Hey, y'alls. I'm having an issue with my beers lately. I guess the best way to describe them is "overly clean" or just plain "lacking malt character". The beers are very drinkable, but just kind of missing something.
I use my tap water through a home RO system. The water is very nice and clean. I adjust water with Bru'n water spreadsheet. I usually shoot for the 50-75ppm range for calcium, chloride, and sulfate, adjusting, usually, with equal amounts of gypsum and calcium chloride in the mash and sparge.
Two things I can think of that would cause this: Too low of a mash temperature. I've been missing low lately, usually in the 148-150 range. So I've been mashing for 90 minutes because of it, instead of adding boiling water to raise or anything. I'm on a bigger system, so I'm getting used to higher water volumes.
Or, I'm not using enough calcium chloride in my water. It's usually around 2g for 5 gallons of mash/sparge water for 7 gallon batches.
I should also mention that these beers were Brewing Classic Styles bitter, Northern English brown, and a couple others that I can't think of right now. So they should have plenty of malt character, I'd think. Also the yeast was Wyeast 1335, which does indeed seem very dry and crisp, but it doesn't seem like the beers should be lacking that much malt character.
Any thoughts as to causes for a thin, kinda watery, lacking malt character, beer? My pH in Bru'n water is usually figured for the 5.3 range, and shoot for 5.4-5.5 for darker beers.
Thanks in advance.