Dortmunder Export profile thoughts....

[storytyme]

Here is what I have based on research via the internet. Just need to know if any of these numbers are way off base. I built the profile using RO water:

Calcium: 87
Magnesium: 3
Sodium: 8
Sulfate: 114
Chloride: 80

Using
67% Pilsner
32% Munich
1% Melaniodan

Thanks.

 

[mabrungard]

Those are reasonable concentrations for a Dort. However, the actual water in Dortmund is even more mineralized. Roughly twice the sulfate and chloride. I can tell you from experience that brewing with Dortmund water does produce a too minerally beer.

 

[storytyme]

Those are reasonable concentrations for a Dort. However, the actual water in Dortmund is even more mineralized. Roughly twice the sulfate and chloride. I can tell you from experience that brewing with Dortmund water does produce a too minerally beer.

So what should I bump up without getting it too minerally?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Those are reasonable concentrations for a Dort. However, the actual water in Dortmund is even more mineralized. Roughly twice the sulfate and chloride. I can tell you from experience that brewing with Dortmund water does produce a too minerally beer.

Would this lead you to believe that breweries in this region significantly alter their water to demineralize it?

 

[mabrungard]

Would this lead you to believe that breweries in this region significantly alter their water to demineralize it?

The city no longer uses that source. Their current water comes via aqueducts from quite a distance away.

 

[cire]

The city no longer uses that source. Their current water comes via aqueducts from quite a distance away.

Might that be a reason why little beer is presently brewed in Dortmund? It's difficult to imagine that beer was bad yet be as popular as it was. Surely, just because Pils is made with low mineral water to produce a delicate beer doesn't mean it is unwise to make malty and heavy bodied beers which need minerals lest they become a weedy bodied waste of ingredients end effort.

 

[ajdelange]

I lament the "wimping down" of many of the traditional styles to make them more appealing to the "younger set" but wimped down Singha is, I suppose, better than no Singha (just an example of a beer that was watered way down at the same time they hired a rock start to promote it). Looks as if Export is another example.

But I disagree strenuously with the notion that malty beers need minerals. I still remember that one batch of bock done with my standard very soft water. Soooo good I remember it to this day.

 

[cire]

Indeed it is possible to make a decent darker beer with low mineral liquor, but might I suggest you might have brewed it more that once to be more frequently reminded of its qualities if it had been the sort of beer I had in mind?

 

[mabrungard]

But I disagree strenuously with the notion that malty beers need minerals.

I agree with you for the most part. But this is a style that employs their minerally northern German water that is (was) distinctive. I researched heavily on water sources in the Dortmund area and was able to deduce the following profile:

Ca 230
Mg 15
Na 40
SO4 330
Cl 130

I produced a nicely malty beer with low bittering using LODO procedures and methods and it was quite nice, but the minerally bite was just too much for me. As I mention above, I think that a profile of about half what I used could produce a pretty nice beer that still retains some minerally notes.

 

[ajdelange]

I certainly agree that Export without the minerals ain't export. At the same time, as I think everyone knows by now, I am not, in general, a fan of minerally beers. It's "Hopfen und Malz Gott erhaltz". Nothing about Steinen.

 

[ajdelange]

Indeed it is possible to make a decent darker beer with low mineral liquor, but might I suggest you might have brewed it more that once to be more frequently reminded of its qualities if it had been the sort of beer I had in mind?

I did indeed brew it several times but I don't do Bock that often and I just remember that batch in particular because our club had a new member just back from a tour in the middle east that we thought was going to move in after his first taste. His goal, he said, was to learn how to brew a beer like that and he picked up brewing amazingly fast. He was, within a few months, making beers as good as people in the club who had been at it for years. Unfortunately his experiences in the middle east and alcohol didn't mix well. I wonder what ever happened to him.

In any case I doubt this beer would have been the sort you'd like. I believe you love minerally beer and I'm really just pointing out that not all of us do.

 

[cire]

There's an art in brewing good beers..

 

[ajdelange]

And the bear defecates in the woods. Afraid I don't see your point. ???

 

[cire]

No, just me feeling sad for any unable (or unwilling, afraid, even adversely advised) to create and thereby appreciate beers with mineral waters that made many towns famous by those beers. I do appreciate good beers made using low mineral content liquor and will brew some this winter to lager and be consumed when summer eventually returns . Hopefully they will be vastly better than the mass produced pseudo versions that (dis)grace many otherwise decent British pubs yet are the biggest selling beers. There's no accounting for taste.

 

[ajdelange]

IMO one of the main reasons to brew is to be able to enjoy beers that you can't buy any more.

 

[cire]

Well that's why I started brewing all grain, as traditional ales were withdrawn. However, I have been unable to exactly replicate any commercial beer to realise brewing involves a lot more than finding a recipe and getting temperatures and pH spot on. Simply looking forward to and thinking through the next brew gives me all the inspiration needed to learn and do more.