Messages

706

All Grain Brewing / Re: Rice Hulls?

« on: February 04, 2011, 09:24:10 AM »

The depth of the grain bed and the flow rate have a big effect on the lautering performance.  My compliments to the brewers who can brew high wheat grists without hulls. 

I run a RIMS and its pretty important to have a fairly permeable grist so that my flowrate is good.  Many RIMS and HERMS brewers probably know that the permeability of the grist actually changes during the mash.  It starts out at a lower permeability and you cannot try and push too much wort through the grist for the first 15 minutes or so.  As the conversion and soluablization progresses, the permeability of the grist increases and you can start increasing the flowrate.   Pushing too much flow through the grist can contribute to compacting the mash and possibly producing a stuck mash.

Therefore, I use hulls with high wheat grists or grists with rye.

707

All Grain Brewing / Re: "Lactic" Flavor

« on: February 04, 2011, 09:10:21 AM »

I'm not sure I would go so far as to say no flavor with lactic, but the food grade lactic that we typically use is a pretty clean and one-dimensional flavor in my opinion.  I've grown nice Berliner Weisse cultures and the flavors from that are much richer and complex.  In either case, I agree that lactic acid is one of the cleaner acid flavor producers.

708

All Grain Brewing / Re: Vienna Lager water profile...

« on: February 04, 2011, 09:06:07 AM »

Yes, we know the calcium is lower than desired for yeast and break performance.  I didn't say that this is necessarily good for brewing, just what the original profile becomes after boiling and decanting.  Recall that Pilsen water is also notoriously low on calcium and it still produces good beer. 

That does not mean that we shouldn't improve this water with a little more calcium to bring it to a better performing 50 ppm minimum concentration.  But at least you now know what the Vienna profile probably looked like in the Dreher days with the technologic capabilities of the day.  I'd try and keep the Cl/SO4 ratio similar or possibly a little more to the chloride side when adding the calcium.

I'll start another thread later regarding how the boiled profile is calculated.  It shouldn't be buried in this thread.

709

All Grain Brewing / Re: Vienna Lager water profile...

« on: February 04, 2011, 07:06:42 AM »

I sure hate to see the propagation of misinformation and this is another example.  The Vienna profile published by Palmer is not even in the ball park!  The profile published by Daniels is not too bad with a caveat.

The water source for Vienna is the same today as it was about the time that Dreher created the Vienna style.  It is debatable if he used the new water source from the Alps or if he used the previous source.  The previous source was groundwater drawn from sand and gravel aquifers along the Danube River. 

The water quality today is exactly as it was when the aqueduct from the Alps was constructed.  The City did not perform any water treatment back then and they still don't.  That profile (taken directly from the City's website) is:

Ca   75 ppm
Mg   15 ppm
Na   10 ppm
SO4  60 ppm
Cl   15 ppm
HCO3 225 ppm

As those of you who know water recognize, this is an alkaline water with high temporary hardness.  It would work for dark beers (RA = 124), but would not produce the fine amber Vienna style. Many of you also know that one of the earliest water treatment methods available to brewers of yore was boiling to decarbonate the water and drop the temporary hardness.  The boiled water profile can be estimated fairly accurately.  The boiled profile is as follows:

Ca   27 ppm
Mg   15 ppm
Na   10 ppm
SO4  60 ppm
Cl   15 ppm
HCO3 80 ppm

The boiled profile now has a RA of about 45, which is pretty good for amber beers.  As you can see, the boiled profile does agree with the information presented by Daniels (yeah Ray!). 

I wouldn't worry too much about duplicating any water profile quoted for any location since water quality varies naturally and being within about 10 ppm of any of those ion concentrations is probably not going to be noticeable. 

There you go!  Brew your next Vienna with the boiled Vienna profile to produce great beer.

710

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What's next?

