I made my third batch (Irish red ale, from a kit) about 10 days ago,
and transferred from primary to secondary this past weekend. The SG
was a little lower than expected (.038, expected .043), but I got a
great fermentation and the FG was right at .010. Good color, a little
cloudy, no off flavors, but it's severely lacking in malt sweetness and
body. It tastes more like heavily hopped watered down beer. Is there
anything I can do at this point to add body and flavor? I hate to just
pitch it, because it doesn't taste bad, exactly. Just very thin. My
brewing mates and I have already figured a couple things we'll do
differently next time we make this, to get that SG up where we want it.
One suggested boiling up a couple pounds of amber DME and adding it to
the secondary, letting it ferment, and going from there.

Worrying!

[Heath]

The best thing I can say is to buy another kit, boil it down to get a hot break. Do about half of the recipe as far as the water addition is concerned, hop about half using the same recipe and blend the two together.

Heath

FWIW, I had a similar reaction to my first kit beer, which was also my first
brewing project after a 5 year brewing lapse. (I'd never done DME or kits
before, and didn't have my notes from previous efforts to compare malt
amounts.) Anyway, after a week in the secondary I was similarly
disappointed with the body, so I boiled a pound and a half of DME in a small
amount of water for about half an hour, let it cool, and added it into the
secondary (which made it a semi-primary, I guess) . Fermentation took off
in no time, and in two more weeks I kegged it. The result was just what I'd
been going for. If there is a specific problem to be expected from this
type of multi-stage brewing, I'd like to hear it. Maybe after five years of
commercial beer I just wasn't attuned to whatever flaw was present.

I have made bread before using just bottled homebrew, flour, and salt and it
rose almost as fast as using bread yeast, so I knew that there would be
enough live yeast to get the batch going again.

Dave


"Fly4CAP" <rick_bowlin@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1131461479.628824.136990@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...[color=blue]
>I made my third batch (Irish red ale, from a kit) about 10 days ago,
> and transferred from primary to secondary this past weekend. The SG
> was a little lower than expected (.038, expected .043), but I got a
> great fermentation and the FG was right at .010. Good color, a little
> cloudy, no off flavors, but it's severely lacking in malt sweetness and
> body. It tastes more like heavily hopped watered down beer. Is there
> anything I can do at this point to add body and flavor? I hate to just
> pitch it, because it doesn't taste bad, exactly. Just very thin. My
> brewing mates and I have already figured a couple things we'll do
> differently next time we make this, to get that SG up where we want it.
> One suggested boiling up a couple pounds of amber DME and adding it to
> the secondary, letting it ferment, and going from there.
>
> Worrying!
>[/color]

"Fly4CAP" <rick_bowlin@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1131461479.628824.136990@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...[color=blue]
>I made my third batch (Irish red ale, from a kit) about 10 days ago,
> and transferred from primary to secondary this past weekend. The SG
> was a little lower than expected (.038, expected .043), but I got a
> great fermentation and the FG was right at .010. Good color, a little
> cloudy, no off flavors, but it's severely lacking in malt sweetness and
> body. It tastes more like heavily hopped watered down beer. Is there
> anything I can do at this point to add body and flavor? I hate to just
> pitch it, because it doesn't taste bad, exactly. Just very thin. My
> brewing mates and I have already figured a couple things we'll do
> differently next time we make this, to get that SG up where we want it.
> One suggested boiling up a couple pounds of amber DME and adding it to
> the secondary, letting it ferment, and going from there.[/color]

I agree to add a pound of boiled DME but that won't fix a watery thin
mouthfeel. You need to get some maltodextrin - a white powder derived from
wheat - and boil that up with your DME. This will add body without affecting
color or flavor, while the DME will raise the gravity. You can get
maltodextrin from your LHBS (might be known under a different name, so
check)
Steve W.

This is exactly what the folks at my HB store said. I did it last
weekend, and will bottle in two weeks. I used amber DME to get a
little more of the roasted malt flavors and color, but I know it won't
be the same as a better steeping of the grains. Of course, they also
didn't seem to think it was as bad as I did, a touch hoppy but nothing
that wouldn't mellow down after a few weeks of aging in secondary and
bottle. We'll know in a month!