bland ruby ale

[phat]

Happy xmas boys and girls

Fortunatley I did two brews for xmas. I did a lovely stout (my second AG brew) and a Ruby Ale (my first attempt). The ruby ale is really bland!

I know the mistakes that I made with the ruby ale, so I dont have any questions about why its so bland, but I have a king keg full of flavourless beer. Is there anything I can add to it to make it a bit more inspiring??? At the moment I'm mixing the odd third of a pint with the stout to make a black and tan.

 

[wfr42]

Half pints and a shot of bourbon or rum and/or offer it to guests?

It may just take a bit longer to come good.

 

[Mjh]

Can you drop in some hop extract?

 

[Clint]

Think Godsdog may be your man...

 

[donchiquon]

I've had this a couple of times and have just bagged up some hops and dropped them into the barrel. The difference it makes is night and day.

I've experimented with pulling them out after a week or so (by stringing the bag using dental floss) so that you can remove it, and also just leaving it in...for a few months.

Both seem to work - I've not noticed any grassy flavours!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Leon103]

Be careful not to use minted dental floss

 

[phat]

Thanks guys,

I think I'll drop in some bagged hops and see if that makes the difference.

 

[JapanBrew]

You could make a really strong beer and then combine.

 

[Brewmarc]

Make up a hop tea & adding to the brew is another way of infusing extra hop flavour.

 

[donchiquon]

Be careful not to use minted dental floss

Ah, but that's the secret of my mint choc chip stout

 

[JapanBrew]

Make up a hop tea & adding to the brew is another way of infusing extra hop flavour.

But it looks like he's already carbed it. Adding hop tea will foam like heck.
Are they bottled or kegged?

 

[Leon103]

Ah, but that's the secret of my mint choc chip stout

I had a mint choc milk stout on Xmas day, didn't manage to get the turkey out of my teeth.

 

[phat]

But it looks like he's already carbed it. Adding hop tea will foam like heck.
Are they bottled or kegged?

It's kegged.

I did a hop tea and added both the tea and the bag of hops to the keg . Hopefully this'll give it some flavour.

 

[JapanBrew]

I actually tried it this morning on a not so citrusy brew. Lucky it was the one in my corny and not my sanke. It seemed to go well but I force carb my beer so once I added the tea, I purged the air then boosted the pressure to 35 psi and gave it a few shakes. Poured a sample and seems rather nice.
I probably should have dropped the hot water temp below 80 because I got a tad bittering.
If it was sanke I would probably have added through the gas port with a funnel.