Cascade pale ale with mild style mineral additions

[SiHoltye]

Anybody done this? I'm looking to achieve a smoother, sweeter hop flavour whilst adding huge amounts of late hops. Anybody tinkered in this area?

[Jim]

I've not heard of this before. Do you mean you optimise the water profile to Mild Ale then use it for a Pale Ale? What's the reasoning behind it?

[SiHoltye]

Yes. I'm just thinking, not usually the best idea, might this enable one to really overload on the late hops adding flavour minimising grassy astringency. I'm brewing tomorrow a 1.040 pale ale to 52L. MO + 5% Munich + 5% light crystal. I'm first wort and 15 min boil hopping to ~18ibus. Then steeping 450g from flameout with IC on. All cascade. Hopefully achieving ~33ibus. My concern was about hop harshness I suppose. I normally use 2:1 sulph to chlor.
I've not brewed this before so it's the large qty of hops that intrigues me. Prolly worrying about nothing and should rather focus on getting the RA right.

[Dave S]

Yes. I'm just thinking, not usually the best idea, might this enable one to really overload on the late hops adding flavour minimising grassy astringency. I'm brewing tomorrow a 1.040 pale ale to 52L. MO + 5% Munich + 5% light crystal. I'm first wort and 15 min boil hopping to ~18ibus. Then steeping 450g from flameout with IC on. All cascade. Hopefully achieving ~33ibus. My concern was about hop harshness I suppose. I normally use 2:1 sulph to chlor.
I've not brewed this before so it's the large qty of hops that intrigues me. Prolly worrying about nothing and should rather focus on getting the RA right.

The hops aren't the issue. It's whether you can achieve the right mash pH range with a mild ale water profile without the roasted malts normally associated.

[SiHoltye]

Also went with Murphy's pale ale mineral additions suggestion for this time and pitching US05.

[Jim]

You can't get much closer than that!

[SiHoltye]

Thought about this a little more. What I am talking about is the sulphate/chloride ratio in regards to its effect on perceived bitterness. I read that a ratio of 2:1 sulphate:chloride (I aim for approx 300ppm:150ppm) will bring out the hop bitterness. Great. It also the case (as I've read it to be) that the reverse, ie a ratio of 1:2 sulphate:chloride will not emphasize bitterness instead favouring instead the malt flavours to come through. The question I suppose is what happens to hop flavour? Can one suppress the hop bitterness through water adjustment allowing more space to cram in increased quantities of flavour hops before the bitterness rises past where you want it?

I'm inclined to try this, any experience/thoughts?

[SiHoltye]

I'm brewing a regular heavily hopped pale ale on Saturday and will be treating the grist to minerals that emphasise palette fullness rather than hop bitterness. Hoping to get loads of hop flavour still but with lessened bitterness.

[AnthonyUK]

You may have an issue with having too much sulphate/chloride. BruNwater mentions that if sulphate is >100 then chloride should be too.
This can add an overly mineral flavour which I think you are trying to avoid.

[SiHoltye]

I had planned to reduce alkalinity with crs to 40ppm and then apply Murphy's mild additions to achieve sulphate115/chloride 290.
However their additions assume I'm not adding any CRS presumably due to the typically darker grains in these beer styles. Further thoughts?

[SiHoltye]

I'm making a very pale Beer by the way.

[killer]

You may have an issue with having too much sulphate/chloride. BruNwater mentions that if sulphate is >100 then chloride should be too.
This can add an overly mineral flavour which I think you are trying to avoid.

No that's not right.

"In strongly bittered profiles such as Burton or Pale Ale profiles, the sulfate concentration may exceed 100 ppm, but the chloride concentration should be kept below 100 ppm."

is a direct copy/ paste from the brunwater software.

In any case, while brunwater is a fantastic tool and starting point, you should let your own flavour preferences guide you. If Eric was here he might suggest that Brunwater has been geared towards softer american tastebuds and not more robust british ones.

