Yummy calcium

[barleyhole]

I already know the answer to this, but anyone have some techniques to hide having added too much calcium sulfate to the mash? I was trying to lower my pH for a saison, and guess that the mash ended up with about 250 ppm of calcium and maybe a bit more sulfate. I fermented using WLP Saison II for two weeks, starting out at 68 F and rising to 76-78 F. I racked to secondary tonight, and the beer smells great, but the taste has a bit of an acrid, dry, lingering bitterness I can only attribute to too much calcium. Not very pleasant. I thought I had read somewhere that that much calcium was acceptable. The dryness probably does not help, however, as the final gravity is down to 1.007 (6.8% ABV).

I want to brew another batch, use something other than my tap water that I will not have to try and adjust, but I do not want to blend it with this batch.

Any hope the calcium sharpness will subside over time if it sits in a keg? Maybe I should add something to cut it at kegging? Or add some fruit or something to secondary? Thanks for any advice, I just want it to be drinkable!!

 

[ajdelange]

The problem is not the calcium but the sulfate - at least that is the probable cause judging from your description and what sulfate does to hops. There really isn't much you can do about it at this point. The hops sharpness will fade with time but by the time it does the beer will probably be showing other signs of staling as well.

Salts are not the best way to lower mash pH. Acid in the form of sauermalz, liquid lactic or liquid phosphoric are much better ways to go. See the Primer for how to start out in water treatment.

 

[barleyhole]

Noted on the sulfate. I may just wait another week, keg it, and store it and see what happens.

By the way, do you use WSSC tap water there in McLean? I didn't start using tap water until I started doing all grain, but I don't know about this stuff. High pH and not much else, which is why I was not too worried about using salts. I may try sauermalz before I go back to buying water.

 

[ajdelange]

I didn't notice your location before. No, I'm on a well where I live which is near the boundary with Arlington which gets its water from the City of Falls Church which gets it from the Corps of Engineers but I'm not sure which plant. Most of McLean gets its water from the FCWA Corbalis plant. It all comes from the Potomac in this part of the county. Down south it comes from Bull run.

The water around these parts is pretty nominal. Alkalinity is higher than you'd like (it nearly always is) and hardness and sulfate are more than you'd like for most brewing applications while chloride is lower that you'd like for most beers but certainly lots of people brew with the water straight out of the tap (with a Campden tablet to kill the chloramine). It's only fairly recently that people have started moving to RO water around here and that's probably partly because I make a lot of noise about it.

 

[Nateo]

I've seen max calcium figures quoted in "brewing science and techniques," but I'm not really sure what the excess calcium does. In Briggs he says over 100ppm (IIRC, maybe 150ppm) is bad, but didn't say why.