I recently noticed a trend on 3 different beers I brewed, all having this slightly chalky taste to them. Not enough to spoil the beer, but distinct enough of a bite that it annoys/distracts me. I then realized that all 3 were brewed to the same target water profile. Two were British Bitters, and one was an Irish Red.
I've tested my house water (after a simple 3-pass whole house filter system) and have that profile logged into Brewfather as my Source water. For these 3 brews with this taste, I've been selecting Brewfather's "English Ale" profile as a target and then adding brewing salts to match that, adding K-meta, and Lactic Acid to hit mash pH. This is the resulting profile:
I thought I remembered reading somewhere about a Sulfate:Chloride ratio, but my Google searches have not produced what I thought I read at some point. As an experiment, I added a little ball of CaCl to a pint glass of my Irish Red and it knocked that chalky bite out of the beer. I tried it on another pint with "2 balls" of CaCl and it took the taste to a different place than I wanted. So I know next time, I'm not going to use this profile, or I'll modify it to increase the target Cl ions for a lower SO4:Cl ratio.
But this gets me to my question. Whether you agree with my taste buds or my little CaCl ball experiment, set that aside. If I wanted to add CaCl to a keg of finished beer, can I do that? Would I just change the target profile in Brewfather and see how much CaCl I would've added and then chuck that into the keg?
Do I need to sterilize it? If so, how- boil it in a small amount of distilled water?
Will I have trouble getting this mixed into the keg evenly after I add it? The keg is already carbonated and chilled to 35F. Seems like cold temperature won't be friendly to mixing. And the thought of shaking a carbonated keg of beer sounds like a really bad idea.
I've tested my house water (after a simple 3-pass whole house filter system) and have that profile logged into Brewfather as my Source water. For these 3 brews with this taste, I've been selecting Brewfather's "English Ale" profile as a target and then adding brewing salts to match that, adding K-meta, and Lactic Acid to hit mash pH. This is the resulting profile:
I thought I remembered reading somewhere about a Sulfate:Chloride ratio, but my Google searches have not produced what I thought I read at some point. As an experiment, I added a little ball of CaCl to a pint glass of my Irish Red and it knocked that chalky bite out of the beer. I tried it on another pint with "2 balls" of CaCl and it took the taste to a different place than I wanted. So I know next time, I'm not going to use this profile, or I'll modify it to increase the target Cl ions for a lower SO4:Cl ratio.
But this gets me to my question. Whether you agree with my taste buds or my little CaCl ball experiment, set that aside. If I wanted to add CaCl to a keg of finished beer, can I do that? Would I just change the target profile in Brewfather and see how much CaCl I would've added and then chuck that into the keg?
Do I need to sterilize it? If so, how- boil it in a small amount of distilled water?
Will I have trouble getting this mixed into the keg evenly after I add it? The keg is already carbonated and chilled to 35F. Seems like cold temperature won't be friendly to mixing. And the thought of shaking a carbonated keg of beer sounds like a really bad idea.