Oh no! I forgot the camden tab!

[micmacmoc]

Put the mash on for 50litres of wheat beer, as I mashed in I remembered that I had'nt added a camden to the mash water. Is all lost? I have treated the balance of water with a camden, this will be the majority of the liquor so is all lost? I think I should probably make it anyway in the off chance that the nasties are largely lost in the boil.
What do you say fellow brewers?


heres what I'm up to anyhow:

50 litres world cup wit 1038-1010 (80%) 3.7%
EBC 5 IBU 17

MO 3868
Wht mlt 3868

Haller Herbkr (3%) 90 mins 100g
Orange Peel approx 20g (still peeling and drying!)
Whole coriander 30g
Chamomile Lime teabags x 2
cordomam x 4 whole


with all those other crazy flavours perhaps any risidual tastes will be masked? (he gambits hopefully)

[Jolum]

Oops. Don't feel too bad, you're in good company

How much untreated liquor did you use before you realised? I once mashed in with around 10L before I noticed. I did like you and treated the rest with a Campden tablet and carried on with the brew and it all turned out OK. Though that was a stout so any slight chlorine-based after tastes may have been masked

I'm not sure you can add a Campden tablet post boil, I've never tried it. There's probably a very good reason why that wouldn't work.

If no one else has any input on that, I'd just carry on with it and see what you get.

[micmacmoc]

I'd added all the mash liquor. I'll carry on regardless and do the boil etc tonight, whilst listening to the VERY DULL SO FAR world cup.
I searched the forum earlier and found a chris-x comment along the lines of how a post mash camden would'nt help the mashed liquor, the amount of untreated liquor will obviously be far smaller than the over all gained before the boil so lets hope that'll help. I'll also sparge REALLY slowly in the vain hope that will help!

[Jolum]

I'd added all the mash liquor. I'll carry on regardless and do the boil etc tonight, whilst listening to the VERY DULL SO FAR world cup.
I searched the forum earlier and found a chris-x comment along the lines of how a post mash camden would'nt help the mashed liquor, the amount of untreated liquor will obviously be far smaller than the over all gained before the boil so lets hope that'll help. I'll also sparge REALLY slowly in the vain hope that will help!

Thought I'd heard something along those lines. Otherwise we'd all be treating our wort rather than our liquor

As you say the ratio of treated to untreated is quite large so I wouldn't worry, I'm sure it'll turn out fine

[micmacmoc]

Thanks fellas!
Half the problems with brewing are due to confidence so its good to be able to come here and get help or just a pat of reassurance when needed. The boil is bubbling a roll nicely, I've my last bottle of elderflower ale on the go whilst noticing the fresh elderflowers are due to be pillaged down our lane. I've a chinese take away, footie on the telly and the house to myself in belting glorious sunshine. Happy days! So if the beer does'nt tatse great, well chalk it up to experience and open another ale whilst weighing out some dusty grains. Superb. Thanks buds!
Thanks again, happy brewing everyone!

[Graham]

Just get three people together, do a ring-or-ring-of-roses posture, worship Helios, the sun god, and that will do at least as much good as the magic camden tablet is supposed to do.

[micmacmoc]

Hmmm. Are you saying its* a myth Graham?
You're recipe for HSB should be next for me. Love it, ta!
Really though, do you think the beasties will go away due to the boil anyhow? I can certainly smell chloronasties in the morning shower (sorry chris-x did mean to say last post), but whether they disappear or its the fact i spend all day with my espresso machine that deadens my olefactories?
Either way its still a confidence thing most of the time. So I'm off to round up the Mevagissey witches and their kind to do some om-shanti things in the fading rays of the mighty Ra before the daemons of the darkness emerge with their chloro-wotsit cloaks of doom mongery.
that or I'll have another pint.

*the use of camden tabs for chloro cleaning

(footnotes eh Graham, bloody pain are'nt they)

[Graham]

Hmmm. Are you saying its* a myth Graham?

No! But the bloody camden tablet has assumed mythical proportions and magical properties.
Without using real examples from here for fear of causing offence, but it goes something like this:

Q: My beer is a funny colour - A: Did you use a camden tablet.
Q: My beer tastes funny - A: Did you use a camden tablet
Q: I want to try water treatment - A: All you need is a camden tablet.
Q: Oh bugger, I forgot the camden tablet. A: Oh bugger, I forgot my vitamin tablet this morning - am I going to die?

