"HCL 37%, semi-conductor grade." - Food safe?

[Brewskey]

Good question.

One day later I brewed a British style, one that was popular for over half a century, one that few now know in the form it then existed. Some who knew it, wish that choice was still with us, while some might replicate it in its original form.

Milds would be made with malts of lesser grade than for pale beers, but made up by the richness from roasted malts and sugars, for a malty brew with tastes of dried fruit, nuts and more, a liquid fruit cake plus.

Mine included Pale Malt, Vienna Malt, Simpson's Double Roasted Crystal, Amber, Chocolate and Black Malts, with Inverts #1 and #2. It was open fermented with OG 1042, but will be liquored back to an equivalent OG of 1035 when racked on it's sixth day, about 3.6% ABV. Currently the cover is on as it cools gently to cellar temperature, ~50F from 73F yesterday.

I suppose many would say that isn't a beer-flavored beer, others perhaps feeling it is what beer should still be. To get those flavors, as I normally do, the chloride content was adjusted 325 mg/L.

How do you like DRC in a mild? I've been meaning to try it but haven't done it yet.

 

[cire]

How do you like DRC in a mild? I've been meaning to try it but haven't done it yet.

This is a first attempt, I'll let it be know in maybe another week. My last Mild was J W Lees Best Mild of 1952 as per Ron Pattinson. It was very good, but maybe due to the malts used, a large caramel addition was made to make it look as I expected. Further, eleven days after brew-day I recorded it having a harshness from what I think was the Brown malt. That dissipated after a further week or so, with chocolate coming to the fore, but this beer will be on sooner than the last and it would be shame if that same harshness was present.
A second cask of that same brew was tapped 2 months later than the first, and it was without fault, but also had the caramel addition. I know this one will be darker and may need a smaller caramel addition or none. The new one will be different with more and darker crystal, Brown replaced by a smaller addition of Amber and more Black Malt. Not long now.

Sounds incredible, and it's an inspiration to try, thanks cire. I have some Simpson's DRC and will be using it in a RIS (mine, which I will lay side-by-side with Ron Pattinson's 1924 Barclay Perkins version, for consumption next year or so). Your recipe sounds wonderful.

I wish I could remember the name of the first pint I had with Michael Jackson at the White Horse for the beer dinner I've mentioned, because it was a mild, it was excellent, and Michael spun a wonderful narrative on mild's history, its importance to the brewing and beer drinking landscape, and the pleasures of this particular dimple-mug pint.

I am hard-pressed to declare what a "beer flavored beer" tastes like. Would the lack of hops in traditional Scottish brewing and the use of heather, myrtle & co. exclude these, too, as beers? Good lord, what are we to do with those Belgians and their playing with their food when brewing?

Well I've had DRC for a while, but initially had no reason to use it. With such little time left for a second beer for the upcoming holiday period, a Mild with 12% invert seemed a perfect choice. Being 300 EBC and adding complex caramel and dried fruit notes, what was not to like for this project. We'll see.

Simpsons say that DRC can be used to substitute darker roasted malts where the astringency and bitterness inherent to roast malts is not desired. However, I only rarely find astringency from dark roast malts which usually, given time, mellow and subside. There again, in British beers, where the dark malt are frequently more roasted, do need higher chloride than do paler beers.

As for Scottish beers, I can remember plenty that weren't particularly hoppy, but no more so than many beers brewed in England. The hoppiest locally available beer in my early days of drinking was in fact Scottish, from McEwan's, known locally as "Special". Certainly I cannot recall any time coming across any commercial beer produced in good quantities with heather, myrtle or from peated malt or any other such additive. I feel most such beliefs are supposition.
Younger's sold well in North East England, those were dark and were low on hops, but neither black nor brown, almost a blueish hue to my eyes. The darkest Scottish beer of the time I'm thinking of, was made by Lorimer and Clark at the Caledonian Brewery. It was black, but didn't drink like black beers usually do, it was well hopped by any standard of that time in this region, and whatever darkened it added little taste.

We are seeing rapid change in beer production in UK presently, several well known traditional breweries have closed this year, and with them goes the knowledge and skills to brew traditional British beers. In their place we will possibly get pale ones more opaque than most black ones as well as beer-flavored beers.

