Maybe I should not fool with adjusting water

[ScrewyBrewer]

I'm interested to see the settings of the EZwatercalculator file you used for the Mosaic batch. In the lower right corner of the sheet it displays the chloride/sulfate ratio which should be lower than 0.77 for enhanced bitterness. I also look at the effective and residual alkalinity levels too. Anyhow if you care to share the settings we could dive in a little deeper.....keeping in mind I start out with RO water and rebuild the water profile, for me it eliminates the guess work when trying to decipher water reports.

[Beer-lord]

Mosaic.xls

(88 KiB) Downloaded 67 times

Thanks Vince. I fully admit 100% ignorance in what I'm doing, water wise. First, if using water salts, should I still use 5.2 Stabilizer? I have.
Next, I'm not sure what numbers I should be looking at in this spreadsheet...but have read to follow the numbers in step 5. So, if I use 5.2 stabilizer and it brings my ph down to the levels needed, how do I show that in this calculator?

Mosaic.xls

(88 KiB) Downloaded 67 times

[ScrewyBrewer]

I wouldn't use the 5.2 stabilizer simply because I read in too many places it's all smoke and marketing mirrors, but mainly because I have no idea whats in it. Lowering pH can be done using aciduated malt or like I do using 88% lactic acid. pH is half the picture though it does nothing to increase or decrease alkalinity, or the ability of the water to resist changes made by acids or base additions. If you're IPAs are lacking 'pop' it seems you need to increase the gypsum additions and back off on the calcium chloride and try to get the chloride/sulfate ratio down around 0.45. Of course my experiences with water adjustments start out with pure RO or distilled water, not knowing what the base water properties are in your case makes an exact answer more challenging.

[Kealia]

FWIW, I would agree on bumping on the gypsum. I'm not sure what to add, but you could also bump up your Sodium ppm. The spreadsheet shows it at 20 with a range of 1-150. Salt/Sodium typically kicks the hop presence a bit. Maybe there is something you can add that brings something else down to allow that number to go up?

Or, I know this may sound crazy, is it possible you are using TOO MUCH hops? With all of the oils and compounds that they add, is it possible that there is just too much going on and your taste buds are getting muddied up?

[Beer-lord]

My hops aroma and flavor has been pretty good with nothing but the stabilizer. When I added the other treatments, even large hop quantities have been muted when I thought they'd be somewhat prominent.
Starting over like I use to brew seems the best bet as a first step so I think I'll try that.
Thanks for the ideas guys!

[joechianti]

I just found this thread. I'm curious to hear of any progress or changes you've made over the past few months.

My approach to brewing water is fairly, but not entirely relaxed. I did a lot of reading and after digesting it all, deleted everything from my memory except a few key conclusions to guide me. I hate to keep too much info stored in my poor head, and once I've made a conclusion from my research, I trust it pretty well.

Anyway, I figured that grains being mashed, and yeast also, prefer lower pH levels as well as some minerals. I also hate chlorine, chloramine and nitrates in my drinking water, and therefore in my brewing water, just because. I tested my own water, which I'm used to doing anyway for my aquariums. It was high in chlorine, chloramine, and nitrates. It was very soft and very alkaline. I also tested the filtered water from my fridge door and from a PUR filter pitcher. Both of those got rid of the nitrates and chlorine, but not the chloramine. The PUR filter oddly enough lowered the pH a bit, while the fridge filter didn't.

I don't want to trade one problem for another by going overboard, and I prefer to introduce anything slowly at first and only add more later if needs be. For one thing, I recall reading that too much gypsum can cause off flavors or a twang, more so in extract brews than grain batches.

So I decided to use the filtered water from fridge door, add 1/2 campden tablet for chloramine, 1/4 teaspoon gypsum for mineralization, and 1/4 teaspoon acid blend to lower pH, for each 2.5 gallon batch. This seems to be working very well so far. I'm getting good utilization when I mash, good fermentations, and good flavor. It doesn't take much, really.

[ScrewyBrewer]

Good job Joe! You found a tweak that's easy enough to do and improved your beer, that's always been a win/win in my book.

[joechianti]

Good job Joe! You found a tweak that's easy enough to do and improved your beer, that's always been a win/win in my book.

Thanks, Vince. I like to try things just to see if they'll work, and it always feels good when they do work. I guess you never know until you try.