chromosphere

So Sutton was an excellent afternoon! We went down to the Home Counties festival in Sutton on Saturday – and my two beers were judged accordingly. Pleased with the outcome! No prizes (and wasn’t expecting any anyhow!) but I got some feedback on the two beers. The ordinary bitter came out as full bodied with good full hop flavour and aroma, but with a slightly coarse finish – this is something I agree with and I think this is because of the exceptionally high alkalinity in our water (run-off from the chalk in the Cotswolds…). The Summer Lightning style beer got a decent review too – good hop nose, attractive malt and hop flavour, but needed a tad more bitterness, and had a slightly short finish (how do you change this?), but otherwise some good feedback

So, as a result, I’m gonna try and work hard on water treatment as I feel this is a good way to improve my brewing. I’m also hoping that I’ll be able to influence the flavours a bit more and enhance the malt when needed (e.g. by increasing the chloride ratio). To test the alkalinity, I will be titrating tap water with 1/40 strength CRS – the alkalinity is given by 18 x volume of 1/40 CRS (in ml) needed to titrate to finish (answer in mg/l CaCO3). The theory is summed up excellently by Chris’ (DaaB) excellent instructions.

And here comes the tough bit – getting hold of the indicator (methyl orange) – though, MrC is a legend and I have a supply of it (probably more than enough!). Just looking forward to getting on with it (need to wait for more CRS to arrive as well as some CaCl and lactic acid (to acidify mash water if required – also useful for lagers in the future) and seeing what kind of a difference it makes!