This xBmt was completed by a member of The Brü Club as a part of The Brü Club xBmt Series in collaboration with Brülosophy. While members who choose to participate in this series generally take inspiration from Brülosophy, the bulk of design, writing, and editing is handled by members. Articles featured on Brulosophy.com are selected by The Brü Club leadership prior to being submitted for publication. Visit The Brü Club website for more information on this series.

Author: Scott Mendes

Count to 3.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three…

Is it everything you were expecting? Too bitter? Too sweet? Flavorless? What exactly is that flavor? Is it balanced enough? How’s the mouthfeel? Oh, that aroma! Do I want another? What should I adjust? Is it perfect?

…Mississippi.

This is the amount of time it likely took your brain to decide if that prickly hop and malt flavored water you just took a sip of was good or not. With so many aspects of brewing to focus on, it can become very easy to put something as seemingly unexciting as water chemistry on the back burner. Throw in some math, brewing salts, spreadsheets, ions, ratios, acids, and pH into the mix, and it can all feel overwhelming. Will applying all this extra effort into the beer really make a difference?

I asked myself this question recently while designing a recipe for one of my favorite styles, New England IPA. I began to dissect the style in my head and asked the question— what makes a NEIPA a NEIPA? The grist usually contains pale malt with a decent percentage of flaked adjuncts such as oats or wheat, which are used to add body to the beer, impart a slick mouthfeel, and aid in head retention. The hop choice usually consists of tropical, pungent, heady aromatic varieties. Then there’s yeast, which in the end will create some fruity, beautiful, often opaque happiness in a pint.

If all that isn’t enough, then there’s water chemistry.

A common recommendation when making NEIPA is to use water with a higher ratio of chloride to sulfate, often in the range of 2:1, though sometimes even higher. Unlike sulfate, which is known to accentuate hop bitterness and lend a drying effect to styles like American IPA, chloride allows the malt to come through, providing a fuller, rounder, smoother, and dare I say, juicy experience on the palate.

As someone who loves this style and brews it often, I couldn’t help but wonder if water chemistry really matters, whether the natural flavors from the malt, hops, and yeast really needed a boost from mineral and acid additions. My curiosity got the best of me as I contemplated all the possibilities, so I figured I’d test it out for myself.

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between a NEIPA brewed with treated water and the same beer brewed with untreated distilled water.

| METHODS |

I chose to use this New England IPA recipe of mine because of its delicious and easy drinking design.

Small Talk NEIPA

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 4.7 gal 60 min 53.1 IBUs 3.9 SRM 1.056 1.014 5.5 % Actuals 1.056 1.01 6.1 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pale Malt, 2-Row (Rahr) 3.75 lbs 40.54 Pale Malt, Golden Promise (Thomas Fawcett) 2.5 lbs 27.03 Wheat, Flaked 1.5 lbs 16.22 Carafoam (Weyermann) 12 oz 8.11 Oats, Flaked 12 oz 8.11 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Medusa 42.5 g 30 min Boil Pellet 3.8 Mosaic (HBC 369) 21.3 g 30 min Boil Pellet 12.3 Nugget 14.2 g 15 min Boil Pellet 13 Medusa 42.5 g 0 min Boil Pellet 3.8 Mosaic (HBC 369) 21.3 g 0 min Boil Pellet 12.3 Medusa 71 g 8 days Dry Hop Pellet 4.8 Mosaic (HBC 369) 43 g 8 days Dry Hop Pellet 12.3 Medusa 70 g 4 days Dry Hop Pellet 4.8 Mosaic (HBC 369) 43 g 4 days Dry Hop Pellet 12.3 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature Juice (A38) Imperial Yeast 74% 64°F - 74°F Notes Water Profile - treated: Ca 111 | Mg 5 | Na 8 | SO4 100 | Cl 150

Water Profile - untreated: distilled Download Download this recipe's BeerXML file

The brew day started with the sound of water chugging out of one gallon distilled water containers into my Grainfather. As the Grainfather’s Connect controller beeped with each push of a button to achieve a set temperature, the coffee pot gurgled and filled the kitchen with the smell of freshly brewed java. Today was going to be a good day.

As the water was heating, I moved onto measuring out all brewing salt additions for the treated water batch including gypsum, calcium chloride, epsom salt, table salt, and lactic acid.

The mash water was then given a good stir to get everything thoroughly mixed. The untreated batch was brewed with the very same grains but received no brewing salts or lactic acid. The grains were then weighed out and milled for both batches.

Since I only own one Grainfather, the batches were brewed consecutively, starting with the treated water batch.

Both beers were mashed at 151˚F/66˚C. About 15 minutes into each mash, I took samples for pH measurement and found the treated batch hit my target while the untreated batch was slightly higher, predictably.

Following each 60 minute mash, I the grains were removed, a sparge was completed, then I brought the wort to a boil with the help of my HotRod heat stick.

