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Well said!
Much easier to get good results with bottles.
Much easier to get good results with bottles.
There is a difference between good beer and next level though. Yea you can make good beer with no water treatment but as I have found the alkalinity of my water means I cannot get anywhere near the mash ph range without treatment and when you do it does make a difference.Just to add my tuppence, I don't think water treatment is going to help here. Nearly all UK drinking water will make good beer without treatment. Water treatment then might take that beer from good to excellent. It won't make bad beer good.
The difficulty here is that without tasting your beer, it's very difficult to diagnose the issue - we are all guessing. The quickest way to resolve that would be to get in touch with Manchester Homebrew group and take your beer to one of their meetings. They'll be able to tell you instantly what's up and the best things to do to fix it.
They meet on the 3rd Sunday of the month at Cafe Beermoth. If you want to contact them they currently look most active on twitter (https://twitter.com/mancshomebrew), but I can probably find an email address if needed.
Yeast most used is dry US-05 or S-04
Calcium chloride , I add to hopefully accentuate the hop's attributes as it is suggested it does.
The mash ph at 4.5 to 5 is not for one brew , it's the range I've encountered over various brews .Sometimes when it's seemed like it may even go lower , early in the mash , a dose of gypsum has been added to try to arrest the drop .
+1 to thisThe difficulty here is that without tasting your beer, it's very difficult to diagnose the issue - we are all guessing. The quickest way to resolve that would be to get in touch with Manchester Homebrew group and take your beer to one of their meetings. They'll be able to tell you instantly what's up and the best things to do to fix it.
They meet on the 3rd Sunday of the month at Cafe Beermoth. If you want to contact them they currently look most active on twitter (https://twitter.com/mancshomebrew), but I can probably find an email address if needed.
I tend to agree, my beers do tend to loose hop flavors within a couple of weeks compared to commercial craft beer. Couple of suggestions, for a 23L batch I’m using 300-400g of hops, assuming it’s 300g in total I put 100g in with 5mins left on the boil, let the temperature drop to 80°c then add 100g for a 20min hop stand. Let the fermentation run for two weeks adding 100g dry hops with 3-4 days before packaging. It does give a hoppy beer. There’s something odd about your final gravity, you should be down to 1.010 - 1.014 with US05 and S04, are you adding any maltodextrin or something like that?. Given that you clearly know your onions, that’s a bit of a mystery. Perhaps you need to use 2 sachets of yeast, It won’t hurt to try two packs of yeast, I’d try that and do your hops differently. Craft brewers will be adding approximately 15-20g hops per liter for hoppy beers. All the best.Here goes....
sorry for the delay in getting back to y'all , had to bail out yesterday as the bell was tolling time to up sticks and off to the dialysis clinic. A part time job with lousy pay Firstly , my hygiene regimen is ; everything except Braumeiester cleaned with warm watter and VWP. Rinsed well , then a good wash with StarSan on the end of brewday The Brauie is given a good thrashing with PBW and rinsed . Rinsed again on brewday.. . On the day of the brew, same aain , the StarSan is repeated immediately prior to run off to fermenter or keg. Never yet had any off flavours of any description , either bug-related or otherwise. No hygiene-no beer , right ?
Yeast most used is dry US-05 or S-04 , I have tried various liquid yeasts and found them no better than dried. Tried Manrove Jack M-44, but found it a very slow starter for some reason . The S-04 , having been rehydrated like all my other dried yeast for a few hours- start of brewing to pitch time- kept in a warm , sanitised jug somewhere about 21 degrees and covered . I use one sachet per 23L brew.
Temperature control is as accurate as amateur equipment allows , the Brauie takes care of mash/boil . Fermenting is in a converted fridge,with both fermenters and kegs having thermowells with a probe from my control unit, forget the number of it, widely used similar to Inkbird but cheaper. Just checked...STC 1000.
The variations in mash and ferment temps are not from one brew , that would be sloppy, even for me . rather they are what I've tried on various brews. My hydrometer is a pretty standard one from LHBS , and when checked with distilled water at 20C was bang on 1.000 .
What seems to happen is that the gravity hangs around the '20's , showing no sign of dropping as suggested by Beersmith , which is my software of choice. I keep notes on brewsheets , trouble is there are many notes scribbled on there which appear indecipherable later. My teachers were right about my handwriting after all . Who'da thunk , eh ?
Calcium chloride , I add to hopefully accentuate the hop's attributes as it is suggested it does. The low quantity added is because I don't want to overdo it , but it's use up to now is somewhat moot, because many - most , even - brews have been without it , and I can discern no difference with it's use if I'm honest .
The mash ph at 4.5 to 5 is not for one brew , it's the range I've encountered over various brews .Sometimes when it's seemed like it may even go lower , early in the mash , a dose of gypsum has been added to try to arrest the drop .
I am aware that Manc water is pretty good to start with , so have even tried with no treatments beyond Campden . Still same , to my jaded palate. Maybe years of Geuuze drinking and suicide hot curry eating has buggered things up a bit.
My beers aren't BAD ,as such , my mates find them more than acceptable . And free .Scroungers , the lot of 'em . But , Twist-like 'I want some more' . So the water will be looked at , but if it's not too radically different from ideal ,I won't meddle with it too much . Maybe best option is to try a known recipe, with a known water profile as best as I can 'hit' it, and see what results. Sounds like a plan , and that scares me.