« on: February 03, 2011, 03:35:04 PM »

Minneapolis gets their water from the Mississippi if I understand correctly.  That is probably not near as hard as the groundwater that my city uses as its supply.  The resulting sodium content in the softened water is directly proportional to the hardness of the raw water.  I'm my case, that means that my water comes to my house at up to 250 mg/L sodium!!!  That is not suitable for brewing.  100 mg/L would be pushing it. 

Thus, I have a RO system now.

711

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What's next?

« on: February 03, 2011, 01:51:22 PM »

Yep, crappy water!  A lot of my FBI clubmates use it, though.  The Carmel water cannot be used for brewing because it is salt-softened by the City. 

712

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What's next?

« on: February 03, 2011, 10:42:19 AM »

Keep it simple--Use good water (no chlorine or chloramines) and stick to the recipe whether you do extract, minimash, or AG.

For a year or two my biggest challenge while brewing was that I didn't stick to the recipe.

I'd get "inspired" to try and get fancy with whatever's laying around the kitchen (spices, adjuncts, etc.)

Not all of the beers turned out that great, or, said another way, would have been much better if I'd just stuck to the recipe.

I also took awhile to get the water chemistry issue--it's a big deal.

Definitely spend a few bucks on using better water if your local water profile is awful. 
Many brewers just use distilled or RO water and build up the water profile to get what the style calls for.

+1 regarding the need to remove chlorine and chloramine.  That will ruin any brewer's beer.  I wouldn't get too concerned about creating water, but it is a good idea to understand if your water presents problems in brewing some (or all) beer styles.  And even if there are problems, that may just mean that you can't brew great beer with that water, only good beer.  As a brewer progresses, the desire to move from good beer to great beer is typical. 

713

All Grain Brewing / Re: Calcium and Magnesium and their effects on mash pH

« on: February 03, 2011, 08:58:49 AM »

I suppose the conclusion is that a mash needs no additional phosphate, that the malt releases adequate amounts for use by the yeast?

Yes, mash phosphate content is on the order of 1 percent by weight in malt.  So there is a bunch of it in wort.  I've seen measurements of phosphate in wort of over 800 mg/L (Malting and Brewing Science) and the starting brewing water had none.  After fermentation, the phosphate concentration is still in the 500 mg/L range, so the yeast and various precipitation mechanisms consumed some of it. 

714

All Grain Brewing / Re: Calcium and Magnesium and their effects on mash pH

« on: February 03, 2011, 07:17:43 AM »

"It seems that many home brewers think that acidulated malt (Sauermalz) is produced by letting it ferment. This is not the case. It’s simply sprayed with lacto fermented wort. Letting grain ferment would create all sorts of problems."

Kai, you're right that it is now produced that way.  But in the past, it was 'fermented' by wetting and allowing the bacteria to flourish for a period of time prior to drying.  I don't know if any maltster still does it that way, but I figured I should cover myself and mention it. 

715

All Grain Brewing / Re: Calcium and Magnesium and their effects on mash pH

« on: February 02, 2011, 12:37:24 PM »

Seems like this malt may have more buffers in it that are holding the pH both steady and lower.  Possibly more phosphate?  If there are different buffering strengths in different malts, then one couldn't generalize about a pH change from a single experiment like this.  I could imagine that barley's phosphate content might vary with the content of the soil and any fertilization that would occur. 

Lennie,  I'm not too inclined to think that its an issue with buffers.  I've been having a discussion with AJ DeLange on mash phosphates and quite frankly, he's taking me to school.  His take is that the phosphate content and buffering capacity is relatively similar for most mashes.  I'd say that Kai's assumption that this is the case is relatively safe.  

I agree that Kai's results are interesting.  It sounds like someone needs to call Rahr and discuss what they are doing to this malt.

716

All Grain Brewing / Re: Calcium and Magnesium and their effects on mash pH

« on: February 02, 2011, 12:29:42 PM »

Kai,  Excellent work as usual!  I see that you followed up on that question I posed regarding if pH drop was proportional with the Ca or Mg concentration.  I see that it does become somewhat asymptotic at high hardness, but those high levels are concentrations that most brewers probably would not utilize in their brewing water.  So for the most part, we can assume that pH drop with increasing hardness is fairly linear in the typical Ca and Mg concentrations we use.

