Hey Kev, don't get discouraged with all this brewing mumbo-jumbo. You don't have to get crazy technical to make a good beer. This is just fine tuning and customizing your brews and learning control of the outcome. You're right about all the different opinions in brewing. But the truth of the matter, there's really only a few basic rules you need to follow. So just have fun and enjoy some of the fruits of your labor with your buddies!
Legman - Brewing is too much fun to get discouraged, and our beers are pretty good, just think they have been missing that special "something" that bready biscuity thing that I think you only get from all-grain. The rest is as you say fine-tuning.
Slap that guy on the end drinking the Coors Light. That's a homebrew club for God's sake!
That is Jerry. He is the best, man. But yes he is a Coors light man. He joins us regularly for home-brewing sessions and has bought his share of equipment and ingredients, but never drinks what we brew. He just enjoys the camaraderie, which is fine with us. I am on the left end. See the brewmaster Halo around my head? Then Big D (Daren) - Then Aaron, Lou and Jerry. Good group of guys.
Why it's Sl-öthr-øb, of course!
Sounds Norse or something. Got a family wooden Brewstick?
I have meandered around Palmer's book many times and must say I have learned much from him. Smart guy. Figures that you being a BC would "get" him moreso than I, who being a Graphic Artist by trade, seem to embrace the "Don't worry" of Papazian, Luckily,my curiosities over the last 20 years of my life, led me to BTP and this site, it keeps it interesting.
So if I get the additions correctly, I add the chemisty to the mash, proportionate to the mash, add none to the sparge, then add the remaining minerals to the boil proportionate to the boil minus the mash water used. Correct?
Solubility is curious though. Foster in his Pale Ale book states that gypsum is more soluble in colder water. And one last thing that Legman triggered. When I was looking at my water profile, I too realized that the two minerals that seemed abnormally higher (in proportion to everything else) was the NA and Cl, and I said Hey! that is salt. And I thought, Now what the hell is there so much salt in municipal water for.
So my next thing I think is that since I already sent a unfiltered, unboiled, sample of my water to WardLabs, I figure now I am going to boil and decant another sample and send it and see where that takes me. Optimally CL should come down I think and the carbonate, but I think it is to just give me another baseline to start with. Ideally I would like to set my BTP up with the basic six or so citites/profiles as compared to my water(s) and have this working "comparison" as a permanent record to draw on each time I brew. I suppose most all beers can fall into one or another of these categories. But I do wonder where wheat falls in, what type of water? If I remember what you said Slo, it seems a wheat would be about a 10-12 SRM, so with every 7.5 srm 30 ra then about a 50 RA ought to do it, right? And with that this Roggenbier we have, I read has similar to wheat characteristics. PS I also hear that mashing RYE is tricky and see that the grain kit that we bought from NB has rice hulls in it. I've read to keep the MASH thin. Ever do Rye?
Our latest three. Dig that brewing kitchen. Stainless baby!
Brown ale all-grain on left, Altbier in center, Am Wheat on right. Lost the syphon on the Alt, Hence the low net, Bummer.
PS One last thing. Why do my quotes read "quote" and not "Legman wrote" or "Slothrob wrote." I got that to work once but haven't remembered how I did that.
PSS. What does SRM stand for?
Anyway I fell asleep after work and slept through til 1:00m now I am wide-eyed and killing time. Be well gents.