Can someone look at this water profile for an IPA please?

Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 8
Mg: 2
Na: 25
Cl: 15
SO4: 11
CaCO3: 20

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 8 / 0
Dilution Rate: 0%

Adjustments (grams) Mash / Boil Kettle:
CaCO3: 4 / 0
CaSO4: 3 / 0
CaCl2: 1 / 0
MgSO4: 5 / 0
NaHCO3: 0 / 0
NaCl: 0 / 0
HCL Acid: 0 / 0
Lactic Acid: 0 / 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 92 / 92
Mg: 17 / 17
Na: 25 / 25
Cl: 31 / 31
SO4: 131 / 131
CaCO3: 85 / 85

RA (mash only): 9 (6 to 11 SRM)
Cl to SO4 (total water): 0.24 (Very Bitter)

I'm not sure if the CL:SO4 is good. Also want a little more malt accentuation than "normal" IPA, hence the addition of CaCL2. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Recipe SRM is 10 and IBU is 60. And I am no-sparge brewing.

Pretty please?

I would up the Cl:SO4 ratio, particularly if you want to get more malt profile. Here is what I would suggest.

Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 8
Mg: 2
Na: 25
Cl: 15
SO4: 11
CaCO3: 20

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 8 / 0
Dilution Rate: 0%

Adjustments (grams) Mash / Boil Kettle:
CaCO3: 3 / 0
CaSO4: 0 / 0
CaCl2: 1 / 0
MgSO4: 3 / 0
NaHCO3: 0 / 0
NaCl: 0 / 0
HCL Acid: 0 / 0
Lactic Acid: 0 / 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 57 / 57
Mg: 11 / 11
Na: 25 / 25
Cl: 31 / 31
SO4: 50 / 50
CaCO3: 69 / 69

RA (mash only): 22 (7 to 12 SRM)
Cl to SO4 (total water): 0.62 (Bitter)

Thanks for the input. Now I don't know what I want to achieve It's a Racer 5 clone, and to me at least, that beer tastes just a little bit more malty than other IPAs I've tried. It's kinda balanced to me. But I want the hops to play too. I'm still struggling with the bitter vs. very bitter distinction.

Reelale said:

Thanks for the input. Now I don't know what I want to achieve It's a Racer 5 clone, and to me at least, that beer tastes just a little bit more malty than other IPAs I've tried. It's kinda balanced to me. But I want the hops to play too. I'm still struggling with the bitter vs. very bitter distinction.

Click to expand...

I know what you are saying. I posed a question on here a while ago as to how to relate various styles to the Cl:SO4 scale, from very bitter to very malty, and I did not get an answer. So I tend to just stay away from the extremes, and keep things between bitter and malty.

I even tried to see if I could correlate the scale to the IBU:SG ratio (using Daniels' numbers), but it still did not give me any real insight into what "very" means regarding bitter or malty. Here's the data in case you are interested, with the style, the IBU/SG range, and the midpoint of the range.

Style IBU/SG
Wheat- .14-.34 0.24
Eisbock- .26 0.26
Doppel- .33 0.33
Bock- .34 0.34
Helles- .36 0.36
Scottish Ale .3-.5 0.4
Sweet Stout- .3-.5 0.4
Munich Helles- .38-.48 0.43
Octoberfest- .42-.50 0.46
Dortmunder Export- .40-.60 0.5
Kolsch- .53 0.53
English Brown- .56 0.56
Old Ale- .58 0.58
Mild Brown- .64 0.64
Brown porter- .55-.72 0.64
Alt-.70 0.7
Special Bitter- .73 0.73
Extra Special Bitter- .73 0.73
German Pils- .68-.80 0.74
Robust Porter- .61-.93 0.77
Bohemian Pils- .75-.85 0.8
Foreign Stout- .9 0.9
Imperial Stout- .9 0.9
Pale Ale- .91 0.91
Barley Wine- .94 0.94
American Brown- .95 0.95
Classic Stout- .8-1.20 1
IPA- 1.10 1.1
Ordinary bitter- 1.28 1.28


Perhaps someone else could chime in.

