I'm sorry this is so long, but I'm anal (heh...) and want to provide as much info as I think is necessary (which may or may not be too much).
We've only tasted two of our five batches at this point, and bottled a third, which are the ones I'm wondering about. Hopefully this doesn't sound like the standard n00b freakout, it's more of an academic question since the beers are quite drinkable. I actually think we're fine, we've just gotta brew more beer and shit'll work itself out eventually - but my brother is worrying about this quite a bit.
The deal is basically this: we (my brother and I) have done five batches so far - n00bish to say the least. The two we've tasted were IPAs, kits from Austin Homebrew - one was a generic extract recipe with steeped grains, the other DFH 60 min clone mini-mash. The third that's currently carbing in bottles is a generic dry stout, mini-mash. All three have over-attenuated, and the two we've tried have been watery-ish.
We're doing full boils in a keggle; so far every beer has come in low on the OG because we're still working out our equipment and end up with too much liquid in the carboy for the recipe, among other problems (mostly mash related) that have popped up from following the kit instructions exactly (which are exactly the same for every beer, regardless of grain bill, save the hop additions - I only realized this after probably the third batch; gotta stop drinking so much on brew days) - we're done buying kits, we're building our own recipes from here on out.
But the main problem I would think is that, like I said, we've over-attenuated on all three of the finished beers. Each has hit about 5-7% higher apparent attenuation than the White Labs literature suggests (-001 for the IPAs, -004 for the stout). All the beers are getting temperature control via swamp coolers in an unfinished bathroom in our basement, so it's not as exact as I'd like (soon to be rectified, I hope) - temp has hovered around ~70* for all the beers in question.
Both of the beers we've tasted (the IPAs) have lacked any real body. They still taste good, just not great. And the 60min clone was nowhere near as malty as the commercial version. I should mention that - as far as we know - our cleaning and sanitation has been impeccable (we're both, like, really really anal - hehe, anal...).
So what's the deal? Is my brother freaking out too much? Or am I being too cavalier?