Too Much Salt in a Sour Beer

[dantheman13]

I brewed a Wee Heavy and accidentally used too many salt additions (I use distilled water). I didn't realize it at the time because the heavy malty body covered up the mistake (it came off as a very slight bacon flavor). I brewed the same recipe and soured it this time. With the bugs thinning the caramel malts out, the beer became very salty (tasted at about a month). I then realized I got carried away with my salt additions, and was a little irritated with myself. I started designing plans on how I could dilute the overly salty sour beer.

I recently tasted the beer again (1.5 months after the first tasting - video is the latest on my youtube page if interested) and was rather shocked that the saltiness was gone. It appears as though the Brett and/or bacterias metabolized the extra salt! Has anyone else every experienced this? Is there any research out there that talks about Brett and/or bacterias metabolizing minerals?

Here were the salts I used (5 gallon batch):
16g Calcium Chloride
5g Baking Soda
5g Gypsum
4g Epsom

(For those interested, the next time I brew this I will just use about 8g Calcium Chloride and 4g Epsom).

 

[Oldsock]

It may not have been excess minerals. Sours go through all sorts of weird flavor-stages as they age, most likely it was something else rather than "salt metabolization" as that isn't a thing brewing yeast/bacteria can do as far as I'm aware. Not sure what ~400 PPM chloride tastes like, but it doesn't look like any of the other ions are high enough to cause issues.

 

[dantheman13]

Thanks much for the feedback, Mike. The taste of the beer was sour up front, then had a very salty aftertaste, exactly like drinking salt water that you might gargle with to relieve a sore throat. It was pretty distinct, and heavy enough to make the beer really hard to drink. I suppose I should just be happy that I don't have to dilute it, but what happened to the salty flavor? Perhaps it was absorbed somehow by the trub or oak spiral like a potato would do in an overly salted soup? I dunno, this doesn't make sense to me either!