JNish
Well-Known Member
I brewed a dry stout last weekend and my local water source is very soft:
Ca: 13, Mg: 5, Na: 13, SO4: 16, Cl: 10, CaCO3: 50.
I was aiming to mimic Dublin water, plus using Palmer's Excel sheet for water modifications to hit near my target SRM of 35. I added the following to the mash:
Chalk: 3.6g (2tsp), Gypsum: 2g (1tsp), CaCl2: 3.4g (0.5tsp), Baking Soda: 8.8g (2tsp)
According to Palmer's spreadsheet, this would yield an adjusted mash of
Ca: 107, Mg: 5, Na: 93, SO4: 53, Cl: 64, CaCO3: 281 with an RA of 202 for 8 gallons of water. I thought I was being conservative since the estimated SRM range was 22-27. Now I'm thinking about it, I added all the salts to my mash which was actually 4 gallons, then sparged with 3 gallons of the soft tap water. So that's really only 7 gallons, but then I added 1 gallon of tap water to compensate for boil-off. So theoretically the final salt concentrations should be fine.
I tasted the wort during the boil and the beer after a couple of days of fermentation and it tastes pretty bad. Basically it tastes very chalky. Did I overdo my salt additions? Will the flavors mellow out over time or is there anything I can do. Normally I have a very passive relationship with my beer and won't taste it until fermentation is over, but I'm a bit worried about this one. What do you think? This is the first time I've tried targeting a water profile, so I'm feeling out of my comfort zone.
Ca: 13, Mg: 5, Na: 13, SO4: 16, Cl: 10, CaCO3: 50.
I was aiming to mimic Dublin water, plus using Palmer's Excel sheet for water modifications to hit near my target SRM of 35. I added the following to the mash:
Chalk: 3.6g (2tsp), Gypsum: 2g (1tsp), CaCl2: 3.4g (0.5tsp), Baking Soda: 8.8g (2tsp)
According to Palmer's spreadsheet, this would yield an adjusted mash of
Ca: 107, Mg: 5, Na: 93, SO4: 53, Cl: 64, CaCO3: 281 with an RA of 202 for 8 gallons of water. I thought I was being conservative since the estimated SRM range was 22-27. Now I'm thinking about it, I added all the salts to my mash which was actually 4 gallons, then sparged with 3 gallons of the soft tap water. So that's really only 7 gallons, but then I added 1 gallon of tap water to compensate for boil-off. So theoretically the final salt concentrations should be fine.
I tasted the wort during the boil and the beer after a couple of days of fermentation and it tastes pretty bad. Basically it tastes very chalky. Did I overdo my salt additions? Will the flavors mellow out over time or is there anything I can do. Normally I have a very passive relationship with my beer and won't taste it until fermentation is over, but I'm a bit worried about this one. What do you think? This is the first time I've tried targeting a water profile, so I'm feeling out of my comfort zone.