So it has been several weeks since I brewed the first APA, and took fairly careful notes of mash pH, mash efficiency, etc. I was very happy with the results in the glass, but…
I bought an RO system, specifically to address a terrible water report. Terrible in that sodium and bicarbonates were ridiculously high, and calcium and magnesium were virtually non-present. I wanted to judge the impact on FLAVOR, as well as brew processes with a new, carefully adjusted water profile built on reverse osmosis liquor.
I used the Bru’n Water spreadsheet to target a balanced yellow profile, figured phosphoric addition for all brewing water, then salt additions for the mash. Those are indicated in the recipe. I should note that I did NOT treat the sparge water with salts – so the amounts maybe a bit low.
I learned some things – however these maybe coincidental as this is a single set of results:
- Pre-treated liquor only with a few ml of phosphoric
- Mash pH was hit nearly immediately at dough in, and dropped, but recovered to stabilize around 5.3
- Wort was sweet very quickly – showing enzyme conversion occurred and was very efficient (I did not do an iodine test, will do so in the future)
- My RIMS mash stuck quickly… this is an issue of tightening up my mill. Got it freed with extra liquor and a bit of cursing and a couple of handfuls of rice hulls
- Hot break formation in the kettle was awesome – at least 10X over what I have seen in the past on filtered tap water
- The boil was “different” – the size of the bubbles and fine-ness of the foam and scum was very different
- Cold break was also very impressive. I “whirlpool” my hop stands through a paint strainer – it plugged up with break material in a few minutes.
I did make some minor additions to the grist recipe:
- Dropped the Acid Malt and replaced it with base 2-row
- Swapped in C90 for the C120 from the previous brew… for color reasons
Adjusted Recipe:
[beerxml recipe=https://www.accidentalis.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Houston-APA.xml metric=false cache=-1]
So, will check back in a few weeks and do some side by side comparisons. Will take a few pictures as well.
All in all – a surprising brewday, with some frustrations with the mash sticking, but very happy with the results into the fermenter!
