Water Question

[dan_rouse]

I've been brewing for about a year. All grain. Mostly 10 gal batches in keggles with a HERMS. I have well water, which I use straight. I do additives based on tweaking in Brewer's Friend until I match the style.

I think my beer is pretty good. And others do as well. But there's a certain quality about most of my beers that I'm wondering about. The best I can describe it is kind of murky. The opposite of clean tasting.

I've messed with mash temps to see if it's residual unfermentable sugars, I've dramatically reduced the amount of crystal malts in my recipes to see if that particular family of grains was bringing in something I don't prefer, I've lengthened mash times, boil times, primary times, added secondaries and other things.

I do a lot of APA and IPA style beers, and I know that the amount of hops probably brings in some haze. I've had several really clear beers not in those styles, but those two seem to always be hazy. I recently had Pliny for the first time, and it was really hazy too, so there's probably no correlation.

After all that, here's my question: Is there something else in the water outside of the normal water report that could cause me issues? Not contaminants causing flavor issues, as my water tastes phenomenal. Attached is my Ward Labs report. Any input is appreciated.

 

[JonM]

I'm a noob at water chemistry, but what jumps out at me is that the calcium levels seem low.

There's a lot of really helpful people in the brew science forum who know a heckuva lot more than I do, and I'm sure you'll get some good responses. Cheers!

 

[mabrungard]

There is nothing wrong on that water report that would prevent producing a good beer...with the inclusion of appropriate additives. By additives, I assume that includes acid? The alkalinity would require neutralization in paler beers. Two things not included in the water report are iron and manganese content. They can really screw up the taste of water and beer. But they are easy to identify visually. You would see brown or black staining on your plumbing fixtures if they were at problem levels.

The haze in hoppy beers is typical...especially when dry hopping. Don't worry too much there. If the beers are fresh, they are very likely to be hazy and that may clear with time.

I assume that Brewers Friend is directing you to increase the calcium content? High calcium content is very helpful in producing high clarity. That is one of the by-products that Burton beers display due to the very high calcium content of their water.

A drying finish is something that I've found deficient in many of the thousands of beers I've judged over the past 15 years. Homebrewers do tend to use too much crystal and mash at too high temperatures. I too started out that way. I generally keep crystal content at 10% or less and mash in the very low 150's F. If your beers end up too bitter with that reduction in 'sweetness', then reduce the bittering level. Don't try to obscure excessive bittering with excess sweetness. That can be a recipe for murkiness.

 

[ajdelange]

'Murky' is not terribly specific. 'Opposite of clean tasting' does suggest a couple of things. The first thought is that there may be organics from your well (geosmin...). These are usually described as 'earthy' or 'musty' or 'moldy'. If that is what you mean the fix is an activated carbon filter. I would certainly try that. They aren't expensive and if that doesn't solve the problem at least you can still rest assured that your water will have low levels of organics.

The other thing that is suggested by 'murky' is 'not bright'. This is often a symptom of high mash pH. You might benefit from zeroing in on one beer - your 'house beer' and tweaking that until you get it right and then applying what you learn to your other beers. Stop, for the moment, chasing profiles and just put together some nominal water. Start by 'taking out' the alkalinity of your well water (it would help if we knew what that is). To do this add phosphoric acid drop by drop to a liter or quart of gallon of the water until the pH is 5.4. Test strips are good enough for this. Record the amount of acid used. Congratulations - you have just determined the alkalinity of your water with respect to mash pH. Now treat the volume of water you are going to mash with with the same amount of phosphoric acid scaled to the mash water volume. You have zeroed the proton deficit of the water and now only need to zero the proton deficits of your malts. Obviously this is best done with a pH meter but if you don't want to invest in one of those right now just try calculating 2% of your total grist weight and adding that much sauermalz to the rest of the grains. Add calcium chloride and gypsum in amounts necessary to get chloride 50 - 150 and sulfate around 100 - 150 and see where the calcium falls. If it is between 50 and 150 that should be fine. Mash with that and see if the flavors in the finished beer have become 'brighter'. If they have then the high mash pH thesis is probably responsible. Your next step would be to pursue mash pH further. At that point you should have a pH meter. Every brewer should have one anyway.

 

[dan_rouse]

Thanks for the responses. I need to digest them! Lots of good info.