Hey guys, I've made a Berliner twice now and both times it came out awesome. I want to use the same recipe but turn it into a gose, so my initial thought is add .75oz of sea salt at flameout. Wondering if this is the right amount, and all I have to do. 3 lbs of wheat / 3 lbs of pilsen .5 tett @15 Sour mash for 5 days 4 gallon batch
Not sure on the amounts as I have not made one, nor researched the recipes, but you also need coriander.
Looks like the amounts are pretty variable. I'm gonna go with .5oz of coriander and sea salt, coriander @ 10 minutes and sea salt at flameout. Also everyone seems to be using acid malt, I figure I won't need it since I am doing a sour mash.
Half an oz of salt is about right for 5 gallons in my experience, you may want a bit more coriander. Keep in mind that you can always add more of either in secondary if you don't taste enough. Just be careful with the salt, I've had some with too much salt and it can mess up an otherwise very nice beer pretty easily.
Here is what I have posted previously on this question: Salt is definitely tricky. Here is what @OldSock did, and here are his tasting notes. He used 1/2 ounce of sea salt in 5 gallons, and didn't think it was quite salty enough. When I recently brewed a gose, I used 1/2 ounce of sea salt in a little over 3 gallons, and I would say it was about right, but maybe not salty enough for some people. Maybe an ounce in 5 gallons would be about right, if you really want to notice the salt. I think Brewing With Wheat calls for almost half an ounce per gallon, which based on my experience would be incredibly salty. So you would definitely notice it! In that instance, the OP wanted the salt to be "easily noticed" and observed that the salt tends to get lost in a lot of examples. That is why my advice was to use 1 ounce in 5 gallons [edited to add: oops, I just realized you are brewing 4 gallons . . .]. For you, I would go with your original plan of 0.75 ounces in 5 gallons [ahem, 0.6 ounces in 4 gallons]. But then again, I suppose you can always add salt at bottling, so I suppose the conservative advice would be to use 0.5 ounces. But I think that amount will not do the trick for you. [Actually 0.5 is not far off if you are brewing 4 gallons, but still I would kick it up to 0.6.] [Edited to add: By the way, I would click through to those posts by @OldSock. I used something very close to his gose recipe, and I thought it tasted great when I bottled it a few weeks ago. (I haven't opened any of the bottles yet.) The thing that his recipe has that a typical Berliner recipe doesn't is melanoidin malt. If you do a decoction mash, then maybe it's unnecessary, though.]
I don't see a good argument for adding salt anytime other than to taste in the bottling bucket or keg. Once you figure out what works for your tastes, future batches can be dosed in the kettle for ease (although I'd still hold back a bit - easier to add more than take some out).
I have a gose on tap now and we did 1oz of lime salt, and .5oz of coriander. I would pull back to .75oz of lime salt next time but was still really tasty. And I added both with 15 min left in the boil.
In 5 gallons? Yeah, I guess that makes sense. If you're going to do it this way, I would advise dissolving a known quantity of salt in some boiling water beforehand, and then taking note of the total volume of saltwater. You don't want to have to wait for the salt to dissolve each time you add more during the tasting - and in my experience, it can take a while for the salt to dissolve fully (maybe because I used somewhat large-grained sea salt). And then, when you are done, you will be able to calculate how much salt went into the beer, for future reference. Personally, I make such small batches that I would rather not have to "spend" my beer at the bottling phase, although I realize we're not talking about very much beer. But anyway, once I figure out an amount that works for me, I will probably just add it without tasting. While we're on the subject, am I right in thinking that iodized salt would be a bad idea? Or is that just to avoid iodine during fermentation, in which case it might not matter if you add at bottling? Or are the amounts negligible?
Yes, sorry 5 gallons. Sea salt would follow traditional methods, but I've never heard of anyone using iodized salt...I have no idea what that would do to the chemistry of the beer, or why you would do that...
I don't know why you would go out of your way to add iodized salt, but for a lot of people it might be all they have on hand, and it might not occur to them to do otherwise. By the way I'm not sure sea salt is more traditional than table salt. Although my mistake could be in thinking that there was a distinction between table salt and sea salt at the time. Obviously when Gandhi marched to the sea he wasn't looking for artisanal cooking ingredients, he was looking for a staple. Maybe a question for @patto1ro.