The finding for the pH of the Rahr 2 Row malt in distilled water is surprising.  The drop of about 0.2 units compared to a Pils malt cannot be explained by the 1 or 2 SRM color increase of the Rahr 2 Row.  Since alkalinity is the enemy of most beer styles, I would not be surprised to find that Rahr is doing something to their malt that adds to its acidity.  That could easily be a soak or spray of an acid or allowing the malt to lacto ferment prior to drying or kilning. 

The high attenuation performance of the Rahr 2 Row has been mentioned by me in the past.  A very accomplished brewer here in Indy told me that he finds that this malt tends to attenuate very well for him, even when he raises the mash temp to reduce the attenuation.  As we know, reducing the mash pH by several tenths does have a side-effect of creating a more fermentable wort which would be evidenced by the high attenuation in the finished beer.   

It will be relatively easy to assess if this malt has an acidic surface treatment.  I suggest that you could compare the resulting pH when a quantity of uncrushed Rahr 2 Row is added to a volume of distilled water.  I would say the DI water temperature should be at room temperature so that no stewing or enzymatic reactions would occur.  Doing the same thing with a Pils malt or another Pale malt could provide a pH baseline.  I'm betting that the Rahr will produce a similar pH difference that you noted in your results above.  I know you have the titration equipment and can determine the resulting acid quantity on the Rohr malt. 

I look forward to your results.

717

Commercial Beer Reviews / Re: Bells' Hopslam Ale

« on: February 01, 2011, 09:15:47 AM »

I had Hopslam at the Indiana Winterfest last Saturday.  While a decent beer, I found it to be overbearingly hop vegetale.  The hopping is plainly apparent, but the green chlorophyl undertones of having had too much hop matter on the beer predominates to me.  Not a beer that I would wantingly drink.  While Hopslam is a different style, it does not hold a candle to Two-Hearted.  Hopslam was brewed to be extreme and they succeeded.  I'll pass.

718

Commercial Beer Reviews / Re: Sam Adams Noble Pils

« on: February 01, 2011, 09:09:20 AM »

I had this beer a year ago and enjoyed it.  Had it again at the Indiana Winterfest on Saturday.  Still very good. The hopping is apparent and multidimensional, but not as dominant or spicy as PU.

While it is a good beer, I still have to lean to Pilsner Urquell as my preferred Pils.  More malt character comes through and the hopping is much more prominent. You have to buy it in the cardboard covered 12 packs in order to not have a skunk fest, but that's not a problem to find at my grocery store.  The price of PU isn't too bad in a 12 pack, say $14.

That said, I would still welcome the SA Noble.

719

All Grain Brewing / Re: More about water

« on: February 01, 2011, 07:21:17 AM »

I wouldn't call the filter worthwhile, but it doesn't really hurt the brewing water.  Go for it.

Really?  There's an awful lot of people that want to reduce the HCO3 in their brewing water.

It should also remove much of the organic compounds that can make surface water taste foul in the warm weather.

There are far better alternatives for reducing HCO3 than a filter like that. Either acid addition or boiling are much better options.

In my statement above, I was speaking about the cation exchange filter.  Activated Carbon is very useful to nearly anyone.  Sorry for the confusion!

720

Equipment and Software / Re: Complete Home Brewery Kit

« on: January 31, 2011, 12:49:22 PM »

Tony,

I'm hoping you have realized that you don't need to use the thermometer to assess the temperature of your boiling wort!

Its good to hear that you found a good deal.  I'm hoping that you have a local homebrew store (LHBS) to frequent since that is where you're more likely to meet fellow homebrewers and ask questions that will make your experience even more enjoyable.  If you don't have a local LHBS, there are plenty of web-based vendors that will do you good.