Why Don't My Beers Have As Much Flavor/Body As "Better" Beers?

[Jiffster]

Although my beers are getting better, some to the point I would definitely buy them, I'm still noticing "something" is missing.

One way to describe it would be that although I'm hitting my OG and FG targets and I'm now experimenting with water pH and additions, it still seems like my beer doesn't have quite the 'fullness' of flavor that a better beer might have.

I don't know if I should say they have less body or what.

What are some things I should look towards improving?

I'm brewing all-grain.
I'm controlling my fermentation temps
Building yeast starters
Starting with RO water and have been using the "Primer" for my water additions up until my last brew where I started using a pH meter, Bru'n Water and salt additions to create the water profile for that style.

 

[TorMag]

Could it be you are just too self critical? What are your friends saying about your beer?

 

[TheHopfather]

That is a loaded question, beers are missing the ever elusive "something". What style of beer are you finding this in and which yeast are you using on them? Could be as simple as using a different yeast. If you are after body you can always try mashing higher, finish with a higher FG. Something else to try would be changing up your salt additions. Try going higher with your chloride levels, higher chloride is often credited with increasing the perception of malt in a beer. Maybe take a beer you've got now that you find is lacking and try adding a small amount of calcium chloride directly to the glass. If you find that improves the flavor you'll know you're on the right track.

RO water is pretty boring and the water primer is pretty conservative. It looks like you're at a pretty advanced stage in your brewing, might as well take it to the next level. Download Bru'N Water and start using it rather than the primer. Tweaking your salt additions can change the flavor of your beer in surprising ways.

 

[Jiffster]

Could it be you are just too self critical? What are your friends saying about your beer?

Could be to some extent I guess. I've received a lot of compliments. My wife has told me that my beers lack a little "oomph". I tend to agree with most of the brews I've done. Although some are quite good, even if they do lack a bit of "Oomph".

That is a loaded question, beers are missing the ever elusive "something". What style of beer are you finding this in and which yeast are you using on them? Could be as simple as using a different yeast. If you are after body you can always try mashing higher, finish with a higher FG. Something else to try would be changing up your salt additions. Try going higher with your chloride levels, higher chloride is often credited with increasing the perception of malt in a beer. Maybe take a beer you've got now that you find is lacking and try adding a small amount of calcium chloride directly to the glass. If you find that improves the flavor you'll know you're on the right track.

RO water is pretty boring and the water primer is pretty conservative. It looks like you're at a pretty advanced stage in your brewing, might as well take it to the next level. Download Bru'N Water and start using it rather than the primer. Tweaking your salt additions can change the flavor of your beer in surprising ways.

I Used Bru'n Water on my most recent brew. BierMuncher's Black Pearl Porter. I'm looking forward to tasting this one to see if the additions helped, although I have never made a porter before so I have nothing to compare it to other than commercial beers.

My best beer to date (In my opinion) was a Watermelon Wheat. This one tasted great and had plenty of "body". (I'm using the term body to define full flavor).

My Hefeweizen (my 2nd) is getting better but is still lacking a little body. I used Wyeast #3068 (Weihenstephan Weizen).

The BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde I made using Danstar Nottingham yeast turned out good but could still use a little more body.

Every beer I've brewed so far has followed a recipe input to Beersmith and adjusted slightly based on my equipment's efficiency. I'm doing well in hitting my numbers for the most part. My OG's have been a little higher than estimated until I started milling just a tad courser. Now I seem to be hitting very close.

The Black Pearl Porter estimated OG was 1.067 and I hit 1.066. Could even be right on given a bit of tolerance for user error.

I did a test mash with that one (my first) and came out with 5.45 pH using my Hach Pocket Pro+. Bru'n Water estimated 5.31. Ironically, when I did the actual match, it was right on with what Bru'n predicted. Not sue what I may have done incorrectly in the test mash.

