Any general comments or advice ?
My water report
- Thread starter Moose_MI
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
Very good source of water. Almost a blank slate, makes it very easy to tweak. You have low Sodium, very low sulfate and chloride, decent calcium (you will need ~50-100 for yeast health and flocculation) - and alkalinity is moderate but not superhigh. So you can easily use your water (run through carbon filter to remove chlorine) and then add gypsum/CaCl2 to balance Sulfate vs. Chloride, and add a bit more Ca. Then you may adjust pH depending on your water treatment and grainbill/type of beer.
You can make pretty much anything with this water and gypsum and CaCl2 additions, except maybe pilsners, for which you may need to cut your water with RO a bit.
OP
OP
Thanks for the reply..I really appreciate it. I've been using the city water report off their website for a couple years and finally decided to get the lab report just to see if there was a difference. It was pretty close...worth the $35 to know.
I use Brewers friend and find that I can't get my mash PH in range without cutting 50-75% RO for Pales, ipa's, blondes. I usually still need to add CaCl2 and gypsum as well as a lactic acid. Without the RO I would frequently be above 4 or 5% of the equiv acid malt which I've generally read is something to stay below.
I've always thought it was shame to have to hassle with RO given a relatively blank slate tap water....am I missing something?
I never thought there is a limit of acid malt (or lactic/phosphoric acids) you should use - perhaps I am ignorant on this topic. Is it off-flavors that acid malt or acids add? I know acetic acid adds too many off-flavors, which is why nobody is using it. But acid malt?
Maybe its because acid malt is different from just pilsner malt that was allowed to acidify by lactobacillus (?).
Perhaps A. J. DeLange or Martin Brungard or someone else can weigh in on this topic
But generally speaking you seem to have water that is between Pilsen and Munich - mostly blank slate except fairly moderate residual alkalinity due to bicarbonates (didn't do the math, just guessing). You can counter it by just adding more acid malt (or acids) or by upping Ca and/or to some extent Mg (increasing hardness). But that could probably throw a lot of other things out of control, and make your water too mineral, so I would just get your desired balance of S/Cl and get Ca in right range with minimal additions, and then just use acids to dial in pH.
OP
OP
At 1 time I used acid malt but from what I understand it's only advantage over straight acid additions is if you need to follow the beer purity law. This is not important to me so I have been using straight lactic acid. Brewers friend will report "Total lactic acid as equivalent acidulated malt in grist: x.y %". I've read it's preferable to keep this under 3 and never above 5%. Unless Im doing Amber or Stout I need a min of 50-75% RO to get my mash And sparge PH right.
Maybe I should not be so worried about that %acid malt and just use my water with however much acid I need.
Maybe I should not be so worried about that %acid malt and just use my water with however much acid I need.
Acid malt also has the advantage that it can be milled the night before with the rest of your grain then it's one less thing to deal with on brewday. Also 88% lactic acid is fiddly to measure out unless you have good lab equipment, especially for small batches where you need 0.2ml or crazy small amounts for a batch.
Personally I can taste the difference that lactic acid or acid malt makes so I try not to use too much. 5% would be beer-wrecking for me so I don't go past 3% on a 100% pilsner malt beer. Brunwater has a box which tells you how many ppm of lactates (or whatever the taste component is called) and you can keep an eye on that as you add acid / acid malt to make sure you don't go over.
Another trick is to use 2 kinds of acid - bit of phosphoric + some lactic so you don't go over the flavour thresholds for either. Haven't tried this myself since my alkalinity is super low.
Personally I can taste the difference that lactic acid or acid malt makes so I try not to use too much. 5% would be beer-wrecking for me so I don't go past 3% on a 100% pilsner malt beer. Brunwater has a box which tells you how many ppm of lactates (or whatever the taste component is called) and you can keep an eye on that as you add acid / acid malt to make sure you don't go over.
Another trick is to use 2 kinds of acid - bit of phosphoric + some lactic so you don't go over the flavour thresholds for either. Haven't tried this myself since my alkalinity is super low.
Lactic acid adds flavor and sauermalz adds that flavor plus its own malt flavors which can be a plus in some kinds of beers (lagers) but not others so it really depends on personal taste. I rather like it. Sadu doesn't. There it is.
OP
OP
Is the malt flavor of sauermalz perceivable at 5% or less of the grain bill? I always figured sauermalz malt was similar to regular pale malt in terms of flavor