If you are trying to produce a more malt forward beer which however retains a reasonable hoppy aftertaste (but not too bitter) then you might look as much at the choice of yeast and malt as at the water profile. i.e you might use mild ale malt with a reasonable amount of crystal, e.g WLP002 as yeast and keep the bitterness low (20 IBU for a 4 % beer ?)

Then you could really throw in a lot of late hops to get full advantage of the aromatic/ flavour charactersitics as opposed to bittering.

[SiHoltye]

I've used 002 a lot and find it mutes hop flavour generally. In my opinion that is It's not so much maltiness I'm trying to achieve in pale beers it's fullness of palate. I've no problem in dark beers I make, they're smooth and tasty and with them I've always used mild/stout mineral additions. Where this idea differs is by crossing over and using recommended mild/stout salt additions in a pale Beer using 40ppm caco3 residual alkalinity water. Should ask Murphy's if treating the alkalinity is tied in with mineral additions. Suppose depends what acid you use since CRS/AMS has sulphate/chloride ions.

[AnthonyUK]

No that's not right.

"In strongly bittered profiles such as Burton or Pale Ale profiles, the sulfate concentration may exceed 100 ppm, but the chloride concentration should be kept below 100 ppm."

Yeah I completely ballsed that up. Hopefully the gist was in the text.
As you mentioned the chloride should NOT exceed 100ppm

CRS as you have discovered will increase both your sulphate and chloride so maybe look at an alternative acid or use some Tesco Ashbeck water for some/all of your batch to dilute the bicarbonate.

[killer]

I've used 002 a lot and find it mutes hop flavour generally. In my opinion that is It's not so much maltiness I'm trying to achieve in pale beers it's fullness of palate. I've no problem in dark beers I make, they're smooth and tasty and with them I've always used mild/stout mineral additions. Where this idea differs is by crossing over and using recommended mild/stout salt additions in a pale Beer using 40ppm caco3 residual alkalinity water. Should ask Murphy's if treating the alkalinity is tied in with mineral additions. Suppose depends what acid you use since CRS/AMS has sulphate/chloride ions.

I completely agree about WLP002 - it kills hops. I was thinking that you wanted a hoppy malty mild when now I get the impression that you really want a well balanced APA/ IPA.

I've played around a lot with acids and salts. My own approach to what I think you want is the following (cut and pasted from another thread).

I start by using CRS. I add CRS to the point where the my desired final chloride concentration (in ppm) is reached. This is usually not enough to remove all the alkalinity that I'd like so I then add phosphoric to drop my alkalinity to the desired conc. I then add a small amount of Epsom salts to bring the magnesium value (very little) to where I want it. I then add gypsum to bring the sulfate to where I want it. This usually also gets me in the right ballpark for calcium - which - as long as it reaches a certain minimum, I am happy with. This has made a massive improvement to my beers - I still do a side to side taste test of all my beers against a commercial example - this is my way of calibrating my results - I also do blind taste tests against these commercial beers with my friends to make sure I am not simply fooling myself....

I would add that if you have the subscribers version of brunwater it does include CRS, so that when you add your CRS additions it recalculates the final sulfate/ chloride concentrations. You can then play around with the salt additions.

I would also add that my own preferences for hoppy beers that are not too minerally (after 2 years of mixed acid/ salt experiments) is 200 - 250 ppm Sulfate and 50 - 90 ppm chloride. Magnesium and Calcium I keep at 5 ppm and 100 - 150 respectively. This gives you a pronounced hoppy flavour that lingers in the mouth.

I tend to make pales between 5 and 6% ABV, For that I would aim for about 45IBU with an FG of about 1012/1013 - this will give you the decent mouthfeel you want + some torrified wheat or oats. I also aim to get at least half my IBU's from 15 min additions or less (sometimes up to 100%) so that you get a lot of flavour/ aroma hop character and not just the over the top bitterness that many IPA's seem to aim for these days.