alkalinity & softer taste

[nigelsch]

I just wanted to share some thoughts on my last few brews and see what others do & their experiences.

I have been brewing for a number of years and have always treated my water with crs, using John Palmers spreadsheet.

My water is 270ppm (hertfordshire water!) alkalinity & typically brewing a 20ebc bitter i would have treated both mash & sparge
water with 1ml/L crs - dropping alkalinity to 90ppm (as per jp's spreadsheet).

Recently I have done a little reading, regarding noting the PH of the pre & post boil wort and also dropping the sparge water
to a PH of around 6. So the last couple of brews I've not used JP's xls, but simply dropped both my mash and sparge water
to an alkalinity of around 25ppm. I didn't trust adjusting my sparge water to a PH of 6 as I didn't trust my PH meter that much,
but preferred to tritrate and take the alkalinity right down instead (around 25ppm but still positive). So I assume my sparge
water still had a PH of around 8, albeit now its buffering capacity for my batch sparges was very low.

I took PH readings: mash 5.3, pre-boil 5.4, post boil 5.2. Which according to what I have read is spot on regard boil PH's.

Now, the more important taste fact! The result is that there was nowt wrong with the previous brews, but the new one's
seem much more balanced, delicate and provide a better balance between malt and hop taste. This was particulariy
noticeable with regard to an EKG brew.

So in short dropping my alkalinity down more than online calculators say i should has given me a better drink. According
to online reads, I think what I may be experiencing is lower PH of the boil provides a softer hop taste. Previously my
mash PH was good, so I believe its much more to do with the PH/boil (even though I never took PH readings of the
boiled wort).

Interesting any thoughts similar experiences?

[CestrIan]

That's interesting nigel! I have got very soft water (20mg/L CaCO3) and have never payed much attention to mash or boil ph, but I've just bought some pH papers and some lactic acid for adjustment and I'm going to check more often from now on as I've got a few pilsner recipes planned.

Just to add one thing, I find my bitters are more rounded or softer if I add calcium chloride to the mash.

[nigelsch]

Oh i wish had water like that; all i get out of my tap is limescale!

I expect that you don't have much in your water so you are rounding the malt flavour for your lagers with
CC. For me i have to really work on my carbonates with acid, which in the end does leave me with
with appropriate sulphates for bitter.