Hazy Beer? Why?

[delboy]

Another simple trick and oft overlooked is to add a couple of tablespoons of malt extract to the sparge liquor. This will drop the pH of the sparge liquor enough that you do not get the 'rise' in pH toward the end of the sparge . . . with subsequent leaching of the undesirables

Or you could just transfer a little of the first runnings into the sparge water, thats what i've done sometimes.

[Trough Lolly]

...or better still, by sparging less.

there's no point wasting perfectly good malt when ensuring that the alkalinity doesn't get too high either by batch sparging or by correcting the alkalinity in the liquor does just the same job. You don't think Fullers stop sparging at 1010+ do you ?

If you don't like the idea of adding acids to the water then preboiling it with naturaly found gypsum and allowing the bicarbonates to precipitate out over night will do just as well if not better and stop ph becoming high enough to solubalize the silicates and polyphenols.

Sure, you can pfaff around with alkalinity corrections and preboiling to precipitate overnight, yada yada, or adjust your recipe to avoid all that rubbish. If you have to make these adjustments, then I'm sorry you're brewing with such shite water. Our water is very soft and acidity etc is only an issue if we use a lot of roasted malt in the mash.

I'll happily admit complete ignorance of UK water quality - is it common to use salts all them time before and during the brewday?

[Aleman]

Sure, you can pfaff around with alkalinity corrections and preboiling to precipitate overnight, yada yada, or adjust your recipe to avoid all that rubbish. If you have to make these adjustments, then I'm sorry you're brewing with such shite water. Our water is very soft and acidity etc is only an issue if we use a lot of roasted malt in the mash.

I'll happily admit complete ignorance of UK water quality - is it common to use salts all them time before and during the brewday?

Well the commercial brewers have been doing it since the mid 1800's . . . . and yes it is an accepted practice . . . My water is also very soft with little in the way of alkalinity or any minerals, and I have noticed an improvement in my beers with mineral treatment . . . but I often don't include it . . . I would certainly not adjust my recipe . . . after all it works . . . as that is so much more work, and has the potential to really thow the quality of the beer way off.

Many breweries in the south are afflicted with incredibly hard water, and alkalinity control is essential for them to brew paler beers. . . .London was a stout and porter center in the early 1800's precisely because of the water . . high alkalinity required lots of dark malts . . . they did brew pale ales . . . once they worked out water treatment

[jubby]

Trough Lolly wrote:

I'll happily admit complete ignorance of UK water quality - is it common to use salts all them time before and during the brewday?

My water has 234mg/l CaC03 alkalinity. If i do not lower this with acids or boiling, the beer tastes crap. Very harsh like a kit brew. Other than that, it's got lots of good stuff in it too.

[Aleman]

The trouble with soft water is that it's harder to raise alkalinity levels than it is to lower them and it's often low in other beneficial minerals such as calcium. Give me my hard water any day for brewing

You can say that again Chris . . . I'm looking at a way of raising my alkalinity predictably at the moment and its hard. Morrison's have some Mineral water at 95p for 5L that has 280mg/l bicarbonate, so I could blend that . . . but the sodium is 75mg/l, and I really don't want to increase sodium levels if I can possibly help it . . . Noonan recommends that you should avoid sodium levels of more than 50mg/l . . . then goes on to say "usually found at levels of 2 to 100ppm"

Interestingly Noonan Has this to say about Bicarbonates

Bicarbonate resists increases in the mash acidity bu neutralising acids as they are formed. it also hinders the gelatinisation of starch by alpha-amylase, impedes trub flocculation during the cold break, and increases the risk of contamination in the ferment. It contributes a harsh bitter flavour that is overwhelming in delicate lagers. Carbonate in excess of 200ppm is tolerable only when dark roasted malts are employed to buffer its excessive alkalinity.
Carbonates in the brewing liquor should be less than 50ppm if the mash is from only pale malts and no liquor acidulation is employed. Where carbonates exceed 50ppm, water treatment is generally in order.

[Trough Lolly]

Well the commercial brewers have been doing it since the mid 1800's . . . . and yes it is an accepted practice . . . My water is also very soft with little in the way of alkalinity or any minerals, and I have noticed an improvement in my beers with mineral treatment . . . but I often don't include it . . . I would certainly not adjust my recipe . . . after all it works . . . as that is so much more work, and has the potential to really thow the quality of the beer way off.

Many breweries in the south are afflicted with incredibly hard water, and alkalinity control is essential for them to brew paler beers. . . .London was a stout and porter center in the early 1800's precisely because of the water . . high alkalinity required lots of dark malts . . . they did brew pale ales . . . once they worked out water treatment

There is no question that using salts to adjust the composition of ions in your water will be of benefit, and yes, I understand that doing this on a commercial and home scale has been happening for quite some time. My original comment was in relation to over sparging. It drifted away towards salts and that wasn't of concern to me in my original post. There are many ways to address astringency from over sparging - one of them is to sparge less and use more malt.

And I'll unreservedly apologise for the unfounded accusation that your water is, to use a highly technical term, shite. It would be hypocritical for me to say that when we over here are happily adding gypsum and chalk etc to emulate the brewing waters of Dublin, London, Edinburgh, etc etc to make "authentic" beer!

[Trough Lolly]

You should've seen the colour of the tapwater after the last bushfire that came through Canberra - we lost 500 homes in one day and the fire retardant chemicals leached into the soil....I didn't brew for a few months after that.