these beers. In homemade beers all testes are like blurred together, no main character there, all components like fighting with each other.

Here is an example of one of my last beers:
Weizenbock
OG: 1.081
FG: 1.028
Ca 67, Mg 3, SO4 35, Na 8, Cl 100, HCO3 152
65% Wheat malt
30% Munich malt
5% Cara Wheat malt
40' @ 122°
60' @ 158°
15' @ 170°
One decoction for 30' before the mash out.
21 IBU with Magnum
Mangrove M20 @ 64°
3.2 volumes of CO2
After a couple of month of maturation, this guy is thick with creamy texture, pretty sweet, somewhat hoppy. And the taste is gone in like a second after a sip leaving no impression.

High OG - check, water chemistry - check, decoction - check, temperature control - check. So what direction should I google now? What makes commercial beers taste brightly?

 

[Franktalk]

Cold side oxidation? Also, you check many boxes in your brewing repertoire, but what guidelines are you following? Please give more concrete information. Thank you!

 

[pdxal]

That's a really high FG. Perhaps the lacking crispness the beers you tasted is due to high FG?

 

[object]

Cold side oxidation? Also, you check many boxes in your brewing repertoire, but what guidelines are you following? Please give more concrete information. Thank you!

Yeah, I've read that oxidation (on hot side though) may remove deepness form malt aroma. But I don't know how to control it better than I already do.

Here are my key steps:
1. I use the softest bottled water I could find,
2. pour it into the mesh kettle, add salts,
3. bring it to mesh temp,
4. add the milled grains into a bag (BIAB),
5. after 15 minutes I add dry ascorbic acid getting 5.2 PH,
6. stir it periodically during the course of whole meshing,
7. transition to higher rests by gas fire,
8. after the mesh out, I drain the wort to another boiling kettle through valve (some splashes occurs here),
9. sparging with 170° water adjusted to 5.2 PH by ascorbic acid until draining wort is 1.010-1.020 gravity,
10. bring it to boil, usually my boil lasts 2+ hours to reach desired OG,
11. chilling with immersing chiller to 68-70°,
12. pour into plastic fermenter, aeration by occasional splashes,
13. pitching a yeast starter (I use only dry yeast, so I rehydrate them with some water, and add there some culled first wort, done in the beginning of the brew day),
14. keep it in the cellar at 61-64 air temp,
15. after the airlock stabilizes, transfer to secondary by hand syphon (some oxidisation may happen here but I do my best to avoid splashes),
16. after a week or two, cold crush with gelatine added,
17. after a couple of days, transfer to a keg by valve and hose (minimal oxidisation),
18. carbonation for 3-4 days,
19. bottling using regular bar tap with flow control (some oxidisation may occur here).

 

[object]

That's a really high FG. Perhaps the lacking crispness the beers you tasted is due to high FG?

Maybe I used "crisp" term wrongly. I'm not looking for lager crispness in this beer recipe.
I like sweet beers. Barleywine called Bommen&Granaten is super delicious. It is really sweet with distinctive caramel notes lasting forever after a sip. Mine is just sweet, and all tastes are gone very quickly. There is no brightness.

In addition, when I brew a lager with pretty low OG and FG, it's also watery. Not crisp as they should be according to BJCP description, just watery. I feel some background sweetness with no hint of bread or toasts. Bitterness presents but it's not so delicate as in commercial examples, it's either dull and very background-ish, or harsh and distractive. I tried a lot of noble hops in different configurations (just bittering, bittering + flavour, bittering + flavour + aroma) varying form 18 to 40 IBUs with no desired result.

 

[rburrelli]

Does your water treatment consist of “ the softest bottled water I can find” and ascorbic acid during mash? I think therein lies your issue. Do you add and gypsum to your water?

 

[object]

Does your water treatment consist of “ the softest bottled water I can find” and ascorbic acid during mash? I think therein lies your issue. Do you add and gypsum to your water?

Yes, I use gypsum and calcium chloride to adjust Ca, Cl and SO4 levels. Usually I bring them to 50-100 ppm range, promoting Cl over SO4.

 

[rburrelli]

You know what you are doing with process. Good on you for that. If I were you I might try increasing sulfate to get some “brightness”. Perhaps you can put a pinch into your next glass as a test to see how it affects things.