EdwardL Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Hello all, I've been brewing for a few years and have done brew-on-premise, coopers extract kits, full-wort-in-a-bag kits, extract + specialty grain and all grain batches and every thing has what my wife refers to as "homebrew taste" - thin and slightly acidic tasting. I always thought it was because of the extract but the all grain batches and brew-on-premise batches suffer the same problem. I really don't think its due to infection as I've been boiling all of the water I use and drowning all of my equipment in StarSan. And its not a yeast character as I have done batches with a variety of different yeasts. I live in Vancouver Canada and the water here is essentially distilled (virtually no disolved minerals - less than 4 ppm of Calcium) and I'm starting to think that is the problem. Does anybody brew with distilled water? has anyone every played around with chalk, gypsum or baking soda additions to the water? I purchased a few coopers ipa kits to brew up with different water to try to figure this out. Has anyone else had this problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muddy Waters Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Hi Edward - I haven't had this problem. I brew using tap water in Sydney Australia. I've never had any beers that have the homebrew taste that I always hear about. Maybe I should share my beers more [biggrin] I'm certainly curious to hear what others have to say on the subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johng12 Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Maybe get yourself a ph tester see how acidic or neutral the water is. Then when you determine what scale the water your using is on, then the correct action can be taken. I add calcium sulphate to the water. Although the tap water in Melbourne is fine for brewing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnS12 Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Living on the Sunshine Coast Aust. the water is that bad that when you flush the toilet you can smell the cloride. I use a filter in the kitchen and don't have too many problems. I think you may need to review what you are brewing e.g the amount of sugars or the yeast, if i was lucky anought to live in Canada I would only brew lagers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canadian Eh!L Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 hi edward, over here in Golden i brew with tap water. it is very pure but, quite hard. you might want to look into the pH and hardness of your water. you could probably get an analysis from the city of vancouver. get back to us on that i'm sure you'll get some help on the matter. i wonder how long you let you beer mature. my wife most often wrinkles her nose at green (young) beer claiming it tastes like homebrew. i also wonder how long you've been drinking that vancouver city water? anytime i've been though the city i have to stay away from the tap water. it's terrible tasting stuff![sick] this might be you problem.[devil] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwardL Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 Here is what I got from vancouver's water report: Alkalinity as CaCO3 (mg/L) 3.2 Hardness as CaCO3 (mg/L) 4.14 Calcium Total (mg/L) 1.37 Chloride Total (mg/L) 0.6 Magnesium Total (mg/L) 0.18 Sodium Total (mg/L) 0.6 Sulphate (mg/L) 0.9 pH 6.7 There is virtually nothing in it, essentially distilled water. My friend who works for the city water dept says what you get out of the tap really depends on the pipes in your area (some are really old) Aside from the few times there has been a water advisory, I find the water out of our taps decent (not the worlds best tasting water but nowhere near bad enough that I'd buy bottled water. And my wife can't handle green beer either but I'll drink my actively fermenting gravity sample. Its not an age thing- its always there even in bottles I've aged 6+ months (the longest I've ever been able to hold on to a beer). Its not a yeast issue either as I've tasted it in beers I've fermented using the kit yeast, nottingham dry yeast and liquid wyeast smack packs. Well maybe it is a yeast problem but due to the lack of nutrients like Ca and Mg in the water. And for the record, its not that bad. Still very drinkable beer but it is noticable if you are looking for it and I would love to figure it out. It wasn't until I did an all grain brew and it still had what I used to think was the "extract taste" did i start to obsess over this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matty A Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 It couldn't be the temperature could it. What temperature are you brewing at, it should be around 20C for an Ale yeast and 12C for a Lager yeast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canadian Eh!L Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 maybe it's because home brew costs $.40 a bottle instead of fine store bought brew like budweiser at $1.75.[innocent] [crying] it's a head game[biggrin] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matty A Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 maybe it's because home brew costs $.40 a bottle instead of fine store bought brew like budweiser at $1.75.[innocent] [crying] it's a head game[biggrin] Those prices should be the other way around if it came down to quality and taste. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnS12 Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Maybe try a blind tasting bottle a couple of brews into imported bottles and tell her that you bought them. I know this is not fair but I have done this with some friends that will not touch home brew and the look on their faces when I tell them is worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LazyDave Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 I agree with John, do it do it lol - it has to be done. I have seen this too, people decide that they dont WANT to like it before it's even been poured. All the more for me I say, I don't need a second invition to not offer anymore [bandit] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stewie Rivers Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Hi Guys. I have only tank water filtered through a 5 micron filter and have never had that HomeBrew taste. I have just bottled a OG Draught at 34 degrees C and have no bad smells. As a matter of fact the taste samplepoints to this being my best brew ever. Has a veeery smooth feel like a Puntigamer I tasted in Austria many years ago. I would think it is the sterilizer or residual sterilizer because years ago I used to brew and used Sodium Met which if not cleaned