First addition of brewing salts - Chalk for Imperial Porter

Hello everyone,

West LA's 2012 Water report gave me the following info on my brewing water:

Calcium (Ca+2) 25 mg/L
Magnesium (Mg+2) 10 mg/L
Sodium (Na+) 44 mg/L
Chloride (Cl-) 50 mg/L
Sulfate (SO4) 37 mg/L
Alkalinity 93 mg/L as CaCO3
Alkalinity 113 as HCO3-
pH 7.5

A dark beer profile of a London Porter according to Brewer's Friend give me:

Calcium (Ca+2) 100 mg/L
Magnesium (Mg+2) 5 mg/L
Sodium (Na+) 35 mg/L
Chloride (Cl-) 60 mg/L
Sulfate (SO4) 50 mg/L
Alkalinity 217 mg/L as CaCO3
Alkalinity 265 as HCO3-
pH 7.5


Clearly I'm lacking in both Calcium and Alkalinity. Therefore I was going to add Chalk as CaCO3 to help my darker beer profile.

I'm planning on adding 5 grams, 1.32 teaspoons for 5.9 gallons mash water to boost Calcium to about 69 and Alkalinity to about 249.

Does this sound like the proper procedure? I'm told I should just dump the chalk into the mash. Do I put it into my grains before mashing, do I add it to my mash water as I heat it up, do I dump it right on top of the mash once its all mixed? This is my first time using brewing salts.

Also, my grain bill:

13 lb - American - Pale 2-Row (68.4%)
1 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 80L (5.3%)
1.5 lb - American - Chocolate (7.9%)
2 lb - United Kingdom - Brown (10.5%)
0.5 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 40L (2.6%)
0.5 lb - United Kingdom - Roasted Barley (2.6%)
0.5 lb - Flaked Oats (2.6%)

19 lbs total

SRM: 40


Thoughts? I'm brewing tomorrow morning!

Throw away the chalk! Seriously, don't ever use it in a brew.

If you need alkalinity (and it's doubtful), there are other ways to get there.

Don't "target" that profile- that's silly as the water isn't realistic. The breweries in that area may very well treat their water, and not use that right out of the tap. You'd be better off to target a mash pH of 5.5, and ignore the amount of alkalinity in a certain profile.

Since your calcium is a little low, calcium chloride would be a great way to bring it up.

I'm a bit confused as to why you mention to never use chalk. Is there something incorrect in what I've laid out?

I guess what I'm saying is, if I use the procedure I laid out, will I get a different result that could be harmful?

stepcg6 said:

West LA's 2012 Water report gave me the following info on my brewing water:

Calcium (Ca+2) 25 mg/L
Magnesium (Mg+2) 10 mg/L
Sodium (Na+) 44 mg/L
Chloride (Cl-) 50 mg/L
Sulfate (SO4) 37 mg/L
Alkalinity 93 mg/L as CaCO3
Alkalinity 113 as HCO3-
pH 7.5

A dark beer profile of a London Porter according to Brewer's Friend give me:

Calcium (Ca+2) 100 mg/L
Magnesium (Mg+2) 5 mg/L
Sodium (Na+) 35 mg/L
Chloride (Cl-) 60 mg/L
Sulfate (SO4) 50 mg/L
Alkalinity 217 mg/L as CaCO3
Alkalinity 265 as HCO3-
pH 7.5


Clearly I'm lacking in both Calcium and Alkalinity. Therefore I was going to add Chalk as CaCO3 to help my darker beer profile.

Click to expand...

It is possible to synthesize the target from the source quite closely but why would you want to bother with synthesizing a particular ion profile? A beer like this is best brewed with nominal additions of calcium chloride and calcium sulfate (see the Primer in the Stickies) with the latter used only if you want sulfate's effect on hops which not everyone does. Brew the beer following the Primer with minimum sulfate and then taste with sulfate additions in the glass to see whether they improve it or not.

When nature makes a carbonaceous water she does it by dissolving limestone (calcium carbonate which is chemically the same as chalk) but she does it by the use of carbonic acid. Unless you are prepared to do the same you cannot get to a balanced (physically realizable) water which approaches the target profile. To make this target from this source you would have to dilute somewhat as the target is lower in Mg and Na than the source. To get a very accurate synthesis (fraction of a % error in all ions) you would have to add about 7 L of DI water to each L of source. As Mg and Na are pretty much "don't care" I de-weighted them and just added 1 liter.

stepcg6 said:

I'm planning on adding 5 grams, 1.32 teaspoons for 5.9 gallons mash water to boost Calcium to about 69 and Alkalinity to about 249.

Click to expand...

As noted above, if you are going to try to make a carbonaceous water that approaches something real and use chalk you must dissolve it with carbon dioxide. This can be done but is a time consuming business as one must sparge with CO2 for hours or put the water and chalk in a pressurized container. With a dilution of 1:1 as noted above the proper chalk addition is, for 5.9 gallons total, half of which would be DI, 7.08 grams and 3.6 grams of CO2 would have to be dissolved (in practice one bubbles the CO2 until the target pH is reached). You would also need the chlorides of calcium, magnesium and sodium, the sulfates of calcium and magnesium and sodium bicarbonate but could achieve a weighted rms error of 1.28%. If you get the impression that this is a lot of trouble you are right. Is it worth it? No, not unless you feel you must have this target water profile for some reason (authenticity?) and as noted above you don't need it otherwise.

stepcg6 said:

Does this sound like the proper procedure? I'm told I should just dump the chalk into the mash.

Click to expand...

In general, no. There was a time when the notion of dumping lots of chalk into mash because it couldn't be made to work in the water, was fashionable and ruined lots of beer but some of us mounted a successful campaign to stop that practice. Old books, magazine articles, calculators and spreadsheets are still around and as you are clearly new to this you are unaware of the pitfalls.

stepcg6 said:

Do I put it into my grains before mashing, do I add it to my mash water as I heat it up, do I dump it right on top of the mash once its all mixed?

Click to expand...

No, when it comes to chalk you