Side by side water modification test

Kaiser said:

Stone brews their RIS with about 70 ppm RA I guess.

The problem with 200+ ppm RA is getting there. Unless your water is that hard you only have chalk and baking soda. If not dissolved chalk's ability to raise the pH is limited to an increase of about 0.2. I don't know why, but that's what I have observed.

The RA you'll need for that RIS will largely depend on how much color is coming from crystal malts. But I don't think you need to go any higher than 200 ppm. The whole water chemistry thing is sparking my interest to brew one of my own.

Kai

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While I wasn't soliciting advice (don't want to muddy up this thread too much), I do appreciate it. I think I have a basic, high level understanding at this point, which should be enough to get me through. My water seems to have decent RA, around 100 ppm, so I figure 3g of chalk and 5g of baking soda in 8gal mash water to get me around 225 ppm RA and I should be in good shape. I'm using 2 lb crystal (60 to 155) and 2.5 dark roasted (350 to 500), so there's quite a bit to take the PH lower.

It's ok to muddy this thread up because the taste test was inconclusive. I let the mash cool too much so the FG was like 1.007 and neither tasted balanced enough. I didn't let my whole club taste them but the few that did said they noticed a slight flavor difference but neither was better. They couldn't even describe what the difference was but both were too dry and too bitter. I knew that.

Bobby_M said:

It's ok to muddy this thread up because the taste test was inconclusive.

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I didn't check if you were done with the topic, but I wanted to start a new thread anyway.

Back to your topic. I wonder if it would be sufficienct to make a soft water mash, spilt the wort between fermenters and add different amounts of salts to the fermenters. That way you do the split much later which makes brewing easier but if there is some reaction in the mash or boil that causes the SO4/Cl effect on taste you would not be able to show that. If it is just the mere presence of them you may even be able to do that by adding various, yet realistic, amounts of salt to finished beer. Now that would be an experiment that allows quick evaliation of a wide range of Cl and SO4 levels.

Kai

That's a reasonable option for sure. I'd probably want to try to dissolve the gypsum in some water first so I don't completely decarbonate the sample with all the nucleation points.

One thing I can say is that I generally need to address my final gravities in my pales/IPAs going forward. In the past I found my hop character to be lacking so one way I got it to pop was to mash cooler and let the beer dry out. It wasn't perfect, but it kept things from being cloyingly sweet. Now that I have my sulfates at a realistic level, hops are quite forward against the dry beer. Now I need to compensate with higher mash temps. I now understand how Lagunitias can get away with a 160F mash.

I could probably pretty easily do a final product blind taste test with some people with effects of Cl:SO4 ratio. I have an IPA on tap, Epsom salt and CaCl2, and handful of judges in the area who like to drink beer.
Maybe compare results.

Very interested if you do multiple fermentations and the differences in when you add the ions as to the difference it makes.

I think we also have to remember that they yeast use these ions, and they are not only for a direct taste difference or pH/RA.
I just posted a link to a JIB article that dealt with some of these ions in multiple fermentations with the same biomass, but the ions concentrations effected things like growth rate, attenuation and speed of fermentation. All things that end up effecting the final product.

Where did you post that link?

Kai

thanks,

Kai

Kaiser said:

...I wonder if it would be sufficienct to make a soft water mash, spilt the wort between fermenters and add different amounts of salts to the fermenters...

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I've done this in the glass before and I thought I could taste a difference in each beer.

My water is neutral on the CL:SO4 ratio, and to one glass I added CaCl2 and CaSO4 to the other, pre-dissolved in a bit of warm water first.

It wasn't a controlled experiment or anything, I just used an un-measured amount of each salt and dumped a bit of the solution into each glass. I also knew which glass was which so possible a little placebo affect.

My original intent was to have my brew club try both samples completely blind and fill out a small survey. Which one is "better"? Describe the difference between the two in a couple words.
I didn't want to lead the feedback by asking anything about hops, bitter, or anything. Unfortunately, even after having my wife taste blindly and having her mark and pour a blind tasting for me, we both agreed they were both too bitter and dry. I still brought the samples to the club meeting but only let a few people confirm my findings (still blind mind you) but the overall comments were similar. Too dry and bitter.

I just got done trying the same brew. Man was that a rough brew day. It's hard to try to get two brews to be exactly the same. I did my mashes separate in a 2 gallon cooler instead of together. But the weird thing is I got two different OG as well. One was right on at 1.052. The other was high at 1.058. For some reason one was darker than the other. The grist was the same in both, 88% 2-row and 12% Crystal 60L.

We'll see how they turn out next year!

Hey, Bobby...just read through this thread. I'm on the verge of getting into water chemistry myself and so your experiment was of interest to me. Looks like the results were inconclusive but I also noticed that this was a few months ago...did you ever end up trying it again?

In general, do you feel like manipulating the water chemistry has made a difference for you?

I haven't done the same type of experiment again but my beers have been noticeably better in general. I would attribute it mostly to fixing the major Sulfate deficiency in my stock water. I also made a really good Pilsner on 90% distilled which I wouldn't have known about without the water discovery.

Bobby_M said:

I haven't done the same type of experiment again but my beers have been noticeably better in general. I would attribute it mostly to fixing the major Sulfate deficiency in my stock water. I also made a really good Pilsner on 90% distilled which I wouldn't have known about without the water discovery.

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Great to hear. I'm looking forward to trying it out myself!