out left THAT taste. I now follow Coopers booklet and use bleach. Good Luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matty A Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Good point, I know that he uses starsan but I wonder what else he is using when he sanitises his fermenter. Maybe dump a cup of non fragrant bleach and then fill the fermenter to the brim with water and let it sit overnight. Rinse it out well and see how it goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canadian Eh!L Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 it's the water, man! according to "The Brewmaster's Bible" by Stephen Syder. good brewing liquor (water) has: carbonate/ bicarbonate (CO3 or HC3) levels no higher than 25-50 mg/L for pale beers, 100-300 mg/L for dark sodium(Na)10-70 mg/L Chloride (Cl) <150mg/L sulfate(SO4)10mg/L for pilsners, 25-50 mg/L for light to amber lager, and 30-70 mg/L most most ales calcium (Ca) 100mg/L magnesium (Mg) 20-30 mg/L now he also goes on to tell the reason for each ion level but i would be here all night trying to type all that out. check the book out for yourself. it's a good read. if i were you, i would play around with some additives to adjust your "liquor". i might do the same after rereading that chapter[roll] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwardL Posted February 26, 2011 Author Share Posted February 26, 2011 In terms of sanitation, starsan is a no-rinse sanitizer that if used in proper ratios (i use a medicine dropper to mix) it will have no effect on the beer. Aside from just being lazy and wanting to skip a rinse step, if you aren't rinsing with boiled water you are risking reinfection. In terms of ferment temps, I have been pretty good at maintaining the ferment temps I have after (18-21C depending on the strain). Back on to water, I found this: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15.html I was messing around with the spreadsheet and have been adding salts to some test water to see how it tasted. I think I'm going to try a split batch with water additions to half, the other half just straight boiled tap water. When I started this thread I was hoping someone might have some specific information. I had read that the extract kits don't need any sort of water adjustment but the water here is unusually soft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonardC2 Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 I used natural spring water for this batch. Looks & smells great so far. 4 days after start of ferment,& it's slowing down already. We'll see how it turns out,but it's always smelled good,at any rate,with the 4 2/3 gallons of spring water I used to top off to 23L. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rossm Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 ....crikey Leonard, your measurements sound a bit like a bloke I used to work with, he had a tape with metric and imperial measurements on it, if you asked him to measure something he would come up with things like...2 feet four inches and six millimetres! (42/3 gallons to make 23litres)[pinched] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muddy Waters Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 [lol] I think the emoticon sums up my reaction to Ross' post....now I just have to clean the coffee off the keyboard and screen (and out of my nose [pinched] ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwardL Posted February 28, 2011 Author Share Posted February 28, 2011 I did up a 16L batch using coopers IPA. I added 2g of gypsum, epsom, baking soda, chalk, and salt. According to water calculator on how to brew, this put all the ion levels in the desired ranges. In a week I'll take a sample and see if it seems any better before I dry hop. ...btw..the coopers IPA done as per "strong" instructions from the website and dry hopped with e.k. goldings, cascade or centennial is a fantastic beer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canadian Eh!L Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 nice one, edward! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonardC2 Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 I chuckled myself when I read the responses a couple of you had to my spring water remarks. That's funny. I used 1 1/4 gallons of tap water in the brew kettle to make the hop "tea" out of the Kent Golding hops. I therefor needed 4 2/3 gallons to get to the total of 23L.[innocent] I took a hydrometer sample today. the results are in my pale ale post. The important point here is,no off flavors whatsoever!! So the chloramines in the tap water created a lot of off flavors in the last batch I brewed (straight up Cooper's lager kit). Not to mention the other things that sometimes make taste like flat alkaselzer. You guys might want to consider giving natural spring water a try. Some of the commercial brewers over here do... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rossm Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Leonard, I do! here in Alice Springs all of our water comes from aquifers and in fact is natural spring water, it still makes me laugh when I see the people in town who won't drink tap water but insist on buying 'natural spring water' when I used to work at the borefield here, an enterprising bloke started a business selling 'natural spring water' he used to go to the borefield and get a small truck load of water from one of the bores, he then took it home, bottled it and sold it as 'natural spring water' [roll] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonardC2 Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Leonard' date=' I do! here in Alice Springs all of our water comes from aquifers and in fact is natural spring water, it still makes me laugh when I see the people in town who won't drink tap water but insist on buying 'natural spring water' when I used to work at the borefield here, an enterprising bloke started a business selling 'natural spring water' he used to go to the borefield and get a small truck load of water from one of the bores, he then took it home, bottled it and sold it as 'natural spring water' [roll'] Roflmao! I wish that were true up here by Lake Erie! This stuff tastes worse in warm weather,& my house was built in Sept 2000! So I found through experimentation,that I have to filter it,or just spend a couple bucks on the store brand spring water from southern Ohio (a few counties south of me). I thought of just going to Crystal Springs over near Lorain County Speedway & get a 5gal carboy of it from them. Not to mention,keep the carboy...[devil] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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