From Grain to Glass: Water Chemistry

I believe its fair for me to call myself an intermediate home brewer. I got hooked on brewing beer at home when my brother bought me a Mr. Beer kit one Christmas. I loved the fact that I was able to make drinkable beer with minimal effort. I realized that I wasn't actually getting the tactile brewing experience that I really wanted and quickly jumped to an all grain brew in a bag setup (that I currently use now). As I learn more and more about the science of beermaking, I occasionally have an epiphany moment when things really seem to click. This week, I'd like to talk about some cool water chemistry additives that can really ramp up the flavour profile of your home brewing.

First off is 5.2 pH Stabilizer. When I landed in All Grain country, Toronto tap water started to negatively impact my beer in a noticeable way. It took me a little while to figure this one out but I discovered fatal flaws in my home setup. First off, I was really trying to save time and cut a corner by doing my grain crush in a magic bullet. Let's be serious, how much time do you end up wasting crushing all your grains with a rolling pin? The result was that my beers were coming out quite astringent and lightly tart. I was able to compensate by being a bit more gentle in my magic bullet and adding a teaspoon of 5.2 pH Stabilizer. This helped to a degree, but there was still an astringent flavour poking its head through due to the over milling of my grains; which resulted in a plethora of tannins getting into the mash. Solution, mill grains properly into a nice crush and add some 5.2 to the mash to lock the water at a good profile. If you simply cannot afford a grain mill, take my advice and spend the time to either crush your grains with a rolling pin or pay to have it milled at the supply shop.

Next, we can talk about Campden Tablets. These wonderful little guys are lifesavers when it comes to keeping a consistent flavour in your beer. Just half of a single campden tablet added to 5 gallons of wort will kill bacteria, prevent oxidation and even prevent wild yeasts from setting up shop. Oxidation, if you've never tasted it, is a terrible cardboard-like taste that can make any good beer taste like the bottom of a dumpster. Oxidation can be caused by several things like splashing green beer. Any stage that you transfer the wort or green beer (eg. racking to secondary, bottling, etc.) is an ideal opportunity for light splashing to introduce oxidation. I typically add a campden tablet to my water before mashing in and occasionally to a bit of dissolved water before racking to the secondary for lighter ABV beers for consistancy. Killing wild yeast is very important because it allows our brewers yeast to eat up all the available sugars so they don't go to waste on some random wild yeast floating in the air. Wild yeasts can leave an entire host of bad off-flavours so its important to keep them under control.

Whirlfloc Tablets are also a great thing to have in your brewing toolkit. These nickel sized tablets are an excellent late additive to help with reducing chill haze and clarity. This is an essential additive to toss into any beer that desires a high level of clarity (Blondes, Pale Ale, Helles, etc.) but not really required for beers like Hefeweizens or Stouts as they will strip the style essential cloudiness.

Hope you enjoyed my two cents on water chemistry. If you have any comments on my perspective, please feel free to write them below.

Support your local brewery,

Chris

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