Need a Fresh start

My reasons for water treatment on my last brews was mainly because of a wild goose chase....

I've already decided that my next brew will be keeping it simple and not mess with things I don't understand... SMaSH and leave water as it is.
 
I think the wild goose chase to water treatment is a bad idea. If you don’t know what you want, how would you know if you got there?
 
It might have been a bad idea...an idea out of a mix of desperation and curiosity, haven't been able to taste the result yet. Of course I know what I want, a great tasting beer :) But anyhow... no more treatment, at least for a couple of brews. If these turns out well, no one would be happier than me :) but still, even if....I probably wouldn't be able to keep my fingers away from trying a bit of this and that when it comes to adjustment :rolleyes:;)
 
I get better beers from treating our water. Lots of the treatment out there assumes a start from RO water and that everyone's a super-taster and can tell the difference when you manipulate the chloride-sulfate ratio. I start from a variable municipal water source that's treated with chlorine. Let's see, job one is dechlorinate. If I do nothing else, I have to do that. Job 2 is making sure I have enough calcium. Mash and yeast need it, so the water should have at least 50 ppm. We are starting with 36 ppm on average here. So I need to add at least 14 ppm, which I'll likely add in the next step, controlling residual alkalinity. I have to add it as a salt and I prefer malty to hoppy, even when brewing very hoppy beers my go-to is calcium chloride. Then I work on the residual alkalinity to predict my mash pH. A mash at pH 5.4 clarifies better, converts better and makes a better beer. Again, my go-to is calcium chloride for that, simply because I like malty. If necessary, I'll add some lactic acid to bring the pH down to within a half a point of 5.4. I batch sparge so I don't bother acidifying the sparge water - it's nearly impossible to over-sparge when batch sparging. The final treatment with salts comes at bottling. I add a touch of table salt with my priming sugar to punch up the malt a bit more.

That's Nosy's quick-and-dirty water primer. The only mandatory step is dechlorination. Otherwise, as mentioned earlier, people have been adjusting recipes to water for centuries. Got hard water, brew dark beers. Our water lends itself to ambers and browns so I see a lot of them here. Very soft water lends itself to fizzy yellow beer but you can brew any with any water source, armed with knowledge and a few vials of salts and acids.
 
I've never had my water tested nor do I do treatments. Well, I do use 1 campden tablet for dechlorination. Other than that, nothing.
 
I have to raise my calcium allot and change 2 salts mostly depending if its a malty or hoppy beer, if you have your beer brewing water report, its really easy in the advanced calculator to change to any beer you want, I fill it out on every brew and write the salts and acid amounts on my brew sheet that I print out
 
I was told to add 1/2 tsp. of gypsum to my kettle. Maybe a little salt...(which i'll skip)
Funny, been drinking my beer and it's a little better. Seems as though i need to glug it out and get the biggest head i can. Then just let it settle down. Rinse and repeat until glass is full. I might be embarrassed to share it but i'll drink it.
Also i go to the local water store and get purified water. There is a not to local spring that i could get water from and might at a later date just to have some fun.
Local shop doesn't brew until it warms up a little. Maybe next month i can go and watch. Won't learn much but how to BIAB. Really hoping to meet others and try some home brew. Need to find something i like that i can imitate.
 
I was told to add 1/2 tsp. of gypsum to my kettle. Maybe a little salt...(which i'll skip)
Funny, been drinking my beer and it's a little better. Seems as though i need to glug it out and get the biggest head i can. Then just let it settle down. Rinse and repeat until glass is full. I might be embarrassed to share it but i'll drink it.
Also i go to the local water store and get purified water. There is a not to local spring that i could get water from and might at a later date just to have some fun.
Local shop doesn't brew until it warms up a little. Maybe next month i can go and watch. Won't learn much but how to BIAB. Really hoping to meet others and try some home brew. Need to find something i like that i can imitate.
Keep at it, you'll crack this nut eventually
 
Compared to my motorbike this hobby is practically free.
 
So Saturday's brewfest seemed to go very well. Directions said to Whirlpool which i don't have a way to do at the moment. Then when i was aerating in the fermentor i stopped because i had to get the yeast out and for some reason i sanitized it and cut open before going back to finish aerating. Everything else went as planned and beer is fermenting like crazy at an ambient temp of 68 deg.
Knowing that i am NOT going to rack to secondary but will go straight to bottles AND i want this beer done as quickly as possible, how long should i wait to bottle? I was thinking 2-3 weeks. I also have 2 oz. of hops to add. Consensus says about 4 days before bottling?

*side note-went and bought my water. My guy said that this is as pure as you can get. Meaning no minerals detectable pretty much. I added 1/2 tsp of gypsum to 6 gallons in the kettle. Do i need to figure out what else to add to the water?
 
Let one sit out and go flat, see if the carbonation is hiding some of your flavors
 

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