And of course these people will happily use videne as a no-rinse, and iodine is just one level down the reactive scale than chlorine and will cause exactly the same off flavours should they really be an issue. Mind you, you might as well get out a magnifying glass and just hit the bugs over the head with a hammer than use videne as a disinfectant, but that is a different cat to set amongst the pigeons.

[micmacmoc]

well I reckon the day was good with or without the brew, sunny, nice customers, good takings without being a greedy get, enjoyed the JBK highlights thread (especially the George Michael song and ditches stuff), I did a brew,Forlans goal was magical (dispite him not signing for the mighty boro), I'm happy beggar, my new hose means no more carting giant buckets about. I'm a happy teddy.


Oh and the witches are wanting to try out my broomstick.
Thanks all. I may be a little bit cheery and full of it but thats the point eh?
Hic.
Lovely pint is this. Dunno what it is. Lovely. Night all!
I'm off to visit the neighbour, drink ale and probably forget that the wort is cooling til I return, two am, bladdered and daft and realise
a) I have work tomorrow
b) when the wife gets back she does'nt want to see dirty empty buckets everywhere.

Ah well, a lovely life!

I

[micmacmoc]

Errr. baker?

[Jolum]

There are two trains of thought on chlorophenols and campden tablets, Grahams and......well I'm sure you've see the Captain Rumbeard episode of Black Adder II

"He was a third-rate sailor but a first-rate second course"

[BarnsleyBrewer]

Just get three people together, do a ring-or-ring-of-roses posture, worship Helios, the sun god, and that will do at least as much good as the magic camden tablet is supposed to do.

You're one of the main men on brewing Graham but I disagree.....
A few years ago I started brewing again and my chief tester said it had slight taste of TCP I'm glad he was honest cos I also thought it had.......
But thanks to this forum, DaaB (Chris-x1) and Aleman I was told to use half a campden tablet per 5 gallon,,, guess what?? yup.....never had TCP again!!
All I can say it's that magic cure!!!
BB

[micmacmoc]

Thats not what he sey* though is it?
Your sid james is grinning at me and now i forget. Been a grand brew night. Bloody summer! Flies in the ointment. Just hope the hersbruckers (pissy hops i grant you but splendid for a wheatie) will see off the buggers. Bloody insects. Had to try and clesar a wasp nest, bleedin' yellar and black demons. Living in our usual tit box. Well it is.

er... he's on about how every problem is greeted with the 'camden response' is'nt he?

well anyway, chucked the remains of the boil down the drain forgeting I had orangepeel in it. well that blocked the drain covers, flooded the back bit of our garden as I allowed the cooler to continue 'cleaning' the various buckets. It's tube fell out and I got very wet. Ha!
Brewing eh? never let sober people know why.
Thay buy it you know!


*sorry about the Norfolk accent is just comes through with this yeast

[Graham]

A few years ago I started brewing again and my chief tester said it had slight taste of TCP I'm glad he was honest cos I also thought it had....... But thanks to this forum, DaaB (Chris-x1) and Aleman I was told to use half a campden tablet per 5 gallon,,, guess what?? yup.....never had TCP again!!
All I can say it's that magic cure!!!
BB

Yes, well, you might be safe enough with half a tablet, particularly if you have got a bit of copper in your system.

There isn't enough chlorine in potable water by a very long way to cause a problem with beer. People have been home brewing without chlorophenol problems for a very long time before JBK was formed and the magic campden tablet became the British home brewer's universal cure-all for everything from ingrowing toenails to I don't know what. It has now got to the point of disinformation, because there is a certain problem that crops up on here from time to time that I am pretty sure is the result of overdosing with metabisulphite.

On foreign home brewing sites, like the Aussie one and the American ones, when someone gets a TCP taste, they are given sensible answers like wild yeast or a Klebsiella infection (very common), or tighten up on your disinfection procedures - stuff like that, but here it is always "did you use a bloody campden tablet".

Indeed some Aussies that use collected rainwater as their water source get a TCP problem if the do not chlorinate their water before use (or boil it or filter it), because Klebsiella is rife in standing water (including the header tank in my loft, which is why a super-chlorinate it annually).

[Graham]

I am not suggesting that people give up the harmless practice of adding sufficient metabisulphite to neutralise chlorine should it take their fancy, as long as it is realised that there are consequences if it is grossly overdone. It is cheap and effortless if, perhaps, unnecessary.

It just gets too much for me when people are worried that their world will fall apart if they forget the campden tablet. It is somewhat irritating that it has been elevated to this mysterious magic pill, the lack of which is blamed for so many ailments.