I'm glad I added salt to my beer #tag chemistry



  • So ... literally rimming my current homebrew ( :giggity:) with salt makes it quite tasty. beforehand it was like sucking on a tart leather shoe sole ....


    Filed under: "Good Eats" taught me that salt would solve the shitty taste problem of my beer, but I still don't get it, #tag help!!!!!!!!!!!!



  • Why the salt solves the shitty taste problem, or the shitty taste problem?

    I don't do home brew myself, but I have had to listen to a lot of people who do. What the "bad" taste actually is, can seriously help determine what causes it.

    Perhaps the salt "curing" it, is the clue but I was useless at chemistry - it's worse than logic



  • If salt doesn't work, try butter.



  • @loose said:

    Why the salt solves the shitty taste problem, or the shitty taste problem?

    I don't do home brew myself, but I have had to listen to a lot of people who do. What the "bad" taste actually is, can seriously help determine what causes it.

    Perhaps the salt "curing" it, is the clue but I was useless at chemistry - it's worse than logic

    Can you type less drunk please? I, literally, have no idea what the #hashtag you're saying. I'm going to guess you're talking about salt curing things; which is super dumb when related to beer and or just plain wrong unless you're some useless Portlandia dumbass.

    While I wasn't super specific, I buttumed "rimming" ( :giggity:) gave the notion of what usually happens to a margarita (i.e. literally,cool a piece of stemware, dampen the rim of said stemware with cool water, and then place the bespoke stemware - rim down #hash#tag :giggity: - in the salt; finally, you fill the glass with the aforementioned [beer]).


    Filed Under: WHY THE FUCK DID I HAVE TO X PLANE THINGS :QUESTIONMARK:


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    :wtf:



  • @blakeyrat said:

    If salt doesn't work, try butter.

    Adding fat to beer is quite difficult; though i does make things moar tasty.



  • @rad131304 said:

    While I wasn't super specific, I buttumed "rimming" ( ) gave the notion of what usually happens to a margarita (i.e. literally,cool a piece of stemware, dampen the rim of said stemware with cool water, and then place the bespoke stemware - rim down #hash#tag - in the salt; finally, you fill the glass with the aforementioned [beer]).

    Yes, I got that. Sorry, I thought you were making a serious post. My mistake, obviously.



  • @loose said:

    @rad131304 said:
    While I wasn't super specific, I buttumed "rimming" ( ) gave the notion of what usually happens to a margarita (i.e. literally,cool a piece of stemware, dampen the rim of said stemware with cool water, and then place the bespoke stemware - rim down #hash#tag - in the salt; finally, you fill the glass with the aforementioned [beer]).

    Yes, I got that. Sorry, I thought you were making a serious post. My mistake, obviously.

    ❓ I'm completely serious about the beer + salt thing.

    My current homebrew is undrinkable without salt - and I get the "chemistry" on the cooking level (balancing sour and umami), but :wtf: salt? who adds salt to beer? Where is the bad ideas thread and why is this not in it?!?!?!?!?!?!?

    Edit ... I do actually know where the bad ideas thread is .. .its ◀ ⏬ ⏫ 🛅 ↔ 🖕 👇 👉 🚏 ⬅ 🏁 way.



  • Sorry, but I am seriously confused here. Home brewing is literally liquid chemistry in action. So much so that adding an ingredient the wrong side of the demijohn (poor joke) can completely alter the taste. Identifying what the actual taste is is part of skill of "brewing", along with knowing what caused it and what "additional" ingredient (chemical) is required to neutralise it.

    Like I said, I don't do home brew but I am aware of the problems involved. As you do (do home brew), and you mentioned salt cured the taste issues, I assumed you were asking for help to find the neutraliser. I admit none of my replies are or have been helpful, but the implied question was: "What does it taste like without the salt". With the implicit suggestion (in these modern times) of "Google: My home brew tastes like [shit] unless I add salt. Why".

    I do realise you attempted to describe the taste, but I took that for hyperbole. However, tannin is associated with leather production and I guess that it could be noticed if you sucked on your sole long enough; and "tart" could mean sour.

