What went wrong?

[jvend]

Hi, I brewed a American Ale, the result was a watered flavored beer with a perfect color and 5.2%abv.

I did it the following way:
Placed like 10kg of grains on a grain bag on 4 gallons of water, when it hitted 1.059 (less than 2 1/2 gallons)left because of grain suction and evaporation) I got the grain bag out and fly sparge it, the gravity readings from the sparge (taken fom below the bag) never decreased from 1.040 (fly sparge until i got 4 gallons) and I inoculated the yeast.
Like I mentioned, great cristal color, great alcohol but too watery flavor. What went wrong? I guess too much water, but why? Gravity never lowered! Pleeeeeease help me!!!

 

[jvend]

Im sorry it wasnt 10Kg, it was 3.2Kg

 

[badlee]

what grains and hops did you use?
Give us the grain/hop bill and maybe it will be easier to tell what the problem is.

 

[jvend]

2 row malt, wheat and oats

 

[aiptasia]

There's your problem right there. 2 row is a base malt and if that's all you use in the beer, you will get a watered down tasting beer. Wheat and oats are meant to add a little flavor and creaminess to the beer but they aren't the malty backbone you need for a beer's depth.

You need to pick some other specialty grains to actually flavor the beer. These can be roasted grains, vienna and munich malt, biscuit malt, etc.

 

[badlee]

Yep, that sounds about right to me. You would have had a completly different beer with about 320gr of crystal 60 in the mash.

 

[jvend]

I added like 2.3kg of 2 row,.90 of wheat and .9 of oats, so i shoukd add like .4 on top of that of a crystal maybe?

 

[dyqik]

Also, what temperature were you mashing at? This is pretty critical to determining how much malt character you get in the beer. Above 152-154 F will have a lot more malt character (and lower ABV) than a mash below 150 F.

 

[AnOldUR]

edit to admit, dunno nuttin'

 

[jvend]

Oh Im sorry I didnt mentioned, the OG hitted 1.056, but now that you mentioned it, during some time the mash temp went above 165F, but the sparge water never went down 1.040.

 

[Mithranbeer]

You never mentioned hops or a boil. What hopping schedule did you follow?

 

[jvend]

Just barth hops for one hour

 

[chickypad]

I'm a little confused about your process. You started your mash with 4 gallons but then you said "when it hitted 1.059 (less than 2 1/2 gallons)left because of grain suction and evaporation) I got the grain bag out and fly sparge it". Were you boiling the water and grains up to that point? 3.2 kg of grain should absorb less than a gallon and you mentioned evaporation so I am wondering if you were boiling the whole thing.

How did you measure your OG of 1.056 and your water volumes? In a 4 gallon batch with 3.2 kg grain that's like 88% efficiency. Might have happened, I'm just a little surprised. Also, do you actually know it was 5.2% alcohol because you measured the final gravity at around 1.016?

There are lots of SMaSH and other recipes with just base malt, it shouldn't necessarily lead to a watery beer.

 

[badlee]

mashing at 165f, as far as I know, will give you very bad conversion.
I think that the next time you brew, you should try a BIAB brew where you use all of the water from the start of the brew session.
I alwasy work in celcius, but aim at 4c above my desired mash temmperature. SO, as I like to mash at 67c, I heat my water to 71.5C.
Not meaning to be offend, but what is your native language? I ask because it seems to me that you may have misunderstood some brewing information.