IPA Water chem adjustment recommendations

Source Water: Calcium (ppm) 100 Magnesium (ppm) 6 Alkalinity as CaCO3 105 Sodium (ppm) 23 Chloride (ppm) 95 Sulfate (ppm) 31 Water pH 8.2
I am asking for some advice on how I can better improve my water for brewing IPA's and pale ales. I have been decidedly un impressed with the same beers I brewed in san diego now that I have moved to texas. I listed my new source water and I am looking for advice on how to improve it for the styles listed.

That water does have a lot of calcium and chloride already. But the sulfate is fairly low. It appears to me that you may need to dilute that water to reduce the chloride content and then you can hit it with 100 to 300 ppm of sulfate to meet your taste expectations.

As for diluting are we talking 50/50? I don't have a way to really know how far to take it. Thank you for the response btw !

One tool I used has me adding. 5 g of gypsum and. 2 g sulfate(epsom) in mash and 2.6 g Epsom in sparge volume. Does that look right?

jdjtexas said:

One tool I used has me adding. 5 g of gypsum and. 2 g sulfate(epsom) in mash and 2.6 g Epsom in sparge volume. Does that look right?

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Yes, that would be alright at a glance- except you can't "erase" your high chloride by adding other salts. You should dilute your water 50% with RO water (reverse osmosis water) to bring down that too-high chloride, and then add gypsum to bring up your calcium and your sulfate.

Same additions using only 50% of my tap?

Or just split my h20 and add gypsum (5g or so?)

And since I have a few min left on my lunch... Any ideas as to what styles my source water would be favorable for? My best beer yet in Texas was a porter. Is there something to be said there?

jdjtexas said:

Same additions using only 50% of my tap?

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I'm not a huge fan of adding much magnesium, so I'd shy off of the epsom salts and use gypsum mostly. Bring the sulfate to 150 ppm, using the epsom salts and gypsum, and you should be pretty good.

In mabrungard's link in his signature, he has his bru'nwater spreadsheet. That's really an excellent brewing water spreadsheet and I use it a lot to determine what I need to do with my water in each brew. There is a learning curve to it- it took me a long time to "get it". Alternatively, brewer's friend is a free online brewing software and its water calculator is easier (just plug in your numbers) and should be able to help alot with this water. You can also predict mash pH pretty accurately usually with one of those tools.

jdjtexas said:

And since I have a few min left on my lunch... Any ideas as to what styles my source water would be favorable for? My best beer yet in Texas was a porter. Is there something to be said there?

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Porter, stout, possibly dark lagers (a bit high in alkalinity for light lagers), and other malt-forward darker colored beers. Maybe a wee heavy or a Scottish as well.

Thanks yooper

jdjtexas said:

As for diluting are we talking 50/50? I don't have a way to really know how far to take it. Thank you for the response btw !

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I like my chloride around 50ppm for IPAs, so yeah diluting 50/50 with RO water would be just about perfect. Then you can add a bunch of gypsum to get your sulfate up to 150-300 along with a tiny bit of epsom salt. I like using the EZ water spreadsheet for this stuff.

Also, if you happen to have any of those IPAs your not happy with laying around, a trick I learned recently is that it's still not too late to add some gypsum and get those sulfate levels up and bring out the hops. Was a quick fix to one of my beers recently.

I'm finding that epsom salt is a great addition to any beer that is focused on bittering and hops. That mineral adds a lot of sulfate (40 ppm) for every 10 ppm of magnesium it adds. In beers that you want the dryness and ability to accentuate hopping, that sulfate is very welcome. In addition, the epsom salt addition helps reduce the total calcium you add to your wort. Calcium is actually not as welcome in brewing as I once thought. Keeping it at modest levels in ales and very low levels in lagers is actually a worthwhile goal. Of course, when you are trying to boost the sulfate through the roof for an IPA or PA, then its difficult to keep calcium low. But providing a modest supplement of epsom salt is a real win-win situation.

PS: Be sure you know how much magnesium is in your water before you add any more. Magnesium is fairly innocuous at levels less than 20 ppm. But may not be pleasant if you go above 40 ppm.

mabrungard said:

I'm finding that epsom salt is a great addition to any beer that is focused on bittering and hops. That mineral adds a lot of sulfate (40 ppm) for every 10 ppm of magnesium it adds. In beers that you want the dryness and ability to accentuate hopping, that sulfate is very welcome. In addition, the epsom salt addition helps reduce the total calcium you add to your wort. Calcium is actually not as welcome in brewing as I once thought. Keeping it at modest levels in ales and very low levels in lagers is actually a worthwhile goal. Of course, when you are trying to boost the sulfate through the roof for an IPA or PA, then its difficult to keep calcium low. But providing a modest supplement of epsom salt is a real win-win situation.

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What do you consider "modest" levels of calcium?

I generally start with RO water, or mostly, so I don't have very high levels of calcium. This is more of a curiosity than a real need to know, I think!

A modest level is that concentration that produces an adequate degree of flocculation with your ale yeast. It varies, but that is generally the root of the 50 ppm calcium minimum we have touted for years.

Lager yeast DOES NOT need or benefit from calcium since malt supplies all the calcium needed for the yeast and a lager yeast is not as dependent upon the flocculation effect as ales since the long lagering period will clear the beer.