Mineral additions/harsh flavours

[delboy]

I know water chemistry is supposed to play a big role in hop flavour etc and with that in mind i've played around with salt additions for quite some but i've not really been getting great results as the salts seems to impart a harshness no matter how much i play with the ratios/amounts.

The last two brews i've done have been without any additions (except campden) and i've just went with my v. soft tap water, the results have been a very smooth bitterness unlike the harshness i was getting when adding gyspum/CaCl etc. To be honest i've decided to stop adding anything to my v. soft water and brew with it as it is as i can load up and hops get lots of hop flavour and not seem to suffer harsh flavours. I know this seems to contradict converntional water chemistry thinking but my empirical results are enough to convince me that i should stick to my soft water as it is.

Has anyone else been down the salt addition road and deciced a KISS (keep it simple stupid) approach has worked out better for them.

[boingy]

I went through a phase of messing about with the water additions. I didn't notice any particular harshness but I'm not sure I noticed any significant improvement either. For me the problem is one of comparisons. I rarely brew the same recipe twice in a row so working out whether this batch of beer is better than the last time I brewed that recipe is nigh-on impossible. Unless I split a batch and treat one half and not the other the chances of me spotting the difference is very slim (unless one turns out to be horrible!). So I concluded that it all tastes good and there is no need for me to strive for further improvements! So I mostly don't fiddle with the water these days.

[delboy]

Sorry just realised the topic title is misleading i wasn't just talking about common salt but rather all the salts used ie Cacl, gypsum etc as well, I've edited the title!

[idbrew]

I figure this is as good a thread as any to relate my experiences -

I don't have any way of checking my mash pH (yet) so I've been using Kai Troester's water treatment calculator (down the page under the "ingredients" heading) to take a stab at water treatment.
My water (according to the report provided online by out water board) has about 115ppm hardness and is relatively low in everything else - calcium, sulfate and chloride are all about 30ppm or less.
For my last three or four batches (bitters/pale ales of different gravities) I've added 12g Gypsum and 6g Calcium Chloride to about 30l total liquor (for a batch size of 19l) to get a calcium level of 180ppm (or close, I don't have my notes in front of me) and added lactic acid to lower the predicted pH to around 5.3 (usually less than 3ml total).
I thought that the high calcium level and roughly 2:1 ratio of sulfate to chloride would be appropriate for these beers based on what I've read in various places.
I achieved very good efficiency and the beers had very good clarity and head retention - but all have had a sort of tongue coating astringency or harsh bitterness (it does seem to mellow somewhat over time however).

I've come to think that adding the large amount of salts was misguided since it is one of the few constants between these batches and I haven't experienced this harshness to such an extent before (though I haven't totally ruled out other causes). Interestingly I just added a quarter teaspoon of table salt to a pint of the latest (a low gravity bitter) just for laughs and while the result isn't the greatest the astringency is almost totally gone
For the next brew I think I will add more calcium chloride and less salts overall - or possibly try using distilled water and adding moderate amounts of salts. I'm curious about how the relative and total amounts of mineral ions affect flavor and if I had more time on my hands I'd do more experimenting to this end.