watery taste/same color

[Return_of_the_Mac]

I have two questions I would really like to know if anyone has an answer/suggestion.

1) I have made two different homebrews a Winter ale (kind of a scotish ale) and a Red Belgian Ale. I brewed them using grains and extract but both of the brews turned out the same colors. I was wondering if that is because I used the same light dried malt extract extract.

Here are the recipies (winter ale)
9 lbs. (3.4 kg) light dried malt extract
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) Munich malt
0.50 lb. (0.45 kg) Carahell® malt (19 °L)
0.50 lb. (0.45 kg) CaraMunich® malt (30–40 °L)
1.0 oz. (28 g) black patent malt
13 fl. oz. (384 mL) maple syrup
1.5 lbs. (0.68 kg) dried cherries
12 AAU US Northern Brewer hops (60 mins)
(1 oz./28 g of 12% alpha acids)
Wyeast 1084 (Irish ale) yeast
1 vanilla bean (split)
3 cinnamon sticks (3 inches, broken into pieces)


The Red Belgian Ale
6lbs of light dried malt extract (the guy at the homebrew store told me to go with the light dried malt extract as I couldn't find an extract recipe for this)
8 oz. Biscuit Malt
8 oz. Crystal 70
3 oz. Crystal 120
2 oz. Special B
2 oz. Carafa III De-Bittered Black Malt

Hops

1/2 oz. Magnum 14%a, 60 minutes
1/2 oz. Citra 11%a, 30 minutes
1/2 oz. Galaxy 14%a, 15 minutes
1/2 oz. Citra 11%a, at flameout
1/2 oz. Galaxy 14%a, at flameout
Yeast: Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardenn

My 2nd question:
I pitched the yeast 8 days ago on my Red Belgian Ale so I am about ready to rack my beer. I tasted the brew and it had a watery taste, I know it is still early in the process but my other beers have more flavor than this at this point. I believe this happened because I started out stepping my grains with 3 gallons of water (this is for a 5 gallon batch). The oats soaked up a lot of the water and I tried to get as much of the water out as possible but I ended up losing almost a gallon of water. When I finished boiling and added water to make my 5 gallon batch I had to add almost 3 gallons of tap water back.... Should I only add a couple gallons if this happens again?

Getting back to the watery taste I was thinking about dry hopping it for 5 to seven days with a fruity hop, maybe Mandarina Bavaria to give it more flavor.

Any help of suggestion would be great!
Cheers!

 

[daksin]

Color is additive, so the color question just happens to be a coincidence. The combination of specialty grains you used just happened to end up around the same color. You can use online software to calculate a color estimate based on your ingredients, like brewtoad.com.

Watery isn't really a flavor. Give it time, wait until the beer is cold and carbonated, and then pass judgment. Then you'll get better over time at learning to predict what the beer will taste like before it's even fermented. If you think the beer should be sweeter, maltier, or hoppier, you can adjust the recipe for the next time, but give it a chance.