I'm not sure I'm reading your numbers correctly. Got an example of how you got those values? And IPA has no range? I would think that style would have one of the largest ranges. It could be highly possible that I'm just misinterpreting the data, I've done that before. Anyway, I'm crushing grains in just a moment and decided to go with this. It's as close to " bitter" as I could get. I feel better about the CL:SO4 letting the hops play.


Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 8
Mg: 2
Na: 25
Cl: 15
SO4: 11
CaCO3: 20

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 8 / 0
Dilution Rate: 0%

Adjustments (grams) Mash / Boil Kettle:
CaCO3: 3 / 0
CaSO4: 0 / 0
CaCl2: 1 / 0
MgSO4: 4 / 0
NaHCO3: 0 / 0
NaCl: 0 / 0
HCL Acid: 0 / 0
Lactic Acid: 0 / 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 57 / 57
Mg: 14 / 14
Na: 25 / 25
Cl: 31 / 31
SO4: 63 / 63
CaCO3: 69 / 69

RA (mash only): 20 (7 to 12 SRM)
Cl to SO4 (total water): 0.49 (Very Bitter)

Hey Reelale, that water profile looks familiar! I know they recommend at least 60 ppm calcium but I find I get best results when it is 100-150 ppm. So if it were me, I'd up the calcium. I'd say to also aim for a 2:1 sulfate:chloride ratio for an IPA with the caveat that they should be something like 200 sulfate : 100 chloride. I've read that the total amounts don't matter, only the ratio, but again, I find the large amounts seem to help. And increasing these with gypsum and calcium chloride will also help boost your calcium levels to the range I suggested. You'll find your break is much better and the yeast flocculate easier with the higher calcium concentration. Also, don't forget to treat your top up water to get to your pre-boil volume. Otherwise you'll essentially dilute whatever concentrations of ions you've taken the trouble to create in your mash.

EDIT: Also, give this calculator a try: http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water/water.html . It works a bit different from palmer's and it will actually give you the amount of each salt to add to hit your target profile.

I should also add that I am not sure that those IBU/SG numbers from Ray Daniels are consistent with what you get in Beersmith when you put a recipe together. And I also do not really find them to always describe relative bitterness/maltiness. For example, I tend to think of a Bohemian Pils as more bitter than a Barleywine, which I would consider to be more balanced, but the Barleywine is higher on the IBU/SG scale.

So again, I just build the water fairly conservatively, staying away from the extremes of the very bitter to very malty scale, and keeping the minerals to the lower end of the recommended ranges as best I can while achieving the desired RA and Cl:SO4.

I think the world needs to be rid of this misconception that a "balanced" sulfate:chloride ratio is 1:1. It's just not. Colin Kaminski uses a MINIMUM of 1:1 -- that's his "very malty" -- and goes to 9:1 (listen starting about 2:03:30). Randy Mosher's ideal pale ale water is 10:1. Burton water, depending whose numbers you use, is between 18:1 and 50:1!

944play said:

I think the world needs to be rid of this misconception that a "balanced" sulfate:chloride ratio is 1:1. It's just not. Colin Kaminski uses a MINIMUM of 1:1 -- that's his "very malty" -- and goes to 9:1 (listen starting about 2:03:30). Randy Mosher's ideal pale ale water is 10:1. Burton water, depending whose numbers you use, is between 18:1 and 50:1!

Click to expand...

Very interesting indeed. If I understand it correctly, the EZ Water Adjustment Spreadsheet is a more elegant form of Palmer's spreadsheet. The Cl:SO4 ratio mapping to very bitter:very malty is in Palmer's spreadsheet, but I do not find a reference to it in his text (at least in the online version, perhaps it is in a newer edition). It is certainly not in his nomograph, where SRM is a function of mash pH, is a function of residual alkalinity (as CaCO3), is a function of alkalinity (as CaCO3), Mg, and Ca. The nomograph is silent on Cl and SO4.

So Kaminski's and Mosher's Cl:SO4 targets are inconsistent with Palmer's spreadsheet, at least at the malty end, correct? If I assume that an IPA should be characterized as very bitter, expressing all the numbers as Cl:SO4, Palmer goes from < 0.50 (very bitter) to > 2.00 (very malty), while Kaminski goes from 0.11 (very bitter) to 1.00 (very malty).

