Check my "finding"

[KuntzBrewing]

So basically do sulfates "dry" out the beer. I'm asking because I can't seem to get my sulfates right. The drying makes the hops more noticeable, but my beers seem to be too dry and have an odd taste. I'm wondering if I need maltier malts to help balance it more, or just not add gypsum.

 

[KuntzBrewing]

Current beer is my best attempt so far but recipe needs help still.
Water: 50/50 distilled water/ tap water Sulfates in tap are low, chlorides also low, (both between 20-40ppm)
5g Gypsum added to mash

Grist;
14lbs Rahr 2 row
1lb Crystal 60
Mashed until converted (1-1.5hrs) 153*

Hops
1oz Summit 20 min
2oz summit/centinial (s/c) 15 minutes (also irish moss)
1oz mixed s/c 10min
1oz mixed s/c 7 min

Pitched 1056 2L stirplate starter (refridgerated 3 days and decanted)
Fermented 2weeks
Secondary 2 weeks 1 oz summit 2 oz centinnial
Bottle carbed 3 weeks

Result was hoppy nose, dry (not watery) mouthfeel yet tastes odd can't describe flavor except extreme bitterness/dryness/astringent?

 

[ajdelange]

So basically do sulfates "dry" out the beer. I'm asking because I can't seem to get my sulfates right. The drying makes the hops more noticeable, but my beers seem to be too dry and have an odd taste. I'm wondering if I need maltier malts to help balance it more, or just not add gypsum.

Yes, they do and also render the perception of hops harsher especially with some cultivars. High sulfate levels seem to work with the classic English hops or more probably the classic English hops were bred to work with the high level of sulfates in the gypseous waters found in some parts of Britain. Sulfate does not work well at all with the fine German/Bohemian hops as a consequence of which German brewers avoid sulfate where they can.

Home brewing started with attempts to reproduce the ales (even today relatively few home or craft brewers concentrate on lagers) of Britain and consequently addition of gypsum to the water is almost de rigueur. But that does not mean it is always the best thing to do.

Many people do not like the taste or effects of sulfate and consequently brew with it at the lowest levels they can get. You may be one of these people and should experiment with low sulfate beers. You took a step in the right direction when you diluted your mains water with distilled but then shot yourself in the foot when you added gypsum. I always recommend that people start with 0 or very low sulfate water and then add gypsum in subsequent batches to see of they like the effects of sulfate on the particular beer. You can even add small amounts of gypsum to the low sulfate beer in the glass. This will give you a rough idea of how a beer made with sulfate might taste.

The Primer here will give you some ideas as to how to start.

 

[Netflyer]

Hey Kuntz, I would never add more than a gram or two of ANY salt to my brewing water. So there was none in the sparge water, just the mash? It would be really hard to say w/out seeing your water profile but even w/out seeing it, let's say you had zero Sulfates in your water, even then 5g is a lot of salt. Cloride / Sulfate ratio's can effect the taste, either more hoppy or more bitter, so on the extreme side if you had no chlorine and added 5g of Gyp. you could have created a pretty out of whack taste

 

[Netflyer]

Hey also, not trying to be mean here at all or sarcastic, just curious: what kinda beer ya makin'? 14# of 2 row and 1# of crystal = ?
Reason I ask is both out of curiosity and to point out that darker beers typically benefit more from a bit of Sulfate than lighter ones... still you have to make sure the chloride sulfate ratio is within reason.

 

[ajdelange]

I really try to discourage people from relying on chloride/sulfate ratio as a descriptive/design parameter for beers. These ions have separate effects which are not antipodal. If you have a beer made with 300 mg/L sulfate liquor and it doesn't taste very good you cannot 'fix' it by upping the chloride to 300 mg/L (on the assumption that 1:1 is 'balanced') nor, if a beer with 1 mg/L chloride is insipid can you 'balance' it by controlling the sulfate to 1 mg/L.

Learn what the two ions do in your beers and control them separately for the effects you want. Now if you decide, as some have, that chloride should be in some narrow range then keeping it there and adjusting the sulfate ratio is, of course, tantamount to controlling the amount of sulfate in absolute terms.

 

[Netflyer]

Well, before I ask the chemical questions , let me again say that w/out looking at your water I think 5g of CaSO4 is too much salt to add. I completely agree with Aj that if you added an equal amount of, maybe NaCl you would perhaps balance the Cl:SO4 ratio but the beer would still not 'balance' in taste.

