mabrungard

Recipes 

I was formerly a consultant to AB's Jacksonville brewery and the American Lager profile is from that brewery. They use a nanofiltration process (essentially a coarse RO system) to process their relatively minerallized groundwater for their brewing uses. I was very surprised to see that this was the water they brew with, but they apparently don't add any additional calcium to the water for brewing since I would have detected it in the wastewater.

There are impacts from brewing with a water with low calcium, some good and some bad. Clearly, we know that Pilsen brewers use a low calcium water successfully and I know that AB does too. There are flavor benefits from the reduced mineralization in that there are fewer ions to color the beer flavor.

But, there is one aspect that can be troublesome to anyone without great cleaning practices...beerstone. The low calcium level does not provide the best opportunity to precipitate calcium oxalate during the mash. Therefore, the potential for beerstone formation is increased. I would have to say that AB probably has excellent clean-in-place machinery and procedures, so the opportunity for beerstone formation is significantly reduced. For homebrewers, that might not be the case. Thus the reason I recommend a minimum of 40 ppm Ca to help avoid beerstone formation in the first place.

The other reason to have a more elevated Ca content is to promote yeast health and flocculation. Considering that these major lager breweries are certainly pitching large yeast amounts so yeast health and yeast multiplication during the ferment may not be such an issue for them. These breweries also have sometimes elaborate fining methods and filtering, that solves the flocculation problem.

I can't say that I recommend either the Pilsen or American Lager water profiles, but I can't argue with the success of those beers and their fine and delicate flavor. I included the AB profile only because I had it and knew it was factual. If a brewer can deal with the potential limitations from brewing with low Ca water, then it should produce a more delicate flavored beer. Do be careful with taking this to the extreme since I have had beers made with straight RO or distilled water and I was not impressed with the lack of flavor.

Enjoy!

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Martin Brungard, P.E. D.WRE
Carmel, IN
BJCP National
Foam Blowers of Indiana (FBI)
Brewing Water Information at:
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/

kenlenard

Recipes 

Thanks Martin.

I have said many times that us homebrewers are lucky because our "rock stars" are very accessible. I've been lucky enough to have conversations with Greg Noonan, Chris White, Chris Colby, John Palmer, Tess Szamatulski, Ray Daniels and others and I'm always impressed that they can respond to all of the correspondence they receive. I would put AJ and Martin in that group of "Accessible Rock Stars" to the homebrewing world. Thanks again for the insight.

Grinder12000

Recipes 

OK - I gotta say - I'm on page 5 and LOVING this whole topic!!! Could be worth a lifetime membership! Wait - I just paid for a year!! dang it!

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Grinders Island Brewery - Pipeline (Batch #)

Secondary Kentucky Common(83)
Primary #1 Scottish Ale 70(84)
Primary #2 The Black Pearl Porter(85)

Grinder12000

Recipes 

Define "British beers" and minerally beers. Where do Pale Ales and IPA's come into play???

__________________
Grinders Island Brewery - Pipeline (Batch #)

Secondary Kentucky Common(83)
Primary #1 Scottish Ale 70(84)
Primary #2 The Black Pearl Porter(85)

carrotmalt

Recipes 

Post 156 hits on those.

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I like a little more beer in my beer.

ajdelange

Recipes 

Beers where the style originated in Great Britain, such as Pale Ales and IPAs but also Bitter, Mild, Burton Ales, Stout, Porter, Scottish Ales...

Beers where a high mineral content is part of the traditional profile i.e. where you taste the mineral quality in the finished beer. Export, Gose and Burton ales come to mind.

bassmaster911

Recipes 

On a 5 gallon 1.050 beer what would the equivilent of 3% acid malt be in 88% lactic acid?

ajdelange

Recipes 

It's 3% of the grist weight so if you mashed 25 kg of malt 3% would be 750 grams of sauermalz. Sauermalz is generally considered to contain 2% lactic acid by weight so that 750 grams sauermalz would contain 15 grams of lactic acid. Lactic acid is generally sold as a solution which is 88% by weight so that 15/.88 = 17 grams of that solution would be needed. The density of an 88% solution is about 1.2 grams/cc so the 17 grams corresponds to 17/1.2 = 14.2 mL. Thus it looks like 14.2/25 = 0.568 mL per kg grist which is 0.258 mL per pound.

bassmaster911

Recipes 

Thanks for the detailed explanation! Just to make sure I understand it equals about 1 ml per 4 pounds of grain.

ajdelange

Recipes 

Yes.