Base malt experiment

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Really cool experiment. I have brewed a few batches of Kolsch using 100% pilsner malt, and had wondered about using the Kolsch malt. I wouldn't have thought 4-4.5 SRM would come out looking that dark, so your pictures really surprised me.

Based on your results, I might try using just a bit of the Kolsch malt and stay with mostly pils the next time I brew up a Kolsch.
 
Northern Brewer lists the Kolsch malt as 4.5L. Combine that with the high OG and it helps explain the color. I'd say go for it to really find out the effects. It was one of my favorite tasting going to the fermenters and bottling. Something clearly affected the fermentation and bottle conditioning on my batch though. I don't blame the malt for that.

I have the ingredients to do side by side small batches of Belgian pilsner and saaz to compare my well water in its natural highly bicarbonate state (as prior trials), treated based on insight from the Water book, and RO or distilled water with gypsum to 50ppm Ca. I'd like to gage the color impact as well as taste. My well is high in iron which may also be lending some color. Easily understood when you see the vibrant orange sediment I precipitate out after adding gypsum, boiling, and cooling. Hopefully I get this brewed over the holidays.
 
Great experiment and follow up - thank you! I'm excited to try Belgian pils malt next as a base for an APA.
 
I finally got started on my next step, comparing water sources. My efficiency had dropped about 8% since moving back from China. I had changed to an electric HERMS, home-brew store mill, and well water compared to my China set-up with igloo mash tun, monster mill, and RO + mineral salts. I bought a new mill, so back to controlling my own gap. That got me about 4-5% back. Last November I got a Ward's water analysis and read the Water book. So to check the darkness impact of water in my original malt trial, I'm brewing 3 more small batches:
1. softened water with gypsum added to hit 50ppm Ca (unwanted 200+ ppm Na from the softener) and phosphoric acid to lower sparge water
2. well water as-is (just as in the prior tests)
3. treated well water. The treatment is simply adding enough gypsum to increase the calcium sufficient to aid in carbonate precipitation with boiling. I boil it ahead of time, chill and settle overnight, then decant off the horrendously unnerving amount of sediment. Then I add a bit more gypsum during mash to get me to 50ppm Ca. I also acidified the sparge water.

This past weekend, I brewed the first two. I hope to get the third completed this coming weekend. The only notable difference on brew day was a real scummy foam on top of the well water batch.

Recipe:
20g Acidulated Malt
80g Caramunich I
800g Belgian Pils
100g Rahr 2-row (because I was shy on pils)

BIAB
4L strike water
target 154 mash
3.3L sparge water

60 minute boil (figuring small pot should still boil off the DMS precursors)
20 minutes 14g Czech Saaz
5 minutes 14g Czech Saaz
Chill by setting the pot in the snow with hop sacks still in it.
Final volume 1 gallon (all trub dumped into fermenter)
Pitched with 3g each of rehydrated S23 and W34 Saflager yeasts into wort at 40-45F.
Ferm chamber held at 52F.

I did the softened water batch first, because I was least interested in it. I mainly want to see if the high sodium level affects fermentation and taste. I also dumped my grain accidentally, swept it up, topped off with a bit to get back to the original weight. So it was screwed from the start. Then due to small size, the mash temp was 147-148. OG ended up at 14.3 Brix.

The second batch I completed was the untreated well water. I raised the strike water, so I was able to hit the target mash temp. OG was 14.4.

Both are now bubbling slowly. I wanted to get all three brewed this weekend, but got distracted by sultry 28 degree weather which drew me to the garage to work on getting a jump on a pergola to be completed when spring finally shows up. I'll update when the third one hits the fermenter.
 
Third/final batch was brewed this morning. This one used well water which was boiled ahead of time with gypsum added to aid precipitating out the carbonates. That was actually done 3 weeks ago and decanted into buckets. After taking the 7.3L needed this morning, I checked the bottom of the bucket and additional minerals had precipitated since the original decanting. The brew process was successfully consistent with the second (untreated well water) batch.

Pre-boil SG 9.2 Brix (1.2 more than untreated).

OG 15.2 Brix (0.8 higher than untreated).

So there was a notable difference in extract yield from the mash. The first two are still bubbling away at 52 F. I pitched this one 40F and added it to the fermentation chamber.

Next update will be at bottling time.
 
Just bottled all 3 today.

Final gravity:
Softened Water 1.012 at 46F, so approx 1.011
Untreated Hard Well Water 1.014 at 46F, so approx 1.013
Boiled/Treated Well Water 1.014 at 56F, so1.013-1.014

No noticeable effect on attenuation. Recall the soft water batch was first with a significantly lower mash temp, and the treated well water was a few points higher OG.
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Color was noticeably different in the gallon fermenters and in the smaller glasses.
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More notes to come
 

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Started a second reply, because I was getting photo upload errors.

Yeast cake had different characteristics too. The soft water batch was more flocculant and chunky compared to the fine sediment of the others. It was less compact so I got one less 12oz. bottle from it. The other two batches yielded 2 bombers plus 4 x 12oz plus remnants. The remnants from all 3 yielded 2 extra blended bottles.
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Tasting notes:
Soft water: clean aroma, perfect balance, no off flavors, bright hops, no astringency, spiciness from the hops, clean malt flavor, quite honestly far exceeding my expectations for any of these batches. A really nice pils worth scaling up.

Hard water: sweet aroma, rounder hop notes, a little honey flavor, balanced and melded, no flaws noticeable, upper teeth clinging and center tongue mouthfeel, maybe a slight yeast like flavor.

Boiled: sweet aroma with some yeastiness, more hop than malt in the flavor, muddled or separate malt and hop flavors, a slight grassiness, mouthfeel similar to hard water batch but less so, little phenol or rubber band character, but very little.

I was shocked at the results at this point. The order of preference (soft favorite then hard then boiled) is opposite of my expectations. I also expected the high sodium of the soft water to deter fermentation. Yes, that batch had a lower mash temp, but it attenuated just fine.

There were comments in my prior base malt experiment that water may affect color. That was confirmed by this.

I believe the flocculation improvement with soft water is noticeable.

I'll update again if there is a change after bottle conditioning.

My water is high in iron, but I wouldn't have tagged any of the flavors to that. The soft water has it almost removed compared to the others. I suspect that's the major flavor differentiator.

Happy with the clearly discernible results, even more so since it completely countered my expectations.
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Update on the water comparison now that bottles are well conditioned.

Definite color and clarity difference between the soft water and the other two (hard and boiled). The boiled water sample is a bit less hazy than the hard water.

I don't discern much of a taste difference between the soft and boiled. The hard has a definite off flavor. It's probably, because I know it, but it bring blood custard I've had in China to mind.

I think my future batches will use soft water until I upgrade to RO.

[samples are Soft, Boiled, and Hard from left to right in all photos]

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Thanks for posting these experiments. You've helped me figure out why I don't care for Marris Otter as much as everyone raves about it.
 
I've bailed on making my well water work, and I got an RO system. That's definitely cleaned up both malt and hop flavors.

I'm glad I did the trials. It's definitely more work than splitting a batch to compare yeasts or even hops.
 
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