 

[user 246304]

This is a first attempt, I'll let it be know in maybe another week. My last Mild was J W Lees Best Mild of 1952 as per Ron Pattinson. It was very good, but maybe due to the malts used, a large caramel addition was made to make it look as I expected. Further, eleven days after brew-day I recorded it having a harshness from what I think was the Brown malt. That dissipated after a further week or so, with chocolate coming to the fore, but this beer will be on sooner than the last and it would be shame if that same harshness was present.
A second cask of that same brew was tapped 2 months later than the first, and it was without fault, but also had the caramel addition. I know this one will be darker and may need a smaller caramel addition or none. The new one will be different with more and darker crystal, Brown replaced by a smaller addition of Amber and more Black Malt. Not long now.



Well I've had DRC for a while, but initially had no reason to use it. With such little time left for a second beer for the upcoming holiday period, a Mild with 12% invert seemed a perfect choice. Being 300 EBC and adding complex caramel and dried fruit notes, what was not to like for this project. We'll see.

Simpsons say that DRC can be used to substitute darker roasted malts where the astringency and bitterness inherent to roast malts is not desired. However, I only rarely find astringency from dark roast malts which usually, given time, mellow and subside. There again, in British beers, where the dark malt are frequently more roasted, do need higher chloride than do paler beers.

As for Scottish beers, I can remember plenty that weren't particularly hoppy, but no more so than many beers brewed in England. The hoppiest locally available beer in my early days of drinking was in fact Scottish, from McEwan's, known locally as "Special". Certainly I cannot recall any time coming across any commercial beer produced in good quantities with heather, myrtle or from peated malt or any other such additive. I feel most such beliefs are supposition.
Younger's sold well in North East England, those were dark and were low on hops, but neither black nor brown, almost a blueish hue to my eyes. The darkest Scottish beer of the time I'm thinking of, was made by Lorimer and Clark at the Caledonian Brewery. It was black, but didn't drink like black beers usually do, it was well hopped by any standard of that time in this region, and whatever darkened it added little taste.

We are seeing rapid change in beer production in UK presently, several well known traditional breweries have closed this year, and with them goes the knowledge and skills to brew traditional British beers. In their place we will possibly get pale ones more opaque than most black ones as well as beer-flavored beers.

Thanks for this, cire. I should have been clearer as I was trying to make a bit of a point, I guess, which is that it seems to me it's a pretty narrow thing to declare what is "beer-flavored beer" or not. I was referring to historical Scottish brewing though there I admit I know very little. Can't recall the company, but one using myrtle or heather, or something? I'm sure it's an outlier. I've only had it once, didn't particularly enjoy it but at least enjoyed the connotation of historical Scottish brewing, a romance. Fraoch?

And that really saddens me to hear of the way of things in the UK. I know I'm way, way behind the curve. When I watch Ted Lasso and the only beer I see being consumed are lagers, well...

 

[cire]

How do you like DRC in a mild? I've been meaning to try it but haven't done it yet.

Well on the 2nd day out of the fermentor, it's very mild.
Brewed Wednesday, yeast harvested late Friday, heat held at 23C for full day, then stopped and allowed to cool naturally. Racked into a plastic pressure vessel yesterday morning when at 8C, with a litre plus of water acidified to pH 4 and 75 gm of #1 invert syrup.

51% Pale
25.5% Vienna
5.1% DRC
3.2% Chocolate malt
1.3% Amber
2.5% Black
8.9% #3 Invert Syrup
2.5% #1 Invert Syrup

It's completely lacking harshness, a little sweet as might be expected, but clear and dark red/brown. There is plenty of time for this to improve, it is currently cold and natural carbonation is only slight. Presently only light flavors of cherry and raisin, but DRC is not something to fear.

 

[Brewskey]

Well on the 2nd day out of the fermentor, it's very mild.
Brewed Wednesday, yeast harvested late Friday, heat held at 23C for full day, then stopped and allowed to cool naturally. Racked into a plastic pressure vessel yesterday morning when at 8C, with a litre plus of water acidified to pH 4 and 75 gm of #1 invert syrup.

