Should I add chalk to finished beer?

[nutty_gnome]

Brewed a stout from extract and steeping grains (following a Breiss white labs recipe card from a recent BYO). Recipe is 2 cans of breiss dark lme, one at 60 mins, the other at flameout. Steeping graouns were 1 lb flaked barely, 1lb breiss chocolate, 1/2 lb each munich 10 and roasted barley. A simple bittering addition of warrior and then fuggles at 30 and 10 mins. I used a clean american style yeast. Fermentation went well, it is nicely attenuated.

The trouble is - I kegged it yesterday and it had an acidic twang to it. I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I drew off a sample today and the acidic twang was still there. I dosed a few ounces of beer with a bit of powdered brewing chalk (calcium carbonate) and although the beer turned cloudy, it also tasted much more like a stout and noticeably rounded out that acidic tang.

In a few weeks, I'll revisit the keg and see how things are progressing. I'm wondering if any of you fine folks have dosed finished dark beers/stouts with powders to knock out acidic tastes or improve roundness? Are there any best practices that you can share?

I usually do light/amber beers with salt additions calculated from software and experience. But this one was extract, so I didn't alter the very soft water I used. Live and learn I guess. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[cswis86]

Glad it helped! Ideally you should adjust your water in the mash or in your case, the brew kettle. You can also use baking soda (Sodium Bicarbonate). It dissolves easier than calcium carbonate but you will be adding sodium which may not be desirable.

 

[Morrey]

How many times I have kegged a stout/porter and said darn you screwed this one up. Even when meticulously monitoring chemistry balances for that particular style.

Any how many times I just let that keg condition 4 or 5 weeks (or more) to come back to a beautiful and well rounded beer. I know what you mean....its just green as grass now.

BTW...your hop bill is AWESOME!!

 

[jabba11]

How many times I have kegged a stout/porter and said darn you screwed this one up. Even when meticulously monitoring chemistry balances for that particular style.

Any how many times I just let that keg condition 4 or 5 weeks (or more) to come back to a beautiful and well rounded beer. I know what you mean....its just green as grass now.

BTW...your hop bill is AWESOME!!

this...give it some time before you do anything youll be better off. I too have made many beers thinking they were off etc then a few days later perfection.

 

[Morrey]

this...give it some time before you do anything youll be better off. I too have made many beers thinking they were off etc then a few days later perfection.

Absolutely, and I have jumped the gun and started messing with stuff, adding things and made matters even worse. Time heals all.

 

[mabrungard]

Chalk does work in an overly acidic beer, whereas it doesn't dissolve very well in wort. If you felt your beer was overly acidic and tart, then you did the right thing for your beer. I do recommend that you use a cautious approach to dosing chalk though. Too much and the beer will suffer.

 

[nutty_gnome]

It is current under pressure in the fridge. After a week, should i pull it and leave it at room temps for a while to condition, or just let it stay in the fridge. Wondering about the fastest way to get to good beer.

 

[ajdelange]

Conceptually no problem with chalk except that it does dissolve slowly, even under slightly acidic conditions. As such you would probably have to stir several times which is likely to result in loss of condition. I'd be tempted to try NaHCO3 first as you could dissolve all you need in a portion of the beer (or water) and stir it in once. The advantage of chalk over bicarb is that calcium is more flavor neutral that sodium. As such another good choice might be pickling lime.

 

[nutty_gnome]

So it's been a few weeks and a quick tasting from The Keg today indicated that the acidic Tang is greatly reduced but still perceptible. I took your advice and tossed in less than a quarter teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate in my glass. Like magic, it turned into a full-bodied stout beer with no acidic overtone. I'm still going to let it age for quite a bit but I am now more optimistic about having good beer at the end. Thanks for the advice.

 

[ajdelange]

Yes, it is often the case that the best additive is tincture of time.