This certainly has bearing on the OP's question about an IPA. I am still curious as to where to place certain styles. I think of Scottish Ale as very malty, American IPA as very bitter, but I really have no idea where to place other styles. For example, an American IPA is more bitter/less malty than an Alt, which is more bitter/less malty than a Kolsch, which is more bitter/less malty than a Scottish Ale. But is the Alt very bitter, bitter, or balanced? How about the Kolsch, is it bitter, balanced, or malty? It sure would be helpful to get the styles mapped to Cl:SO4 ratio, whether using Palmer's scale, Kaminski's, or someone else's.

Admittedly, I have not experimented (brewed) enough to really have a good sense of this on my own. Or perhaps I should RDWHAHB, lol.

KingBrianI said:

Hey Reelale, that water profile looks familiar! I know they recommend at least 60 ppm calcium but I find I get best results when it is 100-150 ppm. So if it were me, I'd up the calcium. I'd say to also aim for a 2:1 sulfate:chloride ratio for an IPA with the caveat that they should be something like 200 sulfate : 100 chloride. I've read that the total amounts don't matter, only the ratio, but again, I find the large amounts seem to help. And increasing these with gypsum and calcium chloride will also help boost your calcium levels to the range I suggested. You'll find your break is much better and the yeast flocculate easier with the higher calcium concentration. Also, don't forget to treat your top up water to get to your pre-boil volume. Otherwise you'll essentially dilute whatever concentrations of ions you've taken the trouble to create in your mash.

EDIT: Also, give this calculator a try: http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water/water.html . It works a bit different from palmer's and it will actually give you the amount of each salt to add to hit your target profile.

Click to expand...

Another interesting spreadsheet, but if I understand it correctly, it seems to conflict with Palmer's targets for RA (as CaCO3). For example, if I put in my parameters and choose the target for a Stout (the highest SRM for the styles listed, say 30-40 SRM), then plug the additons into the EZ Water Adjustment Spreadsheet, the additions yield a RA of -96, best suited for 0-2 SRM.

There are obviously differing points of view on this water chemistry stuff, lol.

Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 9
Mg: 2
Na: 30
Cl: 42
SO4: 2
CaCO3: 14

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 9.25 / 0
Dilution Rate: 0%

Adjustments (grams) Mash / Boil Kettle:
CaCO3: 1.71 / 0
CaSO4: 3.24 / 0
CaCl2: 16.68 / 0
MgSO4: 2.84 / 0
NaHCO3: 0 / 0
NaCl: 4 / 0
HCL Acid: 0 / 0
Lactic Acid: 0 / 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 179 / 179
Mg: 10 / 10
Na: 75 / 75
Cl: 341 / 341
SO4: 85 / 85
CaCO3: 38 / 38

RA (mash only): -96 (0 to 2 SRM)
Cl to SO4 (total water): 4.00 (Very Malty)

Reelale said:

I'm not sure I'm reading your numbers correctly. Got an example of how you got those values? And IPA has no range? I would think that style would have one of the largest ranges. It could be highly possible that I'm just misinterpreting the data, I've done that before.

Click to expand...

I pulled them from here. I cannot vouch for their accuracy, as I do not have Daniels' book.

Believe it or not, I took some of everyone's advice and decided to go with this:


Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 8
Mg: 2
Na: 25
Cl: 15
SO4: 11
CaCO3: 20

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 8 / 0
Dilution Rate: 0%

Adjustments (grams) Mash / Boil Kettle:
CaCO3: 4 / 0
CaSO4: 4 / 0
CaCl2: 3 / 0
MgSO4: 3 / 0
NaHCO3: 0 / 0
NaCl: 0 / 0
HCL Acid: 0 / 0
Lactic Acid: 0 / 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 118 / 118
Mg: 11 / 11
Na: 25 / 25
Cl: 63 / 63
SO4: 123 / 123
CaCO3: 85 / 85

RA (mash only): -6 (5 to 10 SRM)
Cl to SO4 (total water): 0.51 (Bitter)


I'm gonna call it "Racer 4433", cuz' of the grams of additions. Too late to change, strike water is heating. Thanks all.