    On a more humorous, TDWTFy note. I do detect a degree of "drunkenness" about these posts but as I have only drunk (lots of) tea (= lots of tannin LOL), milk, and orange cordial (in separate containers at separate times) in the last 12 hours........

    Otherwise 👍

    Ps. It is always a good idea to let somebody else taste test first, after all we are dealing with chemicals here....

    Emergency Edit: Wait!....We are talking about tasting home brew, and drunkenness here............
    Humorous Edit: We are not talking moonshine here are we?



  • @loose said:

    Sorry, but I am seriously confused here. Home brewing is literally liquid chemistry in action. So much so that adding an ingredient the wrong side of the demijohn (poor joke) can completely alter the taste. Identifying what the actual taste is is part of skill of "brewing", along with knowing what caused it and what "additional" ingredient (chemical) is required to neutralise it.

    I have no idea what you mean by demijohn. I am going to kind of agree, but say that identifying a "taste" is a skill of cooking - of which brewing is a subset. By which, performing the balancing of "tastes" is part of the chemistry. i.e. I agree, but not in the sense that you stated.

    @loose said:

    Like I said, I don't do home brew but I am aware of the problems involved. As you do (do home brew), and you mentioned salt cured the taste issues, I assumed you were asking for help to find the neutraliser. I admit none of my replies are or have been helpful, but the implied question was: "What does it taste like without the salt". With the implicit suggestion (in these modern times) of "Google: My home brew tastes like [shit] unless I add salt. Why".

    The process of curing is far different from what I mentioned; Th salt was added as a spice. More precisely, the salt was added as a garnish.

    @loose said:

    I do realise you attempted to describe the taste, but I took that for hyperbole. However, tannin is associated with leather production and I guess that it could be noticed if you sucked on your sole long enough; and "tart" could mean sour.

    On a more humorous, TDWTFy note. I do detect a degree of "drunkenness" about these posts but as I have only drunk (lots of) tea (= lots of tannin LOL), milk, and orange cordial (in separate containers at separate times) in the last 12 hours........

    Otherwise 👍

    Ps. It is always a good idea to let somebody else taste test first, after all we are dealing with chemicals here....

    Emergency Edit: Wait!....We are talking about tasting home brew, and drunkenness here............
    Humorous Edit: We are not talking moonshine here are we?

    So, usually, there would be, basically 0 tannins in beer - beers experience "bitterness" from the hops, not "dryness" from the berries - but this is a raspberry cream ale (made from locally sourced raspberries) to which I forgot to add a non-fermentable sugar .... i.e. there are tannins, but there shouldn't be enough to cause flavor profile issues.

    More unfortunately, the flavor is not a classic "sour" beer ... though I made many mistakes producing this beer, none of those mistakes introduced enough bacteria to alter the flavor in the "sour" beer sense. I suppose I could keep the beer for another 6 or so months, but ... then I'd have multiple cases of beer not being drunk for months ... and I just don't understand the question.

    EDIT: also, I made 0 attempts to describe the taste of the beer in my OP. But, if you're curious, before the salt it tasted vaguely like like raspberry flavored methanol. Which is a terrible taste.



  • @rad131304 said:

    it tasted vaguely like like raspberry flavored methanol. Which is a terrible taste.

    I can't not ask how you know the taste of methanol.


  • FoxDev

    @rad131304 said:

    I have no idea what you mean by demijohn.


  • Java Dev

    @rad131304 said:

    ◀ ⏬ ⏫ 🛅 ↔ 🖕 👇 👉 🚏 ⬅ 🏁

    Ah, the lost art of doing your own arrows.



  • All else aside. If it really tastes like methanol then bin it. Seriously dude. Try typing "My home brew tastes like [taste of your choice] " into Google. I just went with methanol rather than "raspberry methanol" as that would just be a red berryherring that google could not ignore.