While the wort was heating up, I prepared the hop additions, which I’d measured out the night before.

At the completion of each boil, I transferred the wort through a CFC to sanitized glass carboys.

Refractometer readings showed that the treated and untreated worts ended up with the very same OG.

I let the worts sit next to each other for a bit once in the carboys, at which point they looked identical to one another.

My yeast of choice was Imperial Yeast A38 Juice. I had heard nothing but good things about this strain and decided the experiment was as good of a time as ever to give it a try. Each batch received a single pouch directly pitched into the wort.

I saw signs of fermentation within 12 hours of the yeast being pitched and by day 3, the headspace in each carboy was filled with kräusen. At this point, I observed the treated water batch as being slightly more vigorous, at least by the amount of activity coming through the blowoff tube. Each batch was dry hopped on days 4 and 8 of fermentation.

Hydrometer readings showed the treated water batch ended with a final gravity of 1.010, while the untreated water batch finished at 1.007.

On day 10, the beers were cold crashed for 24 hours before being transferred to CO2 purged kegs and placed in my keezer.

I burst carbonated at 40 psi for 24 hours then reduced the pressure to 12 psi for 6 days of conditioning before the beers were ready to serve to participants.

| RESULTS |

A total of 16 people of varying levels of experience participated in this xBmt. Each participant was served 2 samples of the treated water beer and 1 sample of the untreated water beer in different colored opaque cups then asked to identify the unique sample. At this sample size, 9 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to identify the unique sample in order to reach statistical significance, though only 4 (p=0.83) made the accurate selection, indicating participants in this xBmt were unable to reliably distinguish a New England IPA treated to achieve a targeted water profile from one brewed with straight untreated distilled water.

My Impressions: My wife served me 4 blind triangle tests, and while the differences weren’t blatantly clear to me at first, I ended up picking the unique sample 3 times. In each case, I had to go back and forth between each sample multiple times before making my decision. I perceived the beer made with untreated water as brighter and more aromatic with a slight alcohol flavor and a touch more bitterness, while the treated water batch came across as rounder, smoother on the palate, and overall easier to drink. The downside of the treated batch was it seemed to lack the stronger aroma and flavor I picked up in the untreated batch.

| DISCUSSION |

Preference is a weird thing. When it comes to homebrewing, I view preference as being formed from comparison, familiarity, and/or experimentation. It can be as simple as comparing two finished beers and choosing your favorite. Maybe you liked the results of using a certain base malt so you never considered using something different. Perhaps every brew day is an opportunity for you to test out new methods and ingredients to dial in your process and get weird.

When it comes to brewing New England IPA, I have definitely developed preferences for certain malts, yeasts, and hops over time. I experimented with several different water chemistry profiles that led me to the conclusion that the 150 ppm chloride to 100 ppm sulfate tasted the best to me. I don’t know if it’s possible to have chloride sensitivity, but anytime I used a 2:1 ratio, I felt the beer lacked something, and the mouthfeel felt gritty, chalk-like. For a style that emphasizes hop aromatics, low bitterness, and tropical juice like flavors, I can’t help but wonder if the higher chloride is actually muting those desirable characteristics, hence the reason brewers tend to use such crazy amounts of dry hops, a tactic to achieve aroma while maintaining a full juice-like body.

While I definitely believe water chemistry brings something to the table, the fact tasters in this experiment couldn’t tell apart a NEIPA made with treated water from one made with untreated distilled water has me questioning its necessity. Both beers achieved a decent mash pH, had great aroma, and the flavors weren’t lacking. One observable difference between the beers is that the one made with treated water finished at 1.010 FG for an apparent attenuation of 81% while the one made with untreated water finished at 1.007 FG for an apparent attenuation of 87%, resulting in a nearly 1% difference in ABV. I’m not certain what actually caused this, but I thought it was surprising tasters were unable to select the unique sample in the triangle test based on the disparity in alcohol content alone.

This experiment has caused me to rethink my ideal NEIPA water profile. The brightness in aroma and flavor I perceived from the batch made with untreated water has stuck with me and made me question if my NEIPAs have been lacking in this area. Maybe dialing back on the chloride and pairing it in equal ratio with sulfate will help boost aromatics and flavor while still maintaining a silky smooth mouthfeel. Who knew this homebrewing thing would be such a slippery slope of questions and experiments with so few concrete answers?

| About The Author |

Scott is a homebrewer from New Bedford, MA who is passionate about learning, brewing, and discovering styles he’s never heard of before. His obsession with homebrewing began in June 2017 and somehow he has managed to not only remain married, but he’s also a great dad. While his favorite style of beer to drink and brew is the all divisive New England IPA, he’s in fact a lover of all things IPA, Pilsner, and Stout. In hopes of refining his brewing process, he’s always in search of new ingredients, equipment, and methods to put to the test.

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