First keg...tastes acidic

[Canadianbrewer2012]

If you or anyone u know wants to know anything and everything about brewing water... this is the page to check out http://www.antiochsudsuckers.com/tom/brewingwater.htm

 

[stratslinger]

Hey guys just weighing in here... IMHO there is no reason to think that raw (or hard) water would be, in any ratio, a good thing for brewing. I have done several testings with raw vs. R/O water as I used to be a distributor for water purification systems... the tap water by itself may taste fine but it's the reaction with the hardness and dissolved solids in the tap water with any dissolvable substance (like grains/malt extracts) which can greatly effect the desired flavor... why have anything but the truest flavor of your barley beverage which treated water can provide... A simple and great visual test that I have demonstrated many times for buyers (when I was a distributor) was this: Simply make some orange pekoe tea .. One cup with tap water and one with R/O or distilled water... Notice not only the obvious visual difference but the flavor as well. This is a great demonstration to keep in mind when considering your brewing because it is the same concept. Again this is one mans voice and to each his own... Just my 2 cents! Cheers

It's an interesting point - but particularly if you're doing all grain, there's a world of difference between making tea and mashing grain when it comes to the mineral content of water. Tea made in RO water may be great. But mash in RO water, at least RO water that you don't properly build back up again with a proper mineral content, and you're not going to be at all pleased with the outcome. The enzymes in the mash need a certain level of mineral content to help them do what they do...

And as far as saying that there's no reason to think that hard water would be a good thing for brewing? There are very large portions of Europe that are famous for their beers (areas of England spring immediately to mind) specifically because of the hardness of the water they start off with. There's a reason that many extract kits for English brown ales, for instance, come with little packets of gypsum!

 

[Canadianbrewer2012]

It just doesn't make any sense to me... I can see a certain amount of a type of rock mineral being beneficial but what a municipality does to water by the time it reaches our tap is not what I want in my beer... the rock in your tap water does not account for all of it's hardness .. In my opinion why invite numerous unwanted minerals for one desired...just add it yourself to a pure water

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

So can anybody recommend a tried and true homerun recipe for my next attempt? .

Why not brew a nice, light pale ale for summer? Or a blonde ale? Something like that may be a good middle ground for you and your wife. The two recipes that come to mind are EdWort's Haus Pale Ale (I think there's extract and AG versions) or BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde. Both are very popular beers. There's also tons of other solid recipes in the recipe forum here on HBT. If you want some help coming up with a recipe of your own, drop me a PM, I enjoy writing beer recipes a lot.

 

[chucke]

Is the CO2 food grade? I used regular CO2 for some time and got the acidic tin flavor. It was barely noticeable on a fresh tank, but as it got closer to being empty the off-flavor got worse.

I tried all kinda things to get rid of it. Heck, I started re-filling early to avoid the worst of the off-flavor. Finally this cheap bastard paid the extra bucks to see if food grade CO2 made any difference. It did the trick. Since I made the switch I've gone through maybe 10 kegs and have yet to have one beer that came out acidic.

I've read where lots of brewers use non-food grade CO2 without the acidic off-flavor. Perhaps some sources have gunk in it and others do not... I don't know. I do know that food grade CO2 fixed the problem for me.