Little hinges swing open huge doors…
It’s the little details in brewing beer that can make huge differences in the outcome of your beer…
There are times when mashing temperature is important… there are other times when the right ingredients are more important…
There are times when too much importance is placed on the little details that you miss the big picture…
I just brewed a Southern English Brown ale… you can watch the video here:
The goal is to brew a malty, slightly sweet though not cloying beer with hints of dark fruit and chocolate flavors…
To make it so, I used the following recipe
7 lbs English 2-row pale malt
0.5 lbs Crystal 80°L
0.75 lbs Crystal 120°L
0.75 lbs Pale Chocolate
0.5 lbs Special Roast
0.25 lbs English Chocolate
1 oz Kent Golding hops (60 min)
WLP002 English Yeast
RO Water
1/8 tsp Gypsum
1 tsp Calcium Chloride
1/4 tsp sodium bicarbonate (aluminum free)
Mash @158°F
The grains should leave enough dextrins to add to the sweetness and the body creaminess…
The high mash temperature will also add to the residual sugars…
The calcium chloride will make the malt stand out…
The planned low carbonation should also help the maltiness stand out…
It’s at a point where only by tasting the final result I’ll be able to know if bringing out the sweet maltiness was overdone or just right…
Could .25 tsp of calcium chloride make the difference?
Maybe a 0.5 oz of hops?
Hard to tell, but sometimes it’s the little details that make a huge difference in your beer…
2 replies to "Little details of brewing beer make huge differences"
Hey Jorge,
Great videos I love what you have to offer. I sometimes have problems with the final product of my homebrew, where the bitterness is not what I would expect from simple hop additions. I think I have narrowed the problem down to my water. I have hard water, which is high in pH (about 7.5), so I have been cutting my water with spring water. I don’t know how that affects the final product. I have been considering using straight-up RO water with brew salts, but I am uncertain where to begin, what to add, what not to add. To make things as simple as possible, I would like to use RO water in a SMaSh with 11# of Vienna and hop it with Columbus. That’s it. A real simple APA. How would you manipulate the RO water to get a smooth bitterness, instead of a bitterness, followed by a mouth drying bitterness (yes, my beers seem to have 2 types of bitterness)? It’s not my equipment, or temperatures… all that is closely monitored. BTW, this problem really seems to present itself on my IPA’s and APA, where as my Blondes and Stouts don’t impart the same dual bitterness.
Thanks!
Ted
Ted,
Glad you are able to distinguish different types of bitterness. There are many things at play here including type of hops, water, brewing process depending on ingredients… etc.
For water adjustments check out this post and video: https://brewbeeranddrinkit.com/adjusting-your-brewing-water/
For bitterness, there are multiple subjects to understand which I cover in detail in my advanced training program Mash Control