Gose is a bit too salty

I brewed a Gose recently and it just finished fermentation and I racked to secondary. I tasted a hydrometer sample and while I know Goses are supposed to be salty I think this one is just a tad saltier than I would like. I only added a teaspoon to a 2 gallon batch but that has proved to be a bit much.

I was wondering if I diluted the batch with maybe two cups of water if it would make a difference or if at this point it's worth even bothering with.

Will carbonating the beer make much of a difference in the salt perception?

I've never brewed (or tasted) a gose, but when it's cold and carbonated it will likely have a very different impression. I wouldn't mess with it.

I agree, I bet the carbonation will help a lot. A half teaspoon per Gallon doesn't sound that crazy to me. Have you just tasted a glass of water with that level of salt? It might be worth doing, to see if it's really salty.

Umm, Gose is NOT salty. Gose uses table salt to enhance the sweetness of the beer. When dosed properly, there will not be a 'salty' flavor to the beer, just an enhanced sweetness to compliment the sourness of the beer.

The taste threshold for sodium in the typical taster is around 250 ppm. It turns out that most brewers end up around that level when crafting good Gose. I do not know what that teaspoon of salt equates to in a 2 gal batch, but it was probably too much. I suggest calculating the salt addition before adding.

To help drinkers understand the Gose style, I recommend that they find a fresh bottle of Bayerischer Bahnhof Gose and try that. There is no saltiness in that authentic example of the style. When you think about it, why in the world would anyone want to drink a salty beer????

Interesting. Odell's Comes and Gose is highly rated and has a definite salty character to it. Real Ale's Gose couldn't stay on the shelves during the summer here in Houston. I guess big name breweries can make mistakes too, though asking the question "why would anyone want to drink a salty beer" seems odd, considering the popularity of these two Goses, and moreover the popularity of sports drinks such as Gatorade. I've had several other Goses from bigger craft breweries that were salty as well. I just think the one I brewed may be saltier than those.

Not that Wikipedia is always accurate, but the very description of a Gose there is "Dominant flavours in Gose include a lemon tartness, a herbal characteristic, and a strong saltiness"

I had a salty beer a few weeks back and really enjoyed it. I'm going to start tracking down some gose to try.

A teaspoon of salt weighs 0.2oz. If your FG was 1.015, you had 270 ounces (by weight) of beer. So about 740ppm of salt. 1/3 of a teaspoon would get you to the taste threshold that Martin posted. Since you need so little, I'd use a gram scale and add it in much smaller doses.