    Eventually I got past enough results that describe the effect of drinking methanol (not good btw) to find out a possible "why" and got this

    The danger comes in distilling. Not that i'm trying to explain the process, but basically methanol boils off at a lower temp than ethanol. If you had a large amount of mash (say you had enough to produce 5 gallons of finished product) then the first liter or so might be almost pure methanol if you don't control your temp correctly. So, here is the lethality of methanol. I'm sure you can imagine the dangers of a bottle of methanol since it tastes fairly similar to ethanol. I'd assume it got it's reputation with homebrew in the prohibition era.

    from http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=203153



  • Oh fuck I need help. I was looking at the link (above) and I started thinking "such a nice little forum" and then Platform 1 started playing a tune that was a bit muffled but not so muffled that Platform 2 could not start singing along. The Fat Controller can just about make out the words "... a nice little FORUM a something something something little FORUM..." but the "static" of FORUM is overloading the Engineer's input system and he can't identify the song. His last memo stated that it might be "talk to the animals" as previously plaid here. The Fat Controller needs to identify the song so he can go about his normal daily business.

    KTHXBYE


  • FoxDev

    ...what?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    :wtf:?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place



  • @Xaade 's own sockbot?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    :fa_do_not_want:



  • Ahh. Right. So.

    I am reasonable certain the song was "there once was an ugly duckling". The problem was that the "misremembered" lyrics were being sung to the tune of "talk to the animals" as in:

    Ps. Thanks for the help and support guys

    I am not even going to start thinking about the subliminal psychology behind this



  • Bug report: I can't lowtax this thread to the Comedy Gas Chamber category.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @rad131304 said:

    The process of curing is far different from what I mentioned

    "cure" can mean using salt to preserve something, but I suspect @loose meant it in the general sense of "fix" or "remedy". As in "salt cured the bad-tasting beer" meaning "salt fixed the problem of bad-tasting beer", not "salt preserved the beer"



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    @rad131304 said:
    it tasted vaguely like like raspberry flavored methanol. Which is a terrible taste.

    I can't not ask how you know the taste of methanol.

    I really screwed up making a cider once - it was both disgusting and painful.



  • @RaceProUK said:

    @rad131304 said:
    I have no idea what you mean by demijohn.

    Huh, TIL. I've never heard of a carboy being called a demijohn.



  • @loose said:

    All else aside. If it really tastes like methanol then bin it. Seriously dude. Try typing "My home brew tastes like [taste of your choice] " into Google. I just went with methanol rather than "raspberry methanol" as that would just be a red berryherring that google could not ignore.

    Eventually I got past enough results that describe the effect of drinking methanol (not good btw) to find out a possible "why" and got this

    The danger comes in distilling. Not that i'm trying to explain the process, but basically methanol boils off at a lower temp than ethanol. If you had a large amount of mash (say you had enough to produce 5 gallons of finished product) then the first liter or so might be almost pure methanol if you don't control your temp correctly. So, here is the lethality of methanol. I'm sure you can imagine the dangers of a bottle of methanol since it tastes fairly similar to ethanol. I'd assume it got it's reputation with homebrew in the prohibition era.

    from http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=203153

    The "vaguely" part was more to mean that it just tastes terrible. It's definitely mostly ethanol.



  • @loose said:

    The Fat Controller needs to identify the song so he can go about his normal daily business.

    I believe someone's tram has gone round the bend... ;)



  • Fortunately, I'm not on it 😜


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @RaceProUK said:

    ...what?

    Apparently, it was PCP, not methanol, in his beer.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @loopback0 said:

    :fa_do_not_want:


  • FoxDev

    DOGGY!!!
    <lol>


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @RaceProUK said:

    DOGGY!!!

    Been a long time since that happened.



  • PHP beer?



  • You know those "X? I remember learning a little bit about that" topics that you start reading out of curiosity and then read the entire thing mainly just because you're so impressed that all these words make sense to some people and they actually know enough about it to hold a conversation?

    This was one of those.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @aliceif said:

    PHP beer?

    Pretty Hoppy Pilsner?


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @rad131304 said:

    with salt makes it quite tasty. beforehand it was like sucking on a tart leather shoe sole ....

    You could have bought Corona a lot cheaper than you could make it.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @loose said:

    Eventually I got past enough results that describe the effect of drinking methanol (not good btw) to find out a possible "why" and got this

    Horseshit. I distill all of my brewing and winemaking mistakes and out of 5 gallons you might get 100ml of methanol. Also, it is not a matter of temperature control with distilling. It is heat control. The boiling liquids will control your temperature for you, you just need to be sure that your condenser can handle the vapor output that you are putting in to it or else you will create a flamethrower/ethanol torch.

