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I wanted to recreate that lovely and distinctive minerally quality of British beer in an authentic English Best Bitter. Should have left well enough alone. The beer, now known (not so affectionately as) 'Old Salty' is exactly that: just plain salty. It does not have that nice mineral quality, but it does have saltiness in spades. Oy.
Rather than dial back the salts even further I think I will just brew with the wonderful Porltand water unadulterated.
Chalk this up to the sometimes difficult learning process (pun intended). I mention this as a caveat emptor to those of you thinking of amending Portland's lovely water. I figure I offended mother nature and she punished me.
The 'Old Salty' does do a bang up job of cooking brats...
4 comments:
Even though I brewed quite a few batches without adding anything to our water, I've gotten much better clarity and flavor since I've begun adding 1 gram calcium cloride per gallon brewing liquor. If I'm doing a hoppy beer I usually use the same ratio but lean more on calcium sulfate. I've noticed from personal experience, but I've also often read of how water needs a little calcium to achieve a good break.
I've also heard this is the last thing a homebrewer should fiddle with, as it is possible to ruin an otherwise good beer, which I guess you found out.
Sorry to hear about it...
By the way, my favorite session beer right now is the English Bitter out of Jamil Zainasheff's new book, Brewing Classic Styles, if you are looking for a good follow-up to try...
Yes I found out. But I try and keep the perspective that it is all a part of the learning process. The beer is not undrinkable and even a wee bit enjoyable in small doses.
Are you adding this to Portland water? Clarity and flavor are both good things...
And thanks for the tip on the bitter recipe.
I am brewing with Portland water; in North Portland. I read up quite a bit on water treatment and at some point I felt like I had a good grip on it. I've come to the conclusion that less is more and so I do what I mentioned but I don't go out of my way to attempt to match the brewing waters of the world. We are really lucky to have water that we can add stuff to-- It's a lot harder to take stuff out.
I've gotten a lot out of listening to podcasts by the brewing network. Here's a link to the start of a four part water series that helped me:
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/Brew-Strong/Page-6
This guy (ajdelange) helped me quite a bit too. He explained things well for me and he's a keep it simple brewer too.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/soft-water-adjustment-portland-196560/
Thanks for taking the time to write -- I always enjoy reading your thoughts.
It's nowhere near a "catastrophe" beer--the sad thing is that it had the makings of being a very nice little ale until we mucked it up. The disappointment not of failure, but in impeding success.
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