Failed Experiment, Can It Be Salvaged?

[Aleosaurus cervisiae]

My latest experiment gave me poor results and I wonder if there is anything I can do to rescue the batch.
This is what I did:
1 kg Pilsner
1 kg Munich
0.5kg Light crystal
0.15kg wheat
14L water, mashed at 66C, sparged with 3L at around 70C, boiled 90 min with
Amarillo 25g at 60 min
Amarillo 15g at 10 min
Amarillo 15g at 5min
Irish moss 5 at 5 min
Then I added Brewcraft #76 Pale ale kit converter (label reads: dextrose, maltose, malot-dextrin , malted barley)
Topped to 20L, getting to OG 1034
US05, fermented at 18C for 10 days, FG = 1006

The reason I used the brewing kit sugar is that it was something left over from my early days and I am stingy, I admit.
Well. the result is very insipid beer, not malty enough, Amarillo stands out like dog's b***locks, although there are no off tastes.

Now my options are:
1) Own up to my mistakes and drink it.
2) Give it away to charity.
3) Feed the lawn.
4) Do more experimenting, like: Make 10L of new wort (AG or DME with some more Amarillo) and add to the beer while the yeast is still alive. I know some people used their crappy beer as the base for mashing and boiling, but I don't think my missus will like the smell of boiling beer, I am in enough trouble when boiling wort as it is. I just wonder whether more experimenting is a sure road to even worse failure, or has anyone done anything similar.
Help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[manticle]

I've made minimashes and added the resulting boiled wort to beer that has fermented out successfully. The main thing to work out is what's wrong and what will provide a fix. If it's too hoppy and not malty enough then a similar wort with less hopping and more malt backbone will help you out.

Just make sure you give it the required time to ferment out again.

 

[O'Henry]

Drink it or ditch it. They would be what I would go for. Leave it for a bit if you want to see how it goes. Hops will dull off.

 

[argon]

I know some people advocate blending bad beer with good beer as a fix. But in my experience you just end up with twice as much bad beer.

So I'd say drink it or ditch it too.

 

[manticle]

If it's bad as in infected or burnt or has off flavours then yes. If it's bad as in unbalanced then you can fix it.

Not by blending with good beer, but by making beer specifically with the necessary balancing elements thrown in and blending that.

 

[Aleosaurus cervisiae]

Thanks guys. Because it is not infected or off, I think I will try to add some malt to it and see how it goes. Will report back.

 

[krusty_oz]

I'm with O'Henry, leave it for another month or 2. The hops will fade revealing more of the malt character. Even though it may be a little diluted by topping to 20L, the 500g of crystal malt flavour should still be there.

 

[argon]

If it's bad as in infected or burnt or has off flavours then yes. If it's bad as in unbalanced then you can fix it.

Not by blending with good beer, but by making beer specifically with the necessary balancing elements thrown in and blending that.

yep true... i guess that comes from my experience of when i make a bad beer... it's horribly bad. No half arsed failures around here.

 

[manticle]

It's good to be committed.

 

[Nick JD]

It's good to be committed.

I'll bet their are nice people in your asylum though, Mants. :blink:

 

[manticle]

Super nice, super fun, super happy.

 

[Nick JD]

Super nice, super fun, super happy.

Super.

On that note I recently had a successful "fix" ... turned an insane Dark Strong into something like a Dark Dubbel, or something.

I can't measure gravities above about 1.060 and was a bit slack with my recipe formulation, and made a wort that was too much for 1214 to cope with. I'm pretty sure the alcohol got above its tollerance, with much sugaz to go.

So I racked it onto a lager trub that already had the same volume of cooled boiled water added to it. Fermented out no worries and is a nice beer - still has all those nice esters and phenolics.

I think a lot of commercial breweries do a similar thing. Fermenting high gravity, then diluting.

Fixing screw ups is fun. I really need a refractometer, or a hydrometer that can tell me the wort's 1.120+.