Misadventures in Brewing: Brewing with Salt Redux

Oops.

Some time back, while I was on an all-things-English-beer kick, I decided to try and brew a totally traditional English bitter, even down to an attempt to recreate the hard ground water prevalent in English beer.  So I added a dose of 'Burton Salts,' a mixture of calcium sulfate (gypsum), potassium chloride, magnesium sulfate (epsom salts),  to the water.  I tried to be conservative, taking Portland's beautifully neutral water only about half way to Burton-upon-Trent.

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...

Burton Salts

After my beer tour through Britain it was time to bring it all home by trying to replicate a traditional English best bitter in my own wee brewery. I have brewed a best bitter before but with a NW twist - NW hops and a bit hoppy for style - I called it a NW Best Bitter.

Jeff adds the salts

This best bitter is intended to be a truly authentic English best bitter, ringing in at 4.3% ABV. So off I went with the Beerax to Steinbarts and loaded up on Maris Otter malt, East Kent Goldings hops and Wyeast's Thames Valley II yeast. All fine as it goes, but this time I really wanted to try and replicate that wonderful minerally quality of British bitters and so we came home with some Burton salts.The salts are supposed to both accentuate the sweetness the malt and make the hop bitterness more crisp.  We will see.

Ready to vorlauf

We were ready to buy all the salts - calcium chloride, calcium sulfate, etc - but BeerCraft has a nice mixed salts which is perfect if you are starting from totally neutral water. Luckily Portland has beautifully clean water - there is absolutely nothing in it. So for the first time ever I amended the wonderful water of Portland with Burton salts. We were conservative, only getting about half way to Burton-on-Trent.

The scene on the only sunny day we saw in March in Portland.

The final results will not be known for a few weeks, but I am very optimistic and I look forward to tasting it along side the beer from my new favorite brewery: St. Peter's. It is a 100% East Kent Golding bitter and I am excited to taste the EKG in a single hop beer (something I relish in general - single hop beers are a great way to really get to know a hop).

Jeff and I thought that we should honor the debut of the the MLS Timbers in naming the beer.  Stay tuned...