    The guy who wrote that is a moron.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @rad131304 said:

    Huh, TIL. I've never heard of a carboy being called a demijohn.

    On the USAian side of the pond, this is what we call a demijohn:


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @RaceProUK said:

    ...what?

    Methanol. Not even once.


  • FoxDev

    @FrostCat said:

    @loopback0 said:
    :fa_do_not_want:

    DOGGY!

    (yes it's hanzo, i don't care!)



  • TIL

    I argue with myself.

    But it was all a cover to hide my secret.



  • Hey! I'm just the messenger, and a voluntary one at that :)


  • BINNED

    What are your sanitation procedures? I suspect there might be something other than the usual yeast working on the stuff you brew.



  • More generally, can you tell us about the brewing techniques you used overall, such as the overall process (extract, extract with specialty malt, partial mash, or all-grain), how you used any grains and at what temps, how you cooled it, how you sanitized your equipment, what style of beer it was, what yeast you used, etc.?

    Tannin flavors most often come from overheating the grains, but can also be a sign of infection. Fusel oils ('hot' alcoholic flavor) usually come from too high a fermentation temperature, or too little time aging (usually not an issue with a cream ale) but again, can be from an infected wort as well. Can you give more specifics about the flavor? You mentioned a berry flavor/odor, which leads me to think of high fermentation temps (excessive ester production), but more details could help.

    EDIT: Oh, right, you said it was a raspberry cream ale, OK, nevermind that part.

    I should add that you might find more useful help on a brewing forum like Homebrew Talk or hombrewing.com. Just a thought.





  • OK, there too, I guess. I'd forgotten about that one.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @loose said:

    Hey! I'm just the messenger, and a voluntary one at that

    My outrage was directed at the idiot asshole who does not know how big of an idiot he is who originally posted that, not your reposting of it. There is a big gap in culpability between spouting off about shit you don't know about and simply reposting something you read elsewhere that seems to make sense. That guy didn't know what the fuck he was talking about, and should have just kept his mouth shut.

    The deal with fractional distillation is that you don't have to worry about controlling your temperature. Not really. The different fractions will take care of that for you and you really only need worry about monitoring the temperatures to know when you are crossing from fraction to fraction.

    When you are distilling alcohol, they refer to it colloquially as heads, hearts and tails. Heads are primarily methanol and a bunch of really horrible tasting VOCs. They all boil off at a relatively low temperature. Methanol boils at a much lower temperature than etahnol (the good stuff) does. So, if your vapor column is at ~170F, you are distilling ethanol. Methanol boils at ~148F. You have a 22F split there, so the precautions necessary to make sure you are getting methanol is just looking at rough temperatures.

    I usually collect ethanol from 165F-175F. I discard everything below that, and I collect tails from 175-185F as there is still some ethanol in there, but not necessarily pure. Tails get added to the next batch for redistilling.

    I also run a reflux still, which also helps concentrate methanol. I run the still for ~5-10 minutes at 100% reflux to concentrate the methanol in the vapor column, dial down my cooling water flow until I start getting flow out of the condenser and I can guarantee the first 100ml out will clear out all of the methanol. Probably less than that, because the vapor temperature rises very quickly.

    I could probably get by with just 20ml. But, if you ever drank methanol, you would know that it will instantly give you a headache. A splitting, massive, horrible, headache that Advil won't touch. I found that out the hard way when trying out a desktop still that my father bought me as a present.



  • I know, :) but the Code of Discourse requires I get all @blakeyrat about it as an immediate response.

    👍 good post too.

    Addendum: I would like to say "The Unwritten Code of Discourse", but if it was unwritten, it wouldn't be a bugproblem


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @loose said:

    good post too.

    Thanks. I chose the username that I did because I geek out about a lot of things, booze happens to be one of those things.



  • I have spent all of my adult life trying not to allow myself to be identified as a geek, as it can seriously harm any social life. Ranging from "...Oh you know about computers, I have this problem..." to not getting that special eyeballing...


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