Beer Forum

Between AJ DeLange's discussions on tech-talk, and Dan Gordon's interview, I've got a question for those 10th level water wizards:

What is the flavor difference in a beer between using calcium to acidify a malt and acid?

Water pHing, as I learned it, was taught that you use Ca and Mg buffer the pH to more acidic levels, and carbonate to get a more alkaline pH. Dan Gordon said it's more traditional for Munich style beers to start with a very high carbonate, hard water, and to lower it with acid, and that he prefers the flavor this produces. I'm from the east coast, but when I was out on Cali last year I didn't remember any of the GB beers having a significant lactic flavor. So I ask, what is the difference in flavor profiles in wort acidified with Calcium or Acid, provided they reach the same pH and don't have any sort of significant tartness.

If you are referring to AHA's "Tech-talk" I stopped posting there a couple years ago when I noticed they were editing my stuff, sometimes inducing errors but that's beside the point. I do not tolerate editing unless I am given the opportunity to see the edit and know something about the editor. Charlie Bamforth gets to edit my stuff. Some unknown at AHA doesn't. But that's beside the point. What is inportant is that it is since I stopped posting on Tech Talk and before I found this site that I walked into my LHBS and found sauermalz (acidified malt) on his shelf. I had no idea this stuff was available in the US. So I started using it and my life (brewing life, anyway) changed. I now use sauermalz in all lagers and hydrochloric acid in all ales to get the pH correct. The beers have become noticeably better as a result of this. It dawned on me that in doing things this way I was doing what the brewers in, respectively, Germany and England do and, sensitized, started noticing phrases like "acid is added to most mashes" in professional texts.

The other side of the coin is, of course, that if you aren't trying to set mash pH with salts, you will be brewing with softer water. So I took that a step further and started doing all my lagers with RO water with the exception of Bock which is tuned to have the same alkalinity as Munich. In all cases mash pH is set with sauermalz. In the case of the Bock the extra alkalinity just forces you to use more sauermalz so sauermalz flavor is stronger in a Bock than in other lagers but then all the flavors are stronger in a Bock. So what is sauermalz flavor? I can't begin to describe it and if you think the guys that sell the stuff (Wyermann) might have a good description you are wrong. All they have is vague words about "adding complexity" and I can't do any better than that. If you have used so much sauermalz that you taste lactic you have way overshot (unless you are trying for a Berliner Weiße - Weyermann's website has a recipe for one based on the use of sauermalz) and, unless you water is really, really alkaline, your mash pH will be too low.

I didn't hear the Dan Gordon interview but it sounds as if he and I are on the same page. I know the local (VA/MD) GB shops use sauermalz in their brewing.

I'll sumarize by trying to answer your question about flavor differences directly. Beers brewed with soft water and sauermalz for pH control are smoother, more richly malty, have finer bitterness (no sulfate from gypsum addition) are more "complex" (i.e. have that sauermalz character), lager faster and drop brilliantly clear more quickly. Sauermalz = FM.

Sorry, I don't know why I wrote tech-talk, I meant homebrew digest

Dan Gordon doesn't use Sauer Malt per se. However, he brews Reinheitsgebot. If I understood his interview correctly, what he does is "organically" (I don't mean in the sense of organic chemistry) generates lactic acid by doing a sour mash and generating lactic acid that he used to pH his mashes with hard water. I'm going to redownload it and find where he discusses that, in case you're interested. Though I think he had a lot of good things to say.

My water here is fairly neutral, though heavy in chloride. I've found none of my hop-driven beers taste good without additions of gypsum. I put more in for my AIPAs than my bitters or APAs, though that's as far as I've really taken my understanding of water chemistry. I'm interested that you say that neutral water clarifies better, because I have read that you need a minimum amount of calcium for proper flocculation. I've certainly noticed that if I get my Ca up to about 100ppm+ in the mash (about 40ish in the beer probably, evaporation considered), I have certainly had beers that drop the yeast more quickly.

When you say "hard" or "soft" water, I know those as relative terms. How much Ca/Mg is "hard" water?

It's still true that my perspective has changed appreciably since the days when I was posting to HBD a couple of times a week instead of a couple of times per year.

