For me it is a marionberry strong ale. I dig high grav beers with a hint of fruit. The first time I split the batch and the strong ale was great. The berry portion sucked, way too much berry and I oxidized it to boot. It's berry season again, time for round 2.
What beer can't you get just right?
- Thread starter daksin
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
roastquake
Well-Known Member
What yeast have you used? US-05 is pretty hop-forward
Beernik
Well-Known Member
Schwartslager. I almost always get it too roasty. The most recent attempt was pretty close.
JoeSpartaNJ
Well-Known Member
roastquake said:
I usually use us-05 and bry-97 for my lighter/hop pier beers.
OP
OP
It's definitely worth checking out. The water test is cheap and it's good information to have whether you're putting it to use or not.
kingwood-kid
Well-Known Member
Even cheaper, click here, then scroll down (or control-F) until you see Omaha: http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/water-profiles/
Water profiles can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, and may change seasonally as the water source varies as well. But that should at least get you in the ballpark. I'm nothing near an expert, but your water is pretty salty, and the pH is high enough that you could market it as a heartburn cure.
Thanks. I read the 2012 district water quality report and that reported sodium level is accurate (high end of their samples, but still...) Ironic that we're 1,000 miles from the nearest ocean but are essentially drinking sea water. ;-)
I've been avoiding it for my 4 years of brewing, but I will start educating myself on water before our next Amber beer brew session.
TangoHotel
Well-Known Member
Its your Great White Buffalo. Mines been Dry Stouts. They just don't turn out. :-\
Getting my water tested by Ward Labs and taking time to become familiar with Bru'n Water has paid huge dividends for me, also filtering my water.
kingwood-kid
Well-Known Member
I've just started getting into it myself. My local water is pretty similar to yours, other than the Gatorade-level sodium (you could make a Gose without having to add salt). I don't bother to adjust mine for stouts, but spending $2 for 8 gallons of RO water and adding some minerals is a pretty cheap and easy way to improve my hoppy pales.
Yum, love them with a roast-coffee flavor that come foreword at the end
I have made about 10 different oatmeal stouts and none of them have the rosary taste of the micro brewed oatmeal stouts available around me. I have been using about 8 oz of roasted barley and 2 oz of chocolate malt in each one and don't really want to increase it too much in case it gets too bitter. Though with 8 oz, I can hardly taste any roast at all! I don't make my own recipes so I really don't know what each malt does so I don't know what to do next!
JoeSpartaNJ
Well-Known Member
D_Nyholm said:
I would increase the chocolate to 6 or 8 oz and raise the roasted barley to 12 oz or 1 lb.
corwin3083
Well-Known Member
The words in this sentence make sense when I read them individually, but when you put the word "bitter" after the word "too" it just becomes incomprehensible to me.
Honestly, my IPAs and DIPAs have yet to impress me. I can make a killer pale ale but if I try to bump it up to IPAland, nosireebob it becomes too bitter or too sweet. Kinda sucks, but that's why I love this hobby. I've only had to dump one DIPA. The rest were drinkable, I just wasn't particularly happy.
Beernik
Well-Known Member
I haven't done a stout with oatmeal in it. But I use 8oz roasted barley, 8oz chocolate, and 12oz Special B.
For me it's a rich, low-gravity porter. They usually come out too abrasive in either bitterness or carbonation, even though I try to keep them both low. I have started working with my water, so hopefully that will help things. Which leads me to my feedback below to Omahawk....
I sent a water sample to Ward Labs and my water did not match what MUD reports (at least in the link earlier in this post). I think some of my abrasiveness may come from an excessively high level of sulfates. For the last couple of batches I have diluted with about 55% RO water from HyVee so we'll see how they turn out. I live in west Omaha and here's what I got back from Ward Labs:
pH 9.2
Sodium, Na 60
Potassium, K 6
Calcium, Ca 36
Magnesium, Mg 19
Total Hardness, CaCO3 169
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.8 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 70
Chloride, Cl 21
Carbonate, CO3 12
Bicarbonate, HCO3 60
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 69
I sent a water sample to Ward Labs and my water did not match what MUD reports (at least in the link earlier in this post). I think some of my abrasiveness may come from an excessively high level of sulfates. For the last couple of batches I have diluted with about 55% RO water from HyVee so we'll see how they turn out. I live in west Omaha and here's what I got back from Ward Labs:
pH 9.2
Sodium, Na 60
Potassium, K 6
Calcium, Ca 36
Magnesium, Mg 19
Total Hardness, CaCO3 169
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.8 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 70
Chloride, Cl 21
Carbonate, CO3 12
Bicarbonate, HCO3 60
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 69
I've heard good things about special b. Might have to give it a try!
Thanks. I had heard from other homebrewers that there were at least 2 different water zones in the city. We live out by Elkhorn, so I'm guessing mine is similar to yours.
I went back and reread the Mash pH chapter in How to Brew and started listening to the Brew Strong water-ganza podcasts and it's been helpful in understanding the basics. I think I need to spin through each a few times to get all of the details down.
Based on my 1 day of research into this topic
, right away I notice that the Cl:SO4 ratio in West O looks really low. Palmer was recommending something along the lines of 1:1 or 1.5:1 if I recall (I need to go back and listen again).Other than experimenting with some RO water, are you adding anything to your West O water? For my lighter beers, I've been using about 50% tap, 50% distilled Hy-Vee water. For Pale Ales, it's been mostly tap water (some filtered, some unfiltered) since it tastes pretty clean. I've never added anything to the water other than campden tablets.
Edit: by the way, from reading through the water reports of other cities, pH of 9.2 is off the charts alkaline.
Also, our Calcium levels are low according to what Palmer was talking about in the first water podcast.
My first brew was all RO with no additions. Since then it's been all tap water with some additions here and there. My last 2 brews (batch #'s 64 and 65) I used about 55% RO in each. To the IPA I added some gypsum and CaCl. To the stout I added CaCl and baking soda. We'll see how they turn out. The stout will be bottled today and the IPA is soon to be dry hopped.
Let me know how they turn out. We're 2-3 weeks from brewing.
For me it's a good ordinary bitter. Next time I make one I'll probably go the no sparge route which has really been working out nicely for me on low gravity beers.
davekippen
Well-Known Member
This. I love Saison's but cant seem to ever make a good one. I thought it was a forgiving style to brew, I couldnt be more wrong.
corwin3083
Well-Known Member
I'm intrigued by this. Would you mind saying a little more about your process here? I've been trying to dial in an ordinary bitter myself, but am definitely still looking for good ideas to try out.
OP
OP
That's a great idea. I wonder if my not-quite-right OB could be improved the same way. Maybe something to try next time!
Sorry I'm bad about replying to my quotes, but it's a pretty simple process, you just collect the first runnings from the mash without sparging.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/No_sparge_method
It's a bit less efficient and therefore uses more malt, but it seems to give a 'fuller' malt taste (great description I know).
corwin3083
Well-Known Member
So you're just collecting your first runnings, then adding water to reach your boil volume? Or using enough mash water to reach your boil volume?
I fill with all the volume I'll need, mash, drain, start the boil.
OP
OP
Well, all the volume you need, plus grain absorption.
Similar threads
