Effect of RO water only on flavor.

[TNTgill]

I've used RO water for my batches (all grain) for several years and recently forgot to add any minerals back to the water for a couple lighter beers. A. Tripel and 2 different saisons. Despite being totally different grain bills, hops and yeast they all taste very similar or have a similar off flavor. Can't really describe it but they are all just muted flavor wise and have a weird twang at the end. Any thoughts?

 

[ajdelange]

In probing the limits of 'less is better' I concluded that beers brewed with very low chloride (and the malts don't contribute much of that) are simply thin (no body) and insipid. I never noticed an off flavor or tang though.

 

[mabrungard]

AJ makes an interesting point about chloride that I hadn't deduced, but its possible. I have tasted several APAs and IPAs that the brewers had created using RO (or RO-like water) with no additional mineral additions and can attest that they were otherwise fine beers, but their flavor was definitely lacking. Having some ionic content in your brewing water is important to beer flavor. The question then becomes: how much? That is the brewer's art.

 

[TNTgill]

Thanks to both of you. Do you think adding some chloride to the beers post ferment would help. They certainly aren't drain pours but definitely not as good as I've made before. Maybe off flavor and twang are too harsh, I think lack of flavor is the biggest problem.

 

[cyanmonkey]

If you have noticeable off flavors, you most likely picked it up somewhere else in your process. Water salts aren't going to "add" flavors as much as accentuate ones that are already present.

 

[ajdelange]

Thanks to both of you. Do you think adding some chloride to the beers post ferment would help. They certainly aren't drain pours but definitely not as good as I've made before. Maybe off flavor and twang are too harsh, I think lack of flavor is the biggest problem.

Definitely try that. When I was younger the old timers (that's me now) would frequently add table salt to their beer in the glass.

I often advise brewers to experiment with additional sulfate and chloride int their beers in the glass in order to obtain guidance as to whether to augment these or not in their next brewing of that beer. I got this from Colin Kaminsky many years ago. But I guess I should have gotten some of it from the old guys at Ithaca Gun.

 

[TNTgill]

So I think adding some chloride to the beer does help but after drinking a few commercial saisons that were both fermented with 3711/french strain that it's the yeast flavor. I love tank 7 and think it's fermented using the French strain. My two saisons were both fermented with 3711 and have the same profile that I'm picking up in stillwater stateside saison and apex predator. The tripel has a different flavor that I'm not fond of but it's not the same as these 4 beers when tasted side by side. So I think the flavor can be improved with a little mineral but I already have Belgian saison yeast for my next batch.

 

[ajdelange]

Yeast is certainly a better explanation than water for those funky flavors found in some of the farmhouse ales.

 

[trentm]

To back up A.J.'s chloride comment. I used to show a lot of Belgian Pales, these are characterized by dry finish but with a significant malt backbone. Often the judges would comment that the beers were too dry without enough malt flavor. On A.J.'s advice, I lowered the SO4 (I chose 15ppm) and raised the Cl2 (I chose 60ppm). Then the judges complained "too much malt" or "try to get better attenuation". The only change was more Cl2 and less SO4! That said, often a judge would appreciate what was done and I did too.