I'd still like to know whatcha makin' and if you have a water test what your water looks like...

 

[mabrungard]

I just noticed where the OP is from. Its very likely that the tap water has high alkalinity and that has the potential to push the mash pH and kettle pH higher than desirable. If the OP is acidifying to reduce alkalinity, then its possible that the acid anion is affecting taste. If the OP is not acidifying, then its likely that the odd taste may be from the harshness caused by having the kettle wort pH too high. Bru'n Water can help you figure out the water adjustments and assess if the pH might have been going too high.

Definitely don't push sulfate any higher than necessary. If the beer is intended to be malty, keep sulfate low (say under 25 ppm).

 

[Netflyer]

AJ, do you think that beer tastes different if you change that ratio up to a certain point... If you have 1 ppm Cl- would you argue that 5 beers made with nothing but CaSO4 additions in a series: 1g, 2g, 3g, 4g, 5g ... wouldn't all taste different. I'm curious if the OP's Cl is over 100 ppm... As for characterizing the subsequent beer as hoppy or malty or balanced, I can't imagine we will need to get too descriptive after the 3rd series of data and beyond. I realize there are people who are adamant about 'the ratio', I am not one of them, but I am curious about ratios, especially as they relate to taste. Personally I add just a small amount of CaCl to my water and have great conversions and beers that taste like I intend them to taste typically.

 

[KuntzBrewing]

I don't acidify it and do not test acidity, but my mash ratio is 1.25qt/lb. I assume that ph is in check based off of the brewingwaterEZ spreadsheet. IPAs are expensive to brew so I don't really like expeirementing too much with them. But my next one I don't think I will add any salts, and just cut it half and half, I added my water profile to beer tools pro database but I don't know if you all can see it or not on there

 

[KuntzBrewing]

My beer tastes dry, not watery dry but just dry. I wish I could send all of you a sample lol it just doesn't taste like I want. Ipa is the only brew I can't make a great one of, other than stouts/porter which I add chalk to.

 

[ajdelange]

AJ, do you think that beer tastes different if you change that ratio up to a certain point...

I think the beer will taste different if you change either the sulfate or the chloride in which case, of course, you are also changing the ratio. I saying that I don't think beers with 25 mg/L of each will taste the same as with 50 mg/L of each or as 1 mg/L of each. I also don't think that a beer made with 10 mg/L sulfate and 20 mg/L chloride will taste the same as one made with 100 mg/L sulfate and 200 mg/L chloride etc.

There are other places in cooking and brewing where one flavor is used to offset another. For example, lemonade or tomato sauce (to hit on John Palmer's favorite). If you use too much lemon or tomato you can offset the excessive tartness with sugar but the lemonades or sauces will be quite different depending on how much of each one used - not on the ratios. Another example of this in brewing is using bitterness to offset sweetness. From time to time OG:BU ratios start to float around, brewing spreadsheets and calculators display them... In all these cases the lemonade, the sauce or the beer are sweeter (or more tomatoey, lemony or hoppy) but the excess is more tolerable than it would be without the other (masking?) ingredient. In this regard there is, I suppose, a sort of balancing taking place.

If you have 1 ppm Cl- would you argue that 5 beers made with nothing but CaSO4 additions in a series: 1g, 2g, 3g, 4g, 5g ... wouldn't all taste different.

No, but if you fix one (or constrain it to a narrow range) then specifying the ratio is equivalent to specifying the absolute amount of the other.

...but I am curious about ratios, especially as they relate to taste.

I am absolutely for that. If you want to record ratios and then try to correlate ratios to some thing perceived in the beer then you certainly should do that. I'll note, as I usually do when this subject comes up, that the chloride:sulfate ratio seems to have arisen from a chapter in the second edition of Brewing Handbook where a couple of papers were referenced one of which said that in one panel test preference seemed to be based on the ratio rather than the absolute amounts of chloride and sulfate.

My spreadsheet calculates chloride to sulfate ratio (but admittedly I never look at it because....

Personally I add just a small amount of CaCl to my water and have great conversions and beers that taste like I intend them to taste typically.

... I do the same thing with the exception that I RO the water first to get all the sulfate out. IOW I much prefer low sulfate beers and am of the opinion that the proper sulfate to chloride ratio is 0. Perhaps this colors my thinking on the subject.