So, I've been making pretty decent beer for a couple of years, but my IPAs and especially IIPAs have been missing that characteristic sharp hop bittering attack I wanted. Even my pale ales--still tasty beers--but lacking the exact hop character I was looking for.
I tried a couple of things to correct this--changed hop providers a couple times, made sure I was getting a roiling boil for full utilization, upping bittering quantities--but nothing worked. For some reason, I had avoided looking at the water, since I just assumed that my water was at least average hardness. Well, finally, I researched the city water profile of my city (Vancouver, Canada)--which, btw, for any other BC brewers, is available here. And found that our water hardness is a shocking < 3 mg/L (ppm)! Calcium and Sulphate are < 1, Mg < 0.2, and Sodium < 7. Talk about the low end of the scale. OMG of course it was the water, I tell myself.
Anyway, I downloaded the ezwatercalculator spreadsheet and got some idea about what I should add to my water for the IPA I suddenly got super excited about brewing.
Thanks again to everyone on this site for making people better brewers everywhere. Even me.
I tried a couple of things to correct this--changed hop providers a couple times, made sure I was getting a roiling boil for full utilization, upping bittering quantities--but nothing worked. For some reason, I had avoided looking at the water, since I just assumed that my water was at least average hardness. Well, finally, I researched the city water profile of my city (Vancouver, Canada)--which, btw, for any other BC brewers, is available here. And found that our water hardness is a shocking < 3 mg/L (ppm)! Calcium and Sulphate are < 1, Mg < 0.2, and Sodium < 7. Talk about the low end of the scale. OMG of course it was the water, I tell myself.
Anyway, I downloaded the ezwatercalculator spreadsheet and got some idea about what I should add to my water for the IPA I suddenly got super excited about brewing.
Thanks again to everyone on this site for making people better brewers everywhere. Even me.