Author: Jake Huolihan

Once I started paying attention to water chemistry and adapting mineral profiles for my homebrew, I quickly became convinced that water is far more important than I’d previously believed and an easy way to improve the quality of my beer. While I’ve made other changes to my brewing process that likely helped as well, nothing seemed to make nearly the difference as adding a few grams of gypsum and calcium chloride to my brewing liquor.

Perhaps the most commonly discussed minerals in brewing, sulfate and chloride are often referred to in terms of their ratio in the brewing liquor, higher amounts of the former producing a crisper beer with a sharper bitterness while greater amounts of the latter are said to lead to a softer bitterness with a more rounded malt character. Indeed, a recent xBmt showed tasters were able to reliably distinguish between beers made with opposite sulfate to chloride ratios, confirming that beliefs held by many, myself included.

As good as this felt, I became curious about the impact actual mineral amount, or what I refer to as mineral load, has on beer when the ratio is held constant. I’ve heard from people I view as brewing water experts that the ratio of sulfate to chloride, so long as overall amounts are reasonable, is what ought to be focused on as it has a greater impact on beer character. If this were in fact true, beers differing only in mineral amount while the ratios are identical could be presumed to taste the same, which is what I tested out for this xBmt!

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the impact mineral load has on two beers of the same recipe and with the same ratio of minerals.

| METHODS |

The beer I made for this xBmt was a slightly tweaked version of my evolving British Bitter recipe.

Bees Knees Bitter

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 5.5 gal 60 min 40.6 IBUs 15.0 SRM 1.052 1.012 5.3 % Actuals 1.052 1.011 5.4 % Fermentables Name Amount % Maris Otter (Crisp) 5 lbs 41.88 Pale Ale Malt (Rahr) 5 lbs 41.88 Oats, Flaked 1 lbs 8.38 Crystal, Medium (Simpsons) 12 oz 6.28 Blackprinz 3 oz 1.57 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Magnum 13 g 60 min Boil Pellet 12.5 Citra 13 g 30 min Boil Pellet 13.4 Citra 13 g 5 min Boil Pellet 13.4 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature English Special Bitter (1768) Wyeast 70% 64°F - 72°F

I prepared a single large starter of Wyeast 1768-PC English Special Bitter a couple days prior to brewing.

The night before brewing, I weighed out the grains for both batches and began collect the RO water.

Using the Bru’n Water Spreadsheet early the next morning, I determined the amounts of gypsum and calcium chloride I would need to bring each full volume batch of water to their respective profiles, both the high and low load batches maintaining the same 1:2 chloride to sulfate ratio.

Ca Mg Na SO4 Cl Cl/SO4 High Load 138 0 8 200 100 0.50 Low Load 35 0 8 51 27 0.53

The high load batch ended up receiving 15 grams more of the combined minerals than the low load water, which I had to dose with 4 mL of lactic acid in order to ensure both batches had the same mash pH.

I turned the element for my new custom eBIAB system on and began recirculating the water in order to quickly bring it to strike temperature, delaying the start of the second mash by 20 minutes. As the water was heating, I milled the grains.

Once strike temperature was reached on either batch, I gently mixed in the grains before checking to make sure I’d hit my intended mash temperature.

Both mashes was recirculated for a 60 minute saccharification rest.

A the end of each mash, I removed the bag of spent grains, cranked the element up to, and let the wort boil for 60 minutes, adding hops at the times noted in the recipe.

Following the boil, each wort was quickly chilled to slightly warmer than my groundwater temperature.

Equal amounts of wort from each batch were racked into identical fermentors and placed in my fermentation chamber to continue chilling to my target pitching temperature. Hydrometer measurements at this point revealed the high load wort to have an ever-so-slightly lower OG than the low load batch, nothing too disconcerting though.

Once both worts had stabilized at 64°F/18°C, I evenly split the decanted yeast starter between them then hit each with 90 seconds of pure O2 each. When I check on them 12 hours later, both were fermenting away.

With fermentation activity dwindling at 3 days post-pitch, I began nudging the temperature in the chamber up in order to encourage complete attenuation and clean-up of any undesirable flavors. After a few days in the warmer chamber, I took an initial hydrometer measurement that matched one taken a couple days later, indicating fermentation was complete.

I let the beers sit a few more days before proceeding with cold crashing, fining with gelatin, and kegging.

The filled kegs were placed in my cold keezer where they were briefly burst carbonated before being set to serving pressure. When I began collecting data the following week, both beers were equally clear and carbonated!

| RESULTS |

A panel of 22 Parker Hopaholics Homebrew Club members with varying levels of experience participated in this xBmt. Each taster, blind to the variable being investigated, was served 2 samples of the high mineral load beer and 1 sample of the low mineral load beer in different colored opaque cups then instructed to select the unique sample. While 12 correct selections would have been required to achieve statistical significance (p<0.05), only 8 tasters accurately identified the unique sample (p=0.46), indicating participants in this xBmt could not reliably distinguish a beer made with a greater amount of minerals from one made with less when the chloride to sulfate ratios were the same.

My Impressions: I was quite confident I’d be able to identify the odd-beer-out even before sampling, based mostly on my experience with previous water chemistry xBmts. Immediately following his own failed attempt, I had my friend Dave serve me a series of triangle tests where he randomized which beer was the unique sample. As expected, I noticed no difference in aroma, then I took an initial sip… crap, I’m not going to get this… tasting more, I focused intensely on the finish in hopes of identifying a mineral crispness… I’m definitely not getting this right… I guessed and I was wrong. My experience was the same with every attempt, I simply could not pick out any differences between these beers, which thankfully were both fantastic! My best Bitter to date, in fact, which I believe has much to do with the Wyeast 1768-PC yeast– light on the fruity esters, clean, and very drinkable.

| DISCUSSION |

Of the many tweaks brewers can make to improve the quality of their beer, adjusting water chemistry is the one I’ve found to have the biggest impact, to the point the water for every batch I make these days is adjusted to a specific profile. Despite what I’ve heard experts say about the ratio of chloride to sulfate mattering more than the actual amount, it seemed obvious to me that greater overall mineral load would have a noticeable impact on the flavor of beer. Hence my surprise when participants from this xBmt were unable to reliably distinguish a high mineral load beer from one made with a smaller load, which supports the notion that the ratio of chloride to sulfate is perhaps where our focus should be.

As someone who makes my own RO water for brewing then adjusts it to my desired profile, this xBmt has reminded me that trying to match a historical regional water profile may not be the most prudent approach, as it’s possible simply aiming for a similar mineral ratio will suffice. I’m not convinced this is the end of the story, particularly since the primary focus of this xBmt was on moderate levels of chloride and sulfate, though I admittedly plan to focus more on mineral ratios while trying to keep my total dissolved solids (TDS) in the 100-150 ppm range. And lastly, the results of this xBmt seem to suggest that brewers using tap water, assuming it’s free of chlorine or chloramine, can likely reap positive benefit by making minimal adjustments to achieve a specific mineral ratio.

If you have thoughts about this xBmt, please don’t hesitate to share them in the comments section below!

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