IPA Water Adjustments

Continuing with our exploration of how water salts contribute to a beers final flavor profile, I embarked on some IPA water adjustments.  Specifically, I matched my ~250ppm of chloride ions with ~250ppm of Sulfate in the form of gypsum.

I made a repeat batch of my previous Falconers Flight hop blend IPA.  I made ten gallons of this wort and ran it off into two boil kettles.  Once I had a boil going I added the required gypsum to one and let the other wort go without the addition.

I fermented both beers in 6 gallon better bottles and they were both temperature controlled in the same chest freezer, for the same amount of time. Both beers were pitched with an equal amount of Fermentis US-05 dry yeast (of course adequately rehydrated).

When we tasted these beers there were some obvious differences.  First the gypsum plus beer seemed to have a more resinous hop character that lingered on the palate. The non-gypsum beer was a little smoother and more of a rounded bitterness that let go of your tongue.  The flavor of the non-gypsum seemed a little more fruity, while the gypsum plus beer was more raw hop like.  In the aroma, the non treated sample had more of the exotic fruit notes I remember from Falconers Flight hops.  Whereas the treated beer seemed to bring forward the more traditional piney, citrus aromas. (Perhaps, water chemistry also can effect the type of aromas coming from different hops.  Seeing as I used a blend this might be a fact lost on the experimentation of other brewers who are trying to showcase only 2-3 hops in an IPA.)

Overall, I preferred the non-gypsum version, while John liked the treated version. John though the differences were significant, I found them to be noticeable but not likely to be appreciable if you drank the beers without the side by side as a foil. To each his own to each a differing palate. I think this is mainly due to our high levels of Sodium Chloride.  I think its critical to the outcome of the experiment and you’ll catch that at the end of the video.

While I did this as two 5 gallon batches one could certainly experiment with a 5 gallon batch split into a couple smaller volumes and experiment with a couple different water treatments, or different levels of salts.

This video is a bit longer than most of our others, but I think we are really intrigued and try and pick the brews apart.
Let us know what you think of these results.  Have you tried this yet yourself? What other factors do you think we should work in to this exploration in the future?