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- May 15, 2015
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The tap water at my house tastes great on its own, but I’ve not had it analyzed for its composition. I’m 10 batches in, and overall it’s been successful.
Insofar as it’s even possible to compare a dark ale and a blonde in terms of the “quality” of the result, I can say that my darker beers have unfailingly been much better than my blondes, from the standpoint of how they measure up against expectations. Since my process has basically been the same for all 10 brews, and since I have not ever done anything with water chemistry, I’m starting to strongly suspect that my water is better-suited to dark beers due to its alkalinity or whatever (admittedly I have a lot of learning to do on this subject).
My lighter beers still turn out well and everybody seems to like them (BMC folks included), but I’m starting to get more picky with my homebrew, and I’m starting to detect “background” flavor flaws in my lighter beers that I think (I hope?) are fixable with attention to water. I know there are other things that can cause off-flavors, so it’s worth mentioning that I’ve got good sanitation practices (no infections yet), temperature controlled fermentation, and I let my beer sit for a few weeks in bottles before I dive in.
So I have a rather specific question: does anybody have any stories to share about a similar situation, where you started out not looking at your water, and over time noticed your darker beers were better, you started noticing flaws in lighter beers, and were able to make marked improvements on your lighter beers by dabbling with water chemistry? If so, I’d be interested to know how you would describe the before/after on the lighter beers.
PS - I’m purposely not mentioning what “flaws” I’m detecting because I want to see what others have to say first.
Insofar as it’s even possible to compare a dark ale and a blonde in terms of the “quality” of the result, I can say that my darker beers have unfailingly been much better than my blondes, from the standpoint of how they measure up against expectations. Since my process has basically been the same for all 10 brews, and since I have not ever done anything with water chemistry, I’m starting to strongly suspect that my water is better-suited to dark beers due to its alkalinity or whatever (admittedly I have a lot of learning to do on this subject).
My lighter beers still turn out well and everybody seems to like them (BMC folks included), but I’m starting to get more picky with my homebrew, and I’m starting to detect “background” flavor flaws in my lighter beers that I think (I hope?) are fixable with attention to water. I know there are other things that can cause off-flavors, so it’s worth mentioning that I’ve got good sanitation practices (no infections yet), temperature controlled fermentation, and I let my beer sit for a few weeks in bottles before I dive in.
So I have a rather specific question: does anybody have any stories to share about a similar situation, where you started out not looking at your water, and over time noticed your darker beers were better, you started noticing flaws in lighter beers, and were able to make marked improvements on your lighter beers by dabbling with water chemistry? If so, I’d be interested to know how you would describe the before/after on the lighter beers.
PS - I’m purposely not mentioning what “flaws” I’m detecting because I want to see what others have to say first.