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I'm intrigued by an assertion made recently by the boss of Strangford Lough Brewing Company about how their beer is made. They are, effectively, producing commercial grade beer kits: a hopped liquid wort supplied to the contract brewery with finishing hops and yeast. The recipient just adds water and ferments.

Now, Tony says the contract brewer adds "neutral" water, and that the wort contains all the local water chemistry of where it's made, which then ends up in the finished beer. Really? Does that work? Even theoretically, if the wort is brewed to high gravity it's not going to replicate the same water chemistry once diluted with distilled water. Leaving aside exactly what constitutes "neutral" water, can water profiles be concentrated and rehydrated this way?

The whole discussion, including my usual cranky contributions, is here[/url:1gta740q].

I was goin' to order some of these beers in, but the whole BUL and PaddyWhackerey thing just scares me off a bit . Seems to lack soul? whadever that means <!-- s:roll: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_rolleyes.gif" alt="" title="Rolling Eyes" /><!-- s:roll: -->

As the mash and boil have already happened, I think the top up water chemistry is largely irrelevant.

Also, if they've extracted pure water and nothing else from the wort before shipping, then the addition of an equal amount of distilled water at the destination should restore the same profile.

One thing they might be doing is adding additional mineral salts to the wort after the mash but prior to concentrating the liquid to ensure that the yeast they supply will be healthy throughout fermentation. If the water used at the end point for fermentation was not "neutral" then the yeast might behave in unpredictable ways. I guess it's an attempt to reduce costs at the same time as ensuring consistency.

@TBN : Deveneys have 2 of them in stock, legbiter and barelegs brew. picked one of each up on saturday, nothing really to write home about, but nothing terrible about them either.

&amp;quot;TheBeerNut&amp;quot;:38x52lu1 wrote: Now, Tony says the contract brewer adds "neutral" water, and that the wort contains all the local water chemistry of where it's made, which then ends up in the finished beer. Really? Does that work? Even theoretically, if the wort is brewed to high gravity it's not going to replicate the same water chemistry once diluted with distilled water. Leaving aside exactly what constitutes "neutral" water, can water profiles be concentrated and rehydrated this way?[/quote:38x52lu1]Water profiles are important primarily for the mash to ensure the PH is in the right range. Theoretically the water added to the concentrated wort afterwards is irrelevent as Diablo pointed out, however I was intrigued by a comment on one of the brewing podcasts that mentioned extract beers should only be topped up by neutral water i.e. distilled or soft water as the water chemistry that's already locked in could be knocked out of whack. This seems contradictory to me but it does follow the line of thought in your quote. Perhaps Thom or Oblivious may be able to shed more light on the 'science bit'.