Randy Mosher's Water Profiles by style

slickfish said:

Thanks, I appreciate the advice. I brewed a stout once with my straight water and it had the most horrible flavor, really undrinkable.

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It's hard to imagine the pH going so low as to lend a "horrible" flavor. That term sort of suggests infection. Can you describe it?

slickfish said:

This was before I had a pH meter but I imagine the pH was very low. I don't think I can get away with this style without adding some alkalinity.

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Now that you do have a meter you can check on mash pH. At least 2 of us here have similar experiences with stout made with modest to low RA and that is pH between 5.4 and 5.5 without the use of any alkalinity. I use 10% roast barley in my Irish stout and found that it would take 3 times that amount to get pH down to 5.2. If your pH is lower than 5.2 you must be using an awful lot of something as acidic as roast barley. But why speculate when you can do the measurement?

slickfish said:

On another note, what do you mean by using sauermalz to "set" mash pH. I would think that it would serve to lower mash pH but to me set means that it would somehow buffer or lock it in to a certain range within reason. Is this what happens? Thanks

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Guess "fix" was an unfortunate choice of words because it does imply buffering. That's not what I intended. Adding sauermalz is just adding acid in solid form. I should have said "control pH" or "adjust pH" or something of that sort.

I think you are on the right track with the acidic malt amount. That batch was a long time ago before I had any idea about pH or balance in a recipe(it was 25% roasted barley and 10% c80). I think alot of the horrible flavor was from an excessive amout of dark malt in a relatively low gravity beer. I am going to brew a stout with a more reasonable recipe and not add any water adjustments and see where I'm at with pH. Thanks

Reelale said:

You mention that this amount of sulfate is way too much for noble hops, but what about IPAs using American hops? I was under the impression that sulfates accentuated hop bitterness and flavor.

And thanks for taking the time to explain this so well.

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AJ. I was perusing this thread again and noticed I didn't get your opinion on sulfate use with American hops back in September. Any observations? Also noticed your strawman "baseline" adjustments are a sticky. That's great.

I really don't have much to contribute here because I don't think I have ever used an American hop cultivar and don't really like them. I'm always kidding my brewing buddies who do about "grapefruit beer" and "2 x 4 beer". That said I would think the way to approach them would be the same as with any other varieties: start with low sulfate and increment stopping when you think the improvement has stopped.

ajdelange said:

I really don't have much to contribute here because I don't think I have ever used an American hop cultivar and don't really like them. I'm always kidding my brewing buddies who do about "grapefruit beer" and "2 x 4 beer". That said I would think the way to approach them would be the same as with any other varieties: start with low sulfate and increment stopping when you think the improvement has stopped.

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Thank you. I've recently acquired a taste, maybe a tolerence, of the citrusy American hops.