Just for fun here’s what ChatGPT makes of your conundrum.I am . Kind of . -Ish . Some's been better than others ,it has to be said. I'm about 35 or so brews in , but always feel things could be better , especially when compared to the commercials I drink . Citra , Punk , Hazy Jane , Sam Smith's bitter , but mostly the hoppy stuff. I always seem to end up with very 'thin' tasting beer , not short of IBu's , but lacking the depyh of flavour I crave . Typical brewday sketch along the lines of;
5kg pale,
half K of some kind of Caramalt , ,
maybe a handful of black malt , just to add a bit of colour and use up dregs of what's left .
Occasionally , the Cara is split with aome Pilsner , Lager or whatever on hand as a 'use up' grain.
The mash has varied between an hour and hour and half , once tried about 2 hours.
Boils between an hour and hour and half. I've tried mash temps from 64 degrees to 68 degrees , and all manner of rests in between .
Most hop additions are what you may term 'late' , but usually some bittering added near the start of boil .Dry hopping is usually done after a couple of weeks , when in secondary. Fave hops being Citra , Amarillo , and needless to say all the 'C' varieties. Whilst still fermenting, the hop aroma is all there , and often the beer tastes damn good when swigging the hydrometer samples. But it's still a ways to go in gravity, It seems the more it ages ,the 'thinner' it gets. When kegging, it's already gone past the stage I consider it's best , flavour-wise , and gravity is still maybe 1.022 or thereabouts. I use Hambleton Bard pressure barrels, as I have heaps of 'em , and 2 will fit in my 'Ferment-O-Fridge' . I have had better results with recipe kits from Brew UK. , but it seems they've gone ****-up , which is a shame , as I always had great service from them .
I usually go to secondry when the Krausen has subsided mostly , maybe around a week or so. I ferment at various temps between 18C and 21C.
Has anyone any ideas where I might adjust my , er , I hesitate to call it technique' , but for want of a better yerm that will have to suffice.
Yep,I tend to agree, my beers do tend to loose hop flavors within a couple of weeks compared to commercial craft beer. Couple of suggestions, for a 23L batch I’m using 300-400g of hops, assuming it’s 300g in total I put 100g in with 5mins left on the boil, let the temperature drop to 80°c then add 100g for a 20min hop stand. Let the fermentation run for two weeks adding 100g dry hops with 3-4 days before packaging. It does give a hoppy beer. There’s something odd about your final gravity, you should be down to 1.010 - 1.014 with US05 and S04, are you adding any maltodextrin or something like that?. Given that you clearly know your onions, that’s a bit of a mystery. Perhaps you need to use 2 sachets of yeast, It won’t hurt to try two packs of yeast, I’d try that and do your hops differently. Craft brewers will be adding approximately 15-20g hops per liter for hoppy beers. All the best.
Yep,
I tend to use plenty of hops , 300g and up . The bulk of which are at flameout and given a hopstand at around 80 derees .75 to 100 g for the dry hopping, but that has been in secondary ,so therefore maybe a bit late . Hop aroma does vanish , sooner rather than later , maybe bottling might be better in this regard , but I got rid of my bottling kit when I made the decision to use the pb's exclusively.
When hop aroma vanishes quickly (and entirely) I'd normally look at oxidation first of all.
Pressure barrels are normally ok in this regard, with two exceptions:
1. Not filling them up fully. You don't want them full to the brim, but generally fuller is better, because any space left in the barrel will be ambient air that can oxidise away those lovely hop flavours and aroma.
2. Trying to pour without enough pressure in the barrel. When you pour a beer if and you don't have enough pressure to push the beer out then you'll hear a glug as air enters the barrel through the tap. This will again cause oxidation.
One other thing you might want to try is to dry hop in the keg itself. You'll need to put them in a bag, but I was blown away when a novice brewer friend of mine made a Ghost Ship clone and got lots of lovely hop aroma by doing this with just 30g of pellets in a muslin bag in a pressure barrel.
Having read this thread I’m wondering if “thin” means something other than not having body. If the beer really is watery you may be able to improve this by mashing at a higher temperature, say 70C and/or using a lower attenuation yeast.
Low alcohol can make beer seem a bit thin too although 5Kg malt in a 23 litre batch should be ok. What is your original gravity?
A pH of 5 is just about ok but 4.5 is a bit low and may inhibit the enzymes in the mash. Aim for a mash pH of 5.2-5.4 in your recipe.
How is the head on your beer? A poor head and low head retention can give the impression of a thinner beer, particularly if the beer is crystal clear and lighter in colour. If the head isn’t good then try adding a little wheat into your grist (for about 5Kg of grist maybe add 100-200g torrified wheat).
Having little mineral content can also make the beer a bit boring, maybe consider adding more salts. Looking at @Sadfield ’s post you could treble or even quadruple those numbers. Also, as @Galena said Calcium Chloride accentuates malt and sweet, Calcium sulphate accentuates bitter and dry allowing the hops to show through more, and adding Calcium in any form might lower pH more.
If by thin you’re talking more about the complexity of flavour you can add some additional flavoursome malts like Munich or you can change the hops you’re using but that’s a whole other discussion so I’ll pause here for breath.
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