As you know there are basically 2 ways to satisfy Rheinheitsgebot WRT acidifying malt. One is to use sauermalz and the other is to use sauergut which is just a wort that has been innoculated with lactic acid bacteria and held at the kind of temperatures lactos like. Sauermalz is often made by steeping ordinary malt in water and holding it at 47 °C for a couple of days followed by drying (if it doesn't go straight into the mash tun) but it also sometimes made by spraying sauergut onto malt and drying it. Either way it is lactic acid that is doing the job. With sauergut you get malt flavors from whatever they mashed to produce the wort they soured and with sauermalz made in the traditional way you will obviously get the flavors of the malt that was innoculated and fermented. With sauermalz made by spraying sauergut onto malt you would get flavor components from both malts.

The local GB brewer uses sauermalz from Weyermann. There is some debate as to how they actually make it.

WRT to dropping clear faster: my beers have been clarifying more quickly not that I am being scrupulous about mash pH and using soft water. There is no doubt that calcium does some good things for yeast and wort. Were I to supplement calcium I might get even faster clearing but I might lose the lager qualities I'm looking for - that really mellow, soft malt flavor.

I guess when I think soft I think about Pilsen i.e. calcium under 10 mg/L, sulfate, chloride, sodium and sulfate all under 5 mg/L and alkalinity less than say 15 (remembering that distilled water has an alkalinity of about 2.5).

Ok, listened to it. The part I'm speaking of begins at about 2:26:20. It begins as a discussion of having bicarbonate for flavor/mouthfeel in the beer.

Dan says he likes to have hard water because it's important for mouthfeel (Certainly water difference was a big part of the difference between bohemian and bavarian pils), and that he thinks using incredibly neutral water has a lacking mouthfeel. He maintains about 150ppm bicarbonate for his brewing. So I think he's actually saying the opposite of how you feel. That said, it could certainly be a difference in preference.

Which of the shows is this and about what date?

I guess I should have noted that my love is Boh. Pils. I agree that some lagers, with the outstanding example being Export, wouldn't be what they are without the minerals. But those are not the beers I personally prefer and I'm not sure about the consumer. I should also, to be fair, point out that I'm involved in a brewpub that will be opening in a few months and I'm trying to get the head brewer to agree to try some of these soft water techniques because my concern, in this context, is no longer "authenticity" but the desire to sell beer. I like the results better with soft water and many others may not but I want to know how the guy who comes into the establishment feels.

WRT to the high bicarbonate levels of Munich: I keep seeing that they are necessary to the flavor profile of Munich beers but if a mash is brought to pH 5.3 only 6.7% of the bicarbonate remains. The rest converts to CO2 which is driven off by the heat of the tun so I don't quite understand the basis for this claim (which I've seen in more than one place). Perhaps it is the calcium that accompanies the bicarbonate that they are really after. It would lend a bit of an "edge" which some might like (including me - I don't want to drink the same beer all the time) and I do even enjoy and Export from time to time. But as I noted in an earlier post I think it's that the bicarb forces you to use more sauermalz/sauergut to get to the proper pH.

It's almost beer o'clock around here. Think I'll go taste my lagers critically.

ajdelange wrote:Which of the shows is this and about what date?

I guess I should have noted that my love is Boh. Pils. I agree that some lagers, with the outstanding example being Export, wouldn't be what they are without the minerals. But those are not the beers I personally prefer and I'm not sure about the consumer. I should also, to be fair, point out that I'm involved in a brewpub that will be opening in a few months and I'm trying to get the head brewer to agree to try some of these soft water techniques because my concern, in this context, is no longer "authenticity" but the desire to sell beer. I like the results better with soft water and many others may not but I want to know how the guy who comes into the establishment feels.

WRT to the high bicarbonate levels of Munich: I keep seeing that they are necessary to the flavor profile of Munich beers but if a mash is brought to pH 5.3 only 6.7% of the bicarbonate remains. The rest converts to CO2 which is driven off by the heat of the tun so I don't quite understand the basis for this claim (which I've seen in more than one place). Perhaps it is the calcium that accompanies the bicarbonate that they are really after. It would lend a bit of an "edge" which some might like (including me - I don't want to drink the same beer all the time) and I do even enjoy and Export from time to time. But as I noted in an earlier post I think it's that the bicarb forces you to use more sauermalz/sauergut to get to the proper pH.

It's almost beer o'clock around here. Think I'll go taste my lagers critically.

The session that played most recently, GB4 / studio D inauguration 1/31/10

AJ,
Would you mind posting a recipe that you have had success with that used R/O and acidulated malt for a Bo pils? It would be greatly appreciated.