I'm getting there. I just reached my first year of brewing and I think I've come a long way. I've got the bug and I'm always trying to get to the next level.

 

[brewcat]

#1 is recipe. Are these your own or others?

 

[Jiffster]

#1 is recipe. Are these your own or others?

Others.... Many of them Biermuncher's

 

[joegbeer]

I see 3 areas to consider:

1) Ingredients

Obviously this will vary by beer style. For example, my oatmeal stout was good but a little thin. HBT users recommended flaked barley and I think that was exactly what I was looking for to improve the mouthfeel.

2) Water profiles

Are you using the right water profile for the style? There are so many variables to play with here that this definitely could be an area to improve/experiment with. Someone above mentioned the Brun templates were conservative. Before I was building water profiles, my hoppy pale ale brews were kind of meh. So I know flavor-wise (not so much the body aspect) how important this is.

3) Mash Techniques

Mash temps, decoctions, etc. I'm familiar conceptually with the impacts of different mash techniques, but personally I'm still very inexperienced in this area. Definitely something that needs to be considered though.

I brew way too often because I'm still new to brewing and I'm learning so much (brewed about 40+ batches in the past 2 years). For me, re-brewing the same batch with a small number of changes (1 or 2) has allowed me to learn a lot about tuning a recipe. Taking good notes is also important. It took me 4 attempts at an Oatmeal Stout to get it tuned in to where I liked it. 7 attempts at a cocoa porter and I'm close, but still making changes. Take one of your recipes that you want to work on improving and start tuning it.

 

[BeerEngineer15]

Submit your beer to a competition. Have a real judge taste your beers and give you some unbiased feedback. I'm a judge and I always find flaws with my beer. Once I get the scoresheets back I'm normally pleasantly surprised because they are higher than I would give.

This also has the potential to identify your problem. A good judge will try and suggest things to improve your beer, even if it's rated a 40!

 

[jerbrew]

Submit your beer to me I'll tell you what I think. No promise on identifying the problem but I'll drink it.

 

[okiedog]

jerbrerw, you're a funny guy! I like your humor, but you could at least try and help the guy out by being more descriptive.

 

[Moose_MI]

I'll step up to the dart board with my blindfold and toss......

I feel the same way about my beer....it's never good enough for me but with few exceptions my friends are very very complimentary so I try to keep a perspective

Been Kegging about 6 months which has helped my beer in my opinion. My bottled beer improved with a couple weeks vs a couple days in the fridge. Keg=big bottle in fridge for several weeks

Time...God bless those "grain to glass in 2 weeks guys" but building up a pipeline that lets even IPA's get a 2 or 3 or even 4 weeks is good for my beers. Kegging made 10gal batches practical which lead to beer getting a little more age and it's been a good thing for me

I am messing with my process/equipment all the time but my best batches are the ones that did not have a "first time" component.

You like your beer....your friends like your beer....success! The drive to improve is sort of why we call it a "hobby" .....brew on!

 

[Bilsch]

I love malty German style beers, and like the OP, I was always disappointed by the end product that was lacking that certain fresh malty something. Even with many years of experience and several hundred of batches under my belt, it was illusive until I found out about low oxygen brewing. Not saying this is your issue, instead just tossing it out there as a possibility to think about.

 

[BeerEngineer15]

I love malty German style beers, and like the OP, I was always disappointed by the end product that was lacking that certain fresh malty something.

Decoction mash will also help to increase the melanoidin aspect of your beer and is traditional for most German beers. You can always add a touch of melanoidin malt to skip the 8 hour brew day for a decoction but some say they can taste the difference.

 

[splashmike]

As others have said, the lack of "oopmpf" can be style dependent. If the beer is thin, you can try the following to add some body: (i) carapils; (ii) thicker mash; (iii) higher mash temp. If the hops are not where you want, you can try some water adjustments to see if you can tweak the impact they have.

