Boosting The Brew?

[Drulupis]

Hi my revered brewing colleagues....I require your input.
You see, I was experimenting...

I put down a Belgian Ale. It was a BrewCraft 1.8kg Belgian Ale (LME) kit.
Taking a line from a 1993 Australian HomeBrew mag, instead of sugars, I added more malt.
In this case 1kg MasterBlend Caramalt (LME).
Add to the primary a Morgans Saaz Finishing Hops bag, and a nice amount of Nottingham Ale yeast.

SG 1034.
FG 1010.

I calc that to be around 3.6%

Now, I'm not too concerned about the alcohol %, but I tasted the brew from the secondary and, whilst it's not that bad that I'd throw it away, it is rather bland!

I'd like to spice it up a little if possible.
I'm not really into fruit beers, so adding fruit to taste isn't my first option.
I thought perhaps I could add some sugar or dex with another small healthy batch of yeast and boost the alc a little to counter the blandness.

And this, my esteemed brewers, is where you come in.
Can I salvage the Bland Belgian Beast, and if so, what would you recommend?

cheers, and Happy Brewing.

 

[Enerjex]

just wait and see how it turns out after a month in the bottle, a green, warm uncarbonated beer from the fermenter wont be an accurate guide. if you want to brew another batch in the meantime though sugar or dextrose won't give you more flavour, just more alcohol (well the plain sugar may give it a fruity taste). I'd add another 500g-1kg of light malt extract, this will give it more malt flavour and more alcohol. you may also care to up the hops a little to balance the extra malt.

 

[FazerPete]

Hi my revered brewing colleagues....I require your input.
You see, I was experimenting...

I put down a Belgian Ale. It was a BrewCraft 1.8kg Belgian Ale (LME) kit.
Taking a line from a 1993 Australian HomeBrew mag, instead of sugars, I added more malt.
In this case 1kg MasterBlend Caramalt (LME).
Add to the primary a Morgans Saaz Finishing Hops bag, and a nice amount of Nottingham Ale yeast.

SG 1034.
FG 1010.

I calc that to be around 3.6%

Now, I'm not too concerned about the alcohol %, but I tasted the brew from the secondary and, whilst it's not that bad that I'd throw it away, it is rather bland!

I'd like to spice it up a little if possible.
I'm not really into fruit beers, so adding fruit to taste isn't my first option.
I thought perhaps I could add some sugar or dex with another small healthy batch of yeast and boost the alc a little to counter the blandness.

And this, my esteemed brewers, is where you come in.
Can I salvage the Bland Belgian Beast, and if so, what would you recommend?

cheers, and Happy Brewing.

Adding more dex will up the alcohol but won't do anything to the flavour because it's 100% fermentable. I think it's probably a bit late to go adding more fermentables if it's in secondary so try dry hopping. For a belgian ale I'd recommend around 25g of styrian goldings. All you need to do is chuck the pellets into the secondary fermenter and leave it for another week. If you can't get the hops from your LHBS then Craftbrewer will overnight them to your door. :beer:

 

[Pandreas]

My first attempt at a kit based wheat beer resulted in a COMPLETELY tasteless and odourless brew at bottling time.

I bottled the beer anyway, with a great deal of disappointment as I thought I would have a ripper brew on my hands.

Anyway, I had a taste test after 2 weeks of bottle condition and was surprised to find that a healthy aroma had developed and an OK beer to drink.

Also, although alc% seems low at 3.6%, you will gain 0.5% through priming which will up the alc% to about 4.1%, which I personally think is quite reasonable.

 

[RobboMC]

My experience is that the taste from the fermenter is never worse than the finished product. If the fermenter sample is anything drinkable at all then the bottled beer, in 4 or 5 weeks time, should be Ok. Spend the time considering how you could improve your next batch by adding more fermentables and/or hops.

This is why brewers progress from straight dump and stir brews to extract and mini-mash techniques.

You can always keep it for when your pi**head VB loving mates come over and feed it to them.

 

[blackbock]

You could always do what the Belgians do, i.e blend with another (hoppier?) beer?

 

[Drulupis]

Gracias amigos.
All great suggestions, and very much appreciated.

Agreed, the brews do get better with bottle conditioning.
The alc% will increase another .5% with priming (didn't think about that).
And I do like a hoppier brew.
Unfortunately I can't dish it up to my VB-swilling friends. I actually pride myself on not associating with the like

So I'm taking all suggestions on board.
I'm going to dry-hop for another week, then bottle as is, and let it condition.

I'll let y'all know how it turns out.

I <almost> enjoy making the beer more than I do drinking it ;-)
I've normally perform my experiments on a much smaller scale, but my local HBS has recently surprised me with an amazing range of products. I saw the BrewCraft and Morgans kits and lost control like a kid in a candy shop (a brewer in a Home brew store?)

I have a couple of small glass demijohns, and scale down recipes (Kit and All Grain) to make 5L batches, getting 8-9 bottles per batch.

The up side is I get to brew more regularly and I have more variety on hand.
The down side is if I make an exceptional drink, I only have 8 of them. But I can always do another batch, right?

thanks all, and Happy Brewing