Water Modification Videos, TH's Spreadsheet - Page 9

**Bobby_M** · 01-31-2010, 12:33 AM

If you're no sparging, all the water you use is mash water, none is sparge. All the salts would be stirred into the mash.

**kal** · 01-31-2010, 12:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby_M

Kal, if you list your whole profile, I can play around to see if I can get something you can work with.

Thanks Bobby!

I'll give my water numbers using my last beer as an example: A Blonde Ale with SRM of 5. I have no issues with getting to Moser Pale Ale style numbers. It's the lighter beers like this (Helles, american lagers) that I have issues with.

My water's soft.

My intentions in water modifications for this lighter coloured/style beer was:

(1) Keep the additions fairly light but still try and get all of the numbers into the recommended range (within reason)
(2) Create a balanced Cl:S04 ratio

Here's what I did:

Mg is low as you can see. I keep hearing that many people don't want to add extra Epsom Salt in the kettle so I left it out. I suppose I could have included the Epsom Salt in the sparge water as well and then upped the CaCl to raise Cl as follows:

This way I would have hit the recommended range and had a balanced Cl:S04.

I guess my question really is: What sort of targets would you guys want to aim for for something like a Blonde Ale done right to style guidlines (American 2-row, a very little bit of Crystal 15L, fermented with WLP001/WY1056 at 67F)?

I'm doing a Helles next week to style and figure I should go even more towards the "malty" side of Cl:S04 ratio.

Thanks!

Kal

**Bobby_M** · 01-31-2010, 02:03 AM

I think both are OK. No harm in adding epsom to the boil that I can tell.

According to the profile in the EZ calc, Munich is still on the bitter side of Cl:SO4, but not overly so. I think balanced to 1.25 would be good.

**Reelale** · 01-31-2010, 02:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby_M

If you're no sparging, all the water you use is mash water, none is sparge. All the salts would be stirred into the mash.

Thanks again. I should have seen that in Daddymem's post about BIAB. Just ordered my minerals and plan to adjust close to Munich profile for an upcoming Dunkelweizen. Before that, I'm gonna try a Marris Otter SMaSH w/o adjustments or minor adjustments just to increase my Ca and Mg a tad. I've had good results with Ed Wort's Pale Ale without adjustments. Think the SMaSH will be ok?

**kal** · 01-31-2010, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby_M

I think both are OK. No harm in adding epsom to the boil that I can tell.

According to the profile in the EZ calc, Munich is still on the bitter side of Cl:SO4, but not overly so. I think balanced to 1.25 would be good.

Thanks Bobby. In reading about TH's spreadsheet it's been mentioned a few times that people prefer to keep salts out of the boil (esp. MgS04), which is why the checkboxes are added. Not 100% sure why.

Kal

**Bobby_M** · 02-01-2010, 02:41 AM

The two salts I regularly leave out of the boil are Chalk and Baking Soda. They are typically only good for raising RA for the mash pH. Also, if you need to use Gypsum and others to drastically lower RA, you'll likely get all the SO4 you'd need out of the mash addition so you wouldn't want to layer more on top for the boil.

garretto · 02-01-2010, 03:30 PM

But is there any thing wrong with adding them to the boil? I'm doing my first salt addition on my next batch and I'm trying to keep sane by trying to keep things simple the first time.
I guess my question restated would be: Are there any negative effects of boiling chalk and/or baking soda? (Given that I follow what EZ water calculator determines how much I add)

**Bobby_M** · 02-01-2010, 03:42 PM

No, the only potential issue is going overboard on the Ca, Na, and HCO3. I think the best bet would be to fill out the EZ sheet, and copy and paste the data from the "raw data" worksheet. We can all weigh in on your plan for a sanity check.

garretto · 02-01-2010, 08:04 PM

I guess I'm not so much asking for help with the salt additions (although I definitely would love some help, which is while I'll go ahead and post them below) as much as I'm trying to ask a more general question of the effects of adding salts to the boil.
Originally, I was just going to follow the EZ sheet gram for gram after I got my amounts correct, but then I watched the video about unchecking the box for boil as well as read that some leave certain salts out of the boil.

So is it generally just Ca, Na, and HCO3 you need to worry about? I imagine too much of any individual element (Na, Ca,...) is bad so is there a general rule of thumb like don't go above 7 grams of any salt? I realize the feedback from my info below may possibly answer a few questions.

This is for a Pale Ale

Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 4
Mg: 1
Na: 6
Cl: 2.5
SO4: 1
CaCO3: 17

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 4 / 4.5
Dilution Rate: 0%

Adjustments (grams) Mash / Boil Kettle:
CaCO3: 0 / 0
CaSO4: 7 / 7.875
CaCl2: 0 / 0
MgSO4: 3.5 / 3.9375
NaHCO3: 0 / 0
NaCl: 1 / 1.125
HCL Acid: 0 / 0
Lactic Acid: 0 / 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 109 / 109
Mg: 23 / 23
Na: 32 / 32
Cl: 43 / 43
SO4: 349 / 349
CaCO3: 17 / 17

RA (mash only): -74 (0 to 4 SRM)
Cl to SO4 (total water): 0.12 (Very Bitter)

Thanks for taking a look at this.

garretto · 02-02-2010, 03:56 PM

Hey Kal, I just noticed your little notes below your sulfate about 50-150 being normally bitter and up to 350 being really bitter. How's that range working for you?
I forget if I have read about that in Palmer or not.