Brewing with Sodium Chloride

Discounting hops, most of the flavors we like in beer come from 'impurities' and/or sloppy yeast. Budweiser has a very pure flavor. Having said that, no one should discount canning salt without trying it. Or sea salt.

 

I use calcium chloride to accentuate maltiness. Used in small quantities, the beer does taste softer in part because it helps smooth out the bitterness. I usually shoot for 50 ppm chloride in a hoppy beer and even lower sulfates. In a saison I would go for a similar ratio. Above these levels the mineral character becomes too predominate in light beers for my taste.

 

My point was that if you're adding sodium chloride to your beer, then you've probably got a pretty tight handle on what you're trying to do. Thus you would want to use something that is as close to pure NaCl as possible. The unknown impurities found in Sea Salt will take some of that control away from you. The result may be good, bad, or indifferent - there's no way to know in advance. Canning salt is as close as you're likely to find to pure NaCl, it's widely available, and it's cheap.

 

I've been known to put a pinch of salt in with the grind when making coffee. I've found I can make a stronger pot without it being as harsh when doing this.

 

We add salt to a stout we make. Brewed it several times without salt before adding. We found that it did accentuate malt and smooths out the beer, in our experience. I'm a fan. We bought ours at the neighborhood supermarket, non-iodized. Trace impurities found in commercial grade salt are not going to effect the flavor in your beer. Bought 1.5 kgs for $1.37...

Of course, if you're adding Sodium Bicarb and CaCl2, you may not need to add salt at all to get the same effect.

 

Fearing impurity sounds very Catholic to me

 

I think it was Charlie Bamforth that said a previous boss referred to beer as slightly polluted water.