Maybe I should not fool with adjusting water

[Beer-lord]

It dawned on me just now that the last 2 beers I brewed, the Mosaic IPA and the Coconut IPA are not what I expected. It also just so happens that these 2 are the only beers I've adjusted the water with. I used the numbers I got from my local water company, plugged them into EZ Water and added the appropriate amounts of Gypsum and Calcium Chloride to bring the water to the levels suggested.
It's too early to tell what these will be like since the Mosaic is still carbing but the bottled version was just so-so. I expected the 'salts' to bring the hops out more but I'm wondering if I should lay off adding these until I can tell for sure if that's the case.

Screwy, madbrewer or anyone else, please chime in with your thoughts, questions, conspiracy theories or my lack of mental acuity. Clearly I'm obsessed and need to chill out but my mind is continually playing back everything I've done differently in these batches. Maybe in the long run, these will be awesome.......maybe not.

[BigPapaG]

Out of curiosity, how much of each did you add for each batch?

(Not that I would even know if it was too much or too little either, just curious...)

[mashani]

Maybe the water company lies?

[Beer-lord]

Out of curiosity, how much of each did you add for each batch?

(Not that I would even know if it was too much or too little either, just curious...)

The amounts differed a bit from one to the other but the Mosaic had 1 gram each of gypsum and calcium and 1.5 grams of epsom and the coconut had 2 grams of each.

mash----the guy in charge of the water board is a homebrewer and a member of the local brew club and I really have no reason to doubt him. I'm new in the club and haven't had time to talk to members about it but he's given out info to members many times in the past and supposedly spoken at a meeting last year to discuss water and discuss members experiences.

[Gymrat]

We had a guy talking about adjusting water at our home brew club meeting last night. He said when you add something like gypsum you do fix one thing but you are adding another. So you really have to understand what each thing you do brings to the table completely before trying it. By the time he got done talking I decided I am happy with my beer using straight tap water so I aint gonna mess with it.

[Beer-lord]

I hear ya and I think I'm going to leave well enough alone until I can get a better understanding of it myself.

[Banjo-guy]

I haven't taken the plunge into adjusting my water. I find the whole subject a little hard to grasp. I've read Palmer's water book twice and am learning the Bru'n Water spreadsheet.
My beers are sort of bland and I'm hoping that adjusting the water will kick me up to a higher level. I'm getting tired of brewing beer and having just it be ok.

[bucknut]

You may want to have your tap water tested just to see if there any changes happening in the water from the source to your tap, the age and condition of those lines may be causing an issue for you. Maybe brew a beer that you've brewed before making water adjustments and see if you can better tell if you need the added minerals. I've used ez-water for a couple years now and I've also had my tap water tested a couple times by Ward labs and can say without any doubt that my ipa's have improved, so I'd say to hang in there and give it some time.

Here is an example of what I did for my last beer I brewed, it was 2.75 gals of a PTE clone. It's been in the keg for about 5 days now and it tasted great when I kegged it, lots of aroma and hop flavor.

My water: Ca - 10, Mg - 2, Na - 12, Cl - 11, SO4 - 18, CaCo3 - 18, PH - 7.7

Salts added: gypsum - 6gm, epsom salts - 2gm, calcium chloride - 2gm, lactic acid - 1ml

[Beer-lord]

Here's what I have and it's pretty current. They test regularly and I was told this doesn't change all that much to my house though they are willing to come test if I want. Maybe I will.
He did say it does change from summer to winter a bit and he will send me test reports anytime I ask for them. Mine info is in the blue column.

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[gwcr]

I haven't gotten too deep in the adjusting water, but here is what I do to mine. My water has relatively high levels of Chlorine/Chloramine so I use 1 Campden tablet for 10 gallons of water. I dissolve it in prior to any heating and the results are pretty amazing. If I have my face over the pot prior to adding the tablet, it has a distinct swimming pool smell (although lighter). Almost immediately after the Campden tablet is stirred in the chlorine smell is gone.

Our water is also softened at the plant, so I add in 1-2 tsp of gypsum, but only for my APA. Everything else I just do the Campden and have been very happy with the results.

I'd like to dig deeper into water adjustments at some point, but for now I'm still trying to keep it simple.

[Kealia]

Paul, you haven't brewed with Mosaic before have you? If not, you don't have a baseline to compare how well it 'hop pops'. And I know the Coconut isn't ready to drink yet so it may be too early to tell on that one. Even so, it's a different recipe so you won't have a true A-B test to compare.

I think you'd be wise to either:
1) Re-brew a tried and true recipe changing only the water
2) Do a split batch (although this really means brewing two separate smaller batches) to compare side by side

[Beer-lord]

Yes, the RCE APA I did with myhorselikesbeer had Mosaic as a late addition and a dry hop. It's one of the things he and I did differently (besides the yeast) and there was a noticeable difference but I liked his better than mine but a big HOWEVER is that when it got to 3 months old, it was wonderful and I couldn't believe it was a homebrew.
I did one other beer that I can't recall with Mosaic just as a dry hop with Cascade and Simcoe and I can't say I noticed it but there was only 1 oz of Mosaic.
I really think the Mosaic will come in to its glory in a few weeks. If and when it does, I'll let you know.

As I get to know the guys in the brew club who live in my area, I'll learn more about making water adjustments. A big part of my problem is that I'm making comments about tastings waaaaaayyyyy too early which is something I shouldn't really do. The more I brew, the more impatient I get.

[Beer-lord]

I'm 4 beers into treating my water. All were IPA's either heavy on the hops are mild. And every single one of them has less hop taste and aroma than when I used nothing. So, my next 2 batches I'm adding nothing to the water as I have for ages.
My hops are not old enough to be the problem and they are all in vacuum packed bags that I repack after use.
I've done nothing different at all to cause this and thought this was a mistake the very first beer but I kept going. So, to prove it, it stops now and for the next few batches then I can get a consensus on how it effects my beers.

[mashani]

Do you store the hops in the freezer? If not, might want to try that too.

[Beer-lord]

Most definitely! All my hops are resealed in vacuum packs and put in the freezer.
In the past, before I used water treatments, I had used some hops that were 8 plus months old with no or little loss of flavor and aroma. My last beer had fresh hops (unless they came from the supplier stale).