Building water from distilled

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BrodieBruce

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Hi everyone, I'm going to try to build my brewing water from distilled water for the first time in order to try to improve the flavor of my homebrews. I've used Bru'n Water to set this up, since I'm making an IPA I chose the yellow bitter profile. Based on my grain bill, it looks like I could add 0.6 grams/gal of gypsum, 0.2 grams/gal of epsom salt, and 0.2 grams/gal of calcium chloride to get close to this water profile. This would give me a residual alkalinity of -40 and an estimated mash pH of 5.3. Is it a problem that the water would have 0 sodium and 0 bicarbonate?

My water profile from distilled after additions:
Ca: 51.3 ppm
Mg: 5.2 ppm
Sulfate: 109 ppm
Chloride: 25.5 ppm

Any guidance is greatly appreciated, thanks!
 
No, you won't have a problem with not having sodium in your water. Sodium can add some pleasant flavor nuances (sweetness being one) when present at low concentrations. But you don't have to have it. The water doesn't need bicarbonate either since its only utility in brewing is to alter pH. There are some grists that will require bicarbonate, but it is possible that a pale grist with low hardness water would need zero. In many cases, a pale grist often needs an external source of acid in order to bring the mash pH down to desirable levels. I like to refer to that external acid as a negative bicarbonate demand, but that apparently makes AJ's skin crawl ;-)

The bottom line with bicarbonate and negative bicarbonate demand is that you want your mash pH to end up in a desirable range.

The magnesium is another ion that isn't required, but adds desirable flavor in hop focused beers. I see that you have selected the Yellow Bitter profile and that is a great starting point for brewing hoppy beers. Although it includes the term 'bitter', I prefer to consider this water as enhancing 'dryness', not really bitterness. It is the dryness that allows the bittering to display more prominently. This fact is punctuated by the book, Malting and Brewing Science pairs the terms "malty" and "full" and then the terms "bitter" and "dry" together.

Brew that IPA with the Yellow Bitter and then consider revisiting that beer using the Pale Ale profile if the first beer doesn't dry out its finish to the degree you want.
 
mabrungard said:
No, you won't have a problem with not having sodium in your water. Sodium can add some pleasant flavor nuances (sweetness being one) when present at low concentrations. But you don't have to have it. The water doesn't need bicarbonate either since its only utility in brewing is to alter pH. There are some grists that will require bicarbonate, but it is possible that a pale grist with low hardness water would need zero. In many cases, a pale grist often needs an external source of acid in order to bring the mash pH down to desirable levels. I like to refer to that external acid as a negative bicarbonate demand, but that apparently makes AJ's skin crawl ;-)

The bottom line with bicarbonate and negative bicarbonate demand is that you want your mash pH to end up in a desirable range.

The magnesium is another ion that isn't required, but adds desirable flavor in hop focused beers. I see that you have selected the Yellow Bitter profile and that is a great starting point for brewing hoppy beers. Although it includes the term 'bitter', I prefer to consider this water as enhancing 'dryness', not really bitterness. It is the dryness that allows the bittering to display more prominently. This fact is punctuated by the book, Malting and Brewing Science pairs the terms "malty" and "full" and then the terms "bitter" and "dry" together.

Brew that IPA with the Yellow Bitter and then consider revisiting that beer using the Pale Ale profile if the first beer doesn't dry out its finish to the degree you want.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the information! I wasn't sure that building good water from distilled would only require small additions of gypsum, epsom salt, and calcium chloride.

If I were to try to use the pale ale profile I would need to add more of these minerals and will likely need to add something to raise the pH of my mash. Is there a preferred ingredient for this? e.g. baking soda vs pickling lime vs chalk vs etc...?
 
BrodieBruce said:
If I were to try to use the pale ale profile I would need to add more of these minerals and will likely need to add something to raise the pH of my mash. Is there a preferred ingredient for this? e.g. baking soda vs pickling lime vs chalk vs etc...?
Click to expand...

I find that I do have to add a bit of alkalinity to my mashing water when using the Pale Ale profile or the mash pH will be too low. Low mash pH will reduce the bittering and hop flavor, so that factor is counterproductive in a pale ale. A mash pH of about 5.4 does seem to produce good results in a pale ale.

Unless you are going to the extreme measures needed to dissolve chalk in water, it is not useful in brewing. For most brewers, that means FORGET CHALK...IT DOESN'T WORK.

Either baking soda or lime are more reliable. At modest sodium levels, the effect on beer flavor can be positive. The good thing is that you only add these alkalinity increasing minerals to the mash and their ion content will ultimately be diluted by the sparing water volume. So that seemingly high dose of sodium that you might add with baking soda is diluted. The supporter's version of Bru'n Water automatically accounts for that dilution and tells you what the sodium content of the final wort will be. That should be helpful to those of you considering baking soda use in mashing water.

Lime is a great alkalinity increasing mineral. However, it is strong and it takes very small amounts in the typical homebrew batch size. You do have to use a scale that reads down to the tenth of a gram to dose it properly. Kind of a pain, but that scale comes in useful for other brewery uses.
 

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