51% Pale
25.5% Vienna
5.1% DRC
3.2% Chocolate malt
1.3% Amber
2.5% Black
8.9% #3 Invert Syrup
2.5% #1 Invert Syrup

It's completely lacking harshness, a little sweet as might be expected, but clear and dark red/brown. There is plenty of time for this to improve, it is currently cold and natural carbonation is only slight. Presently only light flavors of cherry and raisin, but DRC is not something to fear.

Cire, thanks for coming through with that report. My next brew is going to be a mild so I'll definitely give DRC a try.

 

[user 246304]

Your water is very similar to mine. It makes excellent British style ales when suitably treated. Yours has more sodium and less calcium than mine, magnesium is very similar. Your sulfate is less and Chloride is more than mine, but not a major problem and CRS would be ideal for your water. More than 100 years since, it was advised the calcium : magnesium ratio should be 3:1 or greater. This means you should add at least another 56mg/l calcium to your water.

Like for my water, hydrochloric acid will also work with your water for most British styles of beer, but maybe not if you want American styles or some lagers. I'd advise first steps with 37% HCl are to take it outside. Wear protective clothing and goggles, keeping the acid and other receptacles down-wind. Assuming you have 1 litre of 37% HCl, measure 1 litre of deionized water into a calibrated vessel of at least double that capacity. Loosen the acid's lid, and take a deep breath before removing the lid, then add a proportion of the acid to the water and firmly replace the cap before turning your head to take a breath from the incoming breeze. Heat will be generated, but nothing like that with sulfuric acid. Repeat the process, keeping the mixture cool, until you have 1 litre of each in the second jug. This will be slightly less than 2 litres. If desired, add half the shortage in DI water, then the same in HCL to another vessel, then combine to make almost the full 2 litres.

This mix will be about 6 molar and will no longer fume as it previously would. 1ml will neutralize about 300mg of CaCO3, but would be safer again if diluted to 4 molar, i.e. diluted to 3 litres. Then 1ml would neutralize 200 mg of CaCO3.

You can do the figures yourself, but by titrating a litre of your supply water with your diluted HCl to pink with Methyl Red, you will find the relative strength of your acid against its alkalinity. If you then remove 90% of the alkalinity with that acid, somewhere near 1ml HCl per litre, the remaining alkalinity will be 23.9 mg/l as CaCO3, ideal for a British Bitter. Then adding 10g of gypsum per 25 litre of brewing liquor would add 93mg/l calcium and 223mg/l SO4, making calcium 162ppm and sulfate almost 300ppm. Reducing alkalinity with HCl would increase chloride to about 250ppm, so nota bad a profile for such a small amount of effort.

For dark beers, reduce alkalinity to about 75 mg/l as CaCO3 and add 10g of calcium chloride per 25 litres of brewing liquor.

To brew TT Landlord, try using half gypsum and half calcium chloride flake.

I use a simple spreadsheet dedicated to my own water supply as shown below or my latest brew when my water was near its maximum mineral content. It is less during periods of heavier rains. You could make one for your water. My only input is the reading from a TDS meter. Figures in red are not warning like in some others, then deciding ratios of acids and salts to one another.

View attachment 835329

Just a note that I'll be obtaining concentrated sulfuric and hydrochloric, diluting both to usable concentrations, and applying your methods again, cire. Looking forward to it, thanks again.

 

[MaxStout]

Another option is phosphoric acid. You can get 8 oz bottles of 10% for about $4 at Ritebrew.

Amazon has liter bottles of 85% for around $30, but that would probably last you forever.

Edit: here's a link to one:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y1B82T...id=D84V30DSZ1LX&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_ys_dp_it

 

[user 246304]

Another option is phosphoric acid. You can get 8 oz bottles of 10% for about $4 at Ritebrew.

Amazon has liter bottles of 85% for around $30, but that would probably last you forever.

Thanks, max. I actually do have some but don't use it, only because my water is so bloody hard that if I wanted to reduce it with either phosphoric or lactic, I'd have to use way too much. Plus, I do like the benefit of gaining the SO4 and Cl ions with the strong acids. But much appreciated!