Hey guys! New brewer here - struggling a bit.
I’ve brewed a caribou slouber, english pale ale, irish red, and american pale wheat out of kits, and I feel like there’s just not enough “taste” to my brews.
I follow the directions, but they all taste too similar! Is this common? Am I doing something wrong?
[quote=“zmanishere11”]Hey guys! New brewer here - struggling a bit.
I’ve brewed a caribou slouber, english pale ale, irish red, and american pale wheat out of kits, and I feel like there’s just not enough “taste” to my brews.
I follow the directions, but they all taste too similar! Is this common? Am I doing something wrong?[/quote]
We would need to know more specifics about the kits. However, my guess is that your beers were all made with very similar base ingredients as well as the same yeast. That could account for them having similar taste profiles.
All extract, I assume? I felt a little of the same thing when I was doing extract.
I too am guessing extract. I thought the same when I did only extract. If you feel comfortable, go to all grain. I guarantee you won’t think they all taste the same.
try more extract, more grains, more hops!! seriously, grab a recipe and amp it up a bit and see what plays out.
I sort of had a similar problem and the basis of it was that I was constantly getting recipes that called for 1056 or US-05. While these are great yeasts that really do their job the flavor becomes a little repetitive.
Toy around with yeast strains and hops while you’re extract brewing. You have no idea (I didn’t at least) how different a beer can taste when you use identical ingredients and processes and simply pitch two different yeasts; or, better yet, the same yeast with different temperature controls. If you’re into pales and IPAs try brewing one with a German Ale strain.
These are all low gravity and mild flavored basic beers, so they will be kinda similar. Make a nice hoppy ipa or something, then you’ll really taste a difference. Or a stout with lots of roasted grain.
I’ll echo what others have said - these recipes are all pretty “middle of the road” in terms of flavor, gravity, hopping, etc. Try a stout or porter, or a belgian, or a hefeweizen, or a hoppy pale ale/IPA. these will definitely taste different.
I also think that yeast selection plays a big role in this. If you’re prepared to make liquid starters, then try brewing something with a distinctive yeast strain. Something like a Belgian Abby strain, wit, weizen or a flavorful English yeast like WY1968.
I’m also not sure what temp you’re fermenting at, but if you’re in the low 60’s that may not be warm enough for certain yeast to develop their distinctive characters. If you can control the temp a bit, a good rule of thumb for most ale strains that you want some yeast character from is to pitch around 65, let it rise to 68, and maybe bump it to 70-72ish after several days to help it finish out.
On the good side, if a lot of your beers seem to taste the same, then it sounds like you have your process dialed in pretty well. That’s a good place to be as a new brewer.
how about your steeping grain procedure? I haven’t brewed any of these kits, but I would guess they have a pretty wide variety of steeping grains. Are your OG/FG where they are supposed to be?
Funny…when I saw the thread title, the first thing I thought was, “this guy must be brewing all-grain recipes with 8 different grains per recipe.”
One of the best things I think you can do to vary your flavor is to use different yeast strains. I know that’s not essential and that commercial breweries tend to use one house strain for the most part–but in the US that tends to be a pretty neutral yeast.
An example where I think a “house strain” does not work great is (prepare to read words of blasphemy) Samuel Smith’s darker beers (Nut Brown, Taddy Porter and Oatmeal Stout). They all taste virtually identical to me because they are fermented using the same very prominent, estery yeast. Don’t get me wrong…they’re good and they are listed as excellent examples for each style in the BJCP guide. To me they’re just not as distinct as I would like them to be.
