well finally getting to try different beer styles in my brewing. This will be my third Porter style beer, the first Choc Coffee Porter was well received by my small circle of happy consumers. The second batch I decided to change to a "London Porter " type water profile in BS, and there were some pretty heavy (to me and my limited experience) of salts added. This batch received a …“its pretty good but leaves some type of aftertaste …” from the crowd . the only thing I changed was the water profile.
So now I want to brew a “Baltic Bliss” recipe I came across in one of the mags (adds some baking molasses to the mix), But I want to use a water profile that is safe/ neutral if that makes sense.
Curious if anyone has any water suggestions for this beefy porter style. My base water is RO. I can always go back and use the water profile from Batch #1 I guess.
Thanks !
Tom
You WILL want to use some form of alkalinity… Baking soda? Dark malt is acidic… just like coffee is… Your water needs more buffering to deal with the extra acid…
Then to help the malt, BS has you upping the CL( chloride )? Sure it does…
I don’t know anything about these programs, so perhaps what Im laying down, BS has it all covered?
Sneezles61
Thanks Sneezles,
For the last batch that had the “aftertaste”:
5.25 g batch
11 Lb 2 Row Pale Malt
1 lb Caramel 40L
1 lb Munich 20L
8 oz Black Patent (500 SRM)
8 oz Choc Malt (350 SRM)
Hops: .8 oz Columbus 14% Alpha @ 60 min
2 oz of Cascade @ 15 min
Wyeast 1056 (made starter on stir plate with RO water)
Water : RO base , then matched to "Porter " water profile in BS
Salts to Mash: (approx 5 gal Mash water volume)
7.73 g Calcium Chloride
6.93 g Salt
3.61 g Gypsum
2,27 g chalk (will be eliminating this from future profiles based on what I have read about it)
2 g epsom salt
added 5 ml lactic acid to mash water
to the Boil water: (approx 7.75-8 gal starting boil)
2.63 g Calcium Chloride
2.36 g salt
1.23 g Gypsum
1 g Chalk
1 g epsom salt
mash temp 156 deg f
I checked the Ph with a freshly calibrated meter and read 5.16 @15 min into the mash.
Seemed to hit the gravity targets predicted as well.
Maybe I will try to plug these salts into another calculator and see what comes up. Could be the traditional Porter water profile just imparted a taste as experienced and that was the way it was back then. It doesn’t bother me personally but I can sense the difference.
I used no calcium chloride in the first batch and about half the salt. No baking soda in the “aftertaste batch”, and about 5g in the previous batch. Looking at the previous, no aftertaste recipe I used the “London” water Profile in BS.
I guess I will use the London profile again for this Baltic Porter and see how it comes out. Now that I have retired I have no excuse (other than mental abilities) to not dive into the water topic to figure it out.
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The salt seems very high… but then what do I know… Chalk seems to be a bugger to get to mix in…
What if you take the salts and throttle them back to 3/4 of their listed amounts?
I look at the very dark malt… contribute to some degree of harsh accent…
I like your thinking… Palmers book is way deep… but after about the 100th time through, its making a bit of sense…
I think back in the extract piece he does delve into water… its more of a basic idea to grasp… RDWHAHB!
Sneezles61
Yes its time to read the book again. I need like a week long class in brewing water…
Do you have your water report?
I’ve been through my book now book marking the charts… one in chapter 8, a couple in chapter 21… Then read how he’s adjusting in chapter 22… Just read a bit… have a brew and look at your report… Paper and pencil…
I’m trying my best to get the "ppm’ part down… as most reports are for the liter… then to understand how to get to the gram to the gallon… Thats my stumbling part now…
Sneezles61
I start with RO as a base as my town water can come from “one or more of 5 sources “ depending on time of year, supply etc. I did send a sample of that along with an RO sample (just to be sure) to ward labs. So I have those reports I can use for a learning reference.
Well, RO explains a bit more…
Well, I didn’t read ALL that you posted… I’m sorry for that…
I will think that building up with salts takes a bit more finesse to figure out what YOU like… Like cooking, not all peeps like that much cayenne pepper… scenario…
Alkalinity… especially for a dark brew…
Sneezles61
Well my Burton ale u used the profile for the Burton on Trent water profile and I also found it to be to much mineral taste. I don’t use beer Smith but I’ve been using the balanced profile on brewer’s friend. They have a balanced malty and a balanced hoppy. I just use those now. I was playing with different profiles for awhile and didn’t really make that much difference. I try to keep it simple
Thanks Maybe I will try that. I am usually ok if I stick to the “malty balanced” profile in BS, or a hoppy profile for an ipa. I feel like I cant taste a difference unless for course it produces something I don’t like.
