please help me figure out this water stuff!

I've been bugging the hell out of mabrungard, so i thought i'd start posing my questions here in order to leave him alone!

I brewed two dark beers that turned out to have the same taste. The first one I attributed to fusels because 1) i had never tasted them before, and a lot of off-flavors can have the same types of descriptions; and 2) i did let the temps get out of control for a few hours. used t-58 yeast on this one.

But then, I tried a black ipa that i know the temps never got out of control, and I used nottingham yeast this time. then i saw a post about another guy from norway who was getting off-flavors and it turns out that it could be the water. though, i was under the impression that if i was doing extract brews that it shouldn't play a big role. both of these i used pale extracts with dark steeping grains.

so i started looking into the water stuff and trying to understand it. i was told that if i'm just steeping the grains, that i type in just that into the spreadsheet. i was also told that my water basically looks like RO water, but there are a couple of things missing from my water report that make it wrong to put into the spreadsheet. so i was told i could just set the RO dilution to 100%.
i'm planning on brewing a nut brown ale today, and wanted to make sure it was going to be ok. and now i'm thoroughly confused, as the spreadsheet is saying that the nut brown ale could use some additions if i want it to be at 5.5, but that the black ipa is just fine (at 5.5)... which i know that the black ipa was not just fine.

but then i'm adding extracts and even topping off after cooling. so can the steeping grains really have that much effect on the overall flavor? am i steeping for too long (30 mins)? i really don't want this batch to get screwed up, and i really wanna be able to brew a good black ipa. can anyone help me understand this thing some more?

Might not be what you want to read, but I think a topped off beer is far inferior to a full boil. That would help alot. Second, the roasted grains of dark beers produces alot of acidity for water without alkalinity like yours. Since you are not mashing I would not advocate the use of BNW just yet. I am just gonna shoot from the hip and suggest a old school idea of adding a half-teaspoon of baking soda to your water to counteract the acidity of the dark grains for now. I would add a full teaspoon for the dark IPA. (The nut brown probably has less roasted grain than the black IPA) You could also try a tiny amount in a glass of finished beer to test and see if you like the result.

With extract you can throw off the flavor mineral content by using water with high amounts of this and that. You don't really *need* to use water with minerals with extract because it already has minerals from when they mashed at the factory. BUT you may still have High amounts of some things that throw the flavor off at the end, even if the yeast are happy with it.

You say you have very pure water, so except for treatments like Chlorine or Chloramine I'd say you should be good with your water and extract beers.

You might go down your equipment list and look for anything that's plastic. Remember, Silicone is for HOT stuff, and clear vinyl is for COLD stuff.

You might have some kind of infection in your gear, like old beer molding in a spigot or hiding in a crack of crevice.

You might just not like the taste of a certain hop that's used in both kits.

There are lots of things that can give an unwanted flavor.

1. What is the "off flavor?"

2. Are you treating your water for Chlorine/Chloramines?

There's very little amounts of chlorine in our water. But I did ask the owners of the lhbs if they treat they water. They said only in dark beers, then they use 5.2 stabilizer.
Can't be an infection, all my other beers (all IPAs or pale ales or even an all Munich pale ale, a witbier) turning out great. The one beer was in October, the black IPA in January. Tons of brews in the middle and afterward.
Can't be the hops, used different hops in each.
I don't really know off flavors well enough to call it a specific thing, as I said I thought the first was fusels. So it's just kinda a harsh bitter acidic makes you feel like it's alcoholly flavor. Not horrible, just not good.
Like I said, maybe I said it can't remember, but it can't be a problem that affects all beer styles, as these are the only two with this flavor.
If the brown ale is gonna bring the water to 5.2 before I add the extracts, should I add a bit of baking soda to try to bring it up to 5.2?

Campden is so cheap, I don't know why someone wouldn't use it to treat the water. A small amount of chlorine/chloramines can do some major damage to flavors... I wouldn't skip it, personally.

Some other good ideas presented. I also agree that a small amount of chlorine could be potential. From memory, too low of a pH from dark grains resulted in a harshness not unlike celery. If your water is similar to RO and low in alkalinity then it is likely the dark grains dropped pH too low and would present itself only in dark beers. I would add the baking soda to the nut brown if you think a pinch of baking soda improved the taste in a pint of black IPA.

Wouldn't it show up in all my beers if it was chlorine?
Nothing is cheap in Norway

From memory, the classic chlorine "bandaid" defect was present more in delicate beers than aggressive stuff and I would think it would not be that easy to spot in a dark IPA which leads us back to low pH. Seriously, pull a pint of that black IPA, add some baking soda, and stir. Better or worse?

zwiller said:

From memory, the classic chlorine "bandaid" defect was present more in delicate beers than aggressive stuff and I would think it would not be that easy to spot in a dark IPA which leads us back to low pH. Seriously, pull a pint of that black IPA, add some baking soda, and stir. Better or worse?

Click to expand...

will that really work? i did try to do it the other day. i added a bit, and didn't notice a chance. then when i went to add a bit more, i think i added too much. before the too much part, it didn't taste better and it didn't taste worse.

though i think it still might be the pH issue. i bought pH strips today so when i do this next i will be testing. i added a bit of baking soda to the brown ale (about 1/8 tsp) and it seemed to move the pH up a bit. though i'm not sure how long it takes for that to dissolve in and affect it.

how much is too much chloride in wort water? and how do i tell how much is present from a water report?

That fizzled out quickly.
Just now thought about something: a couple weeks ago I did decide to experiment with mixing it with other beers. First time mixed with a pilsner, and it ended up tasting like a Guinness. Next time I mixed it with an IPA and it tasted pretty much like what I was going for.
Could it be that I just have too many black malts overriding the flavors? Would it be possible to have so much that it's overriding the flavors without it getting too acidic?
Or could that indicate that it was too acidic?