Effect of water on Roast Bitterness/Aroma

[Kingbogart]

I recently entered a competition and did fairly poorly, the consensus being that my RIS was severely lacking in both aroma and bitterness. I do agree that both are fairly low or non-existent.

I have another more detailed thread here detailing all the specifics. I didn't get a lot of feedback there but what I did get suggested the lack of aroma might have come from pH levels being off, or not having salts.

Here is my water profile

I didn't add any salts or adjust other than using Campden for chlorine treatment. According to Bru'n Water, the mash pH should have been around 5.3. Though I didn't adjust sparge water.

Will missing salts/off pH levels destroy aroma and roast bitterness, or is something else the culprit?

 

[ajdelange]

If pH is high it dulls everything but assuming that you used reasonable amounts of high colored malt/barley with this water pH should not have been too high or not by much. Best to use a pH meter to check it out though.

 

[Kingbogart]

Based on the water software I have seen, the recipe showed it would be about 5.3 pH during the mash. You mentioned that if the pH is high, it will dull everything. Is there a particular stage it needs to remain low for, or just the whole time?

I had read that the higher pH during sparge can cause tannin extraction, but I don't taste any thing off in that area, and it wasn't mentioned by the judges either. This might suggest that I wasn't extremely high if it was high at all.

Anything else you can think of that might cause the lack or aroma/bitterness, or do I just need to rebrew watching the pH to get an idea of what's going on? Unfortunately I don't have any other leads for what could have caused this.

 

[mabrungard]

There is not a whole lot of anything in that water. There might be an advantage to adding a bit more chloride and possibly sulfate. However, the mash pH of 5.3 is a bit too low in my experience. For most roasty styles, I find that moving the pH to somewhere in the 5.4 to 5.6 range does accentuate the roastiness. I suggest focusing first on the pH issue and once that is in range, then you might consider adding those extra flavor ions.

 

[Kingbogart]

I guess I hadn't read enough on pH. I was under the impression that 5.2-5.4 was a general safe zone for beer in general. After rereading some of the information in the Bru'n Water sheet, I had in fact overlooked that a higher pH might be optimal for darker/heavier styles to promote body. I must have been following to many threads on IPA bitterness missing.

I got different opinions from the judges on the body, a Grand Master said it was Medium Thick, which seems to style. The other, an Experienced Judge said "light body". I think it is more in the medium area, so perhaps bumping it to your recommended range would enforce that mouthfeel and bring out the roastiness I appear to be missing.

Does the pH also play a significant role in the aroma, as that was also missing?