 

[Aristotelian]

Do a blind taste test. Preferably not just with your wife. Otherwise, it's hard to say from such a vague description of the problem and no recipes or process details.

As others have said, the lack of "oopmpf" can be style dependent. If the beer is thin, you can try the following to add some body: (i) carapils; (ii) thicker mash; (iii) higher mash temp. If the hops are not where you want, you can try some water adjustments to see if you can tweak the impact they have.

I agree with trying higher mash temp.

 

[Morrey]

Jiffster, we have shared ideas here on HBT before and I know for a fact you are a good brewer, at least you know the right approach as we have discussed.

I think you may be viewing your beers in an overly critical fashion. Based on your idea that your beers are not that good....compared to what? My wife and I just finished two major brewery crawl weekends in Asheville NC and Charleston SC. Of course there are the big boys like Sierra Nevada and New Belgium. But the majority are smaller to mid-sized operations who distribute on the east coast.

I don't want to sound like a braggart, but honestly, our beer is right up there amongst 'em! I just brought a Helles on line that was better than the brewery, plus it was rare to find this beer commercially.

BUT, my point being, I had some real comparisons to make. I have a pretty good hunch your beers are better than you realize. Proper water management (you have a new ph meter), grinding your own fresh grains, proper mash temps......you know the drill.

Enjoy my friend!!!

 

[specharka]

You'll get there. Brewing beer is a trial and error process; you don't learn if you don't make mistakes. I've made quite a few dumpers over the years, so I know firsthand how frustrating it can be.
Flavor and body are very nuanced. There's a few practices that I've adopted over time to help develop flavor and body in all of my beers.
1) Use of flaked adjunct (wheat, oats, rye or barley) or malted grains other than barley to boost body and mouthfeel. Typically, I add around 5-10%, based on the grain and recipe. A farmhouse ale I'm brewing soon will contain 20% rye and 4% oats.
2) Modify the mash schedule to produce more unfermentable dextrins. I used to exclusively mash at 150F, I've since wised up and mash most beers between 153-155F. Decoction mash schedules are great for this...rests at 144 and 156 produce extremely balanced beers.
3) Use more characterful yeast strains. Clean ale yeast strains are not really that interesting, and with overuse will make beers taste dull and repetitive. I'm accustomed to seeing people spend $60+ on grains and hops for an IPA and opt for S-05 instead of something more interesting like WY1318, Conan, or even S-04. Madness!
4) Move flavor and late hopping additions to flameout or a whirlpool. There's really no sense in additional hops late in the boil (aside from reduced bittering potential). You get a lot more flavor from the hops by throwing them in for 30 minutes at 160F. This also applies to other ingredients with VOCs: coriander, orange peel, etc also benefit from reducing exposure to high temperatures.

 

[KartRacer54]

Seems very basic but what temp are you mashing at.
My first beers were way too watery, too low temp, when temp is too high, my last stout it drank like old coffee. Mash temp is one of my toughest criteria. I am building a system with RIMS tube to eleminate the variance. Seems as if I get the temp figured out and then the weather, changes.

 

[55x11]

As others have said, the lack of "oopmpf" can be style dependent. If the beer is thin, you can try the following to add some body: (i) carapils; (ii) thicker mash; (iii) higher mash temp. If the hops are not where you want, you can try some water adjustments to see if you can tweak the impact they have.

agree with this. Body/flavor often comes from unfermentable sugars and roasted/crystal malts, dextrin malt etc. Mash higher if you want more of those sugars, up the specialty malts a bit (don't go overboard of course), and maybe go for alternative grains - for example, Maris Otter will give you more biscuity, cookie-like taste, as opposed to US 2-row which is a bit more simple, clean flavor.

 

[ncbrewer]

Two possibilities that I can suggest:
1. Maybe you're getting just a little oxidation somewhere on the cold side.
2. Try a couple of extract batches similar to recent all-grain batches you've done. That could help pin down where in the process you need improvement.