using salt and lime in a lager

[kkuczma]

Hello! I'm going to brew a salt-lime lager for the summer. It will be a 5 gallon all-grain batch brewed with mostly german pils and a bit of flaked corn, Saaz for the hops.

I'm uncertain of where to add the lime and salt in this and what things I should anticipate based on where to use them. Bouncing off other recipes I've read, it looks like 2oz of lime zest are being added at flameout and .5oz of table salt are added with 10 minutes left in the boil.

My overall goal is to have a light, crisp lager that has a lime taste that's not overpowering. I really want the salt to be a hint in terms of taste and not dominant, either.

I'm still an inexperienced brewer with only one customer recipe under his belt and a handful of kits, so I find I am constantly asking questions about every single aspect of this process and would rather seek feedback than try this blindly and risk ruining the recipe. Any insight is incredibly appreciated.

 

[hotbeer]

Different recipes add them at different times. Don't you have a recipe?

Maybe you just don't recognize the the part where they are telling you when to add it if you do have a recipe.

Maybe something like salt at 10, salt at flameout or salt at whirlpool. Each a slightly different time.

 

[Rish]

I make a tincture of zest in a few ounces of vodka, shaking it a couple of times a day for a week or so, but I usually only use an ounce of zest. Then I add the strained liquid to the bottling bucket. I add the salt in the boil of the priming sugar then add it to the bottling bucket, also. Have had good results with this method. It probably doesn't matter when you add the salt, but if you add the zest before you add yeast, you'll likely lose flavor due to the fermentation.

 

[kkuczma]

Different recipes add them at different times. Don't you have a recipe?

Maybe you just don't recognize the the part where they are telling you when to add it if you do have a recipe.

Maybe something like salt at 10, salt at flameout or salt at whirlpool. Each a slightly different time.

I've been trying to cobble it together from different recipes, but I've had trouble coming across many examples of a salt lime lager, unfortunately. And then it seems like everyone has a different approach for the salt and lime and for every "you should do it this way," there's a counterpoint with a concern expressed for doing it that way. I suppose I should just bite the bullet with one of these methods and let it be what it will be in the end!

 

[TenaCJed]

Follow the recommendation of Rish for the lime. This allows you to adjust the flavor at packaging to get it how you want. I would do similar with the salt, boil a small amount of water and add salt to that, then pull from that and add a little at a time at packaging, again to get it where you want.

Neither of these items need to be in the boil. This is how I do a lemon lime gose. I do add some salt to the boil, but I add more at kegging time to get the flavor where I want when I add the lemon tincture \ extract and lime tincture \ extract.

As long as you are only doing a small amount of water and it is boiled, no worries about impacting the end product, which will hopefully be really good beer!

 

[hotbeer]

I suppose I should just bite the bullet with one of these methods and let it be what it will be in the end!

Usually a good thing do when there are so many ways to do something or opinions on which is best.

I only brew 1 to 2½ gallons of beer at a time, so I can have two or three batches fermenting at the same time. It's nice to be able make multiple brews of the same recipe and vary techniques and timings. Then I can compare side by side or at least within a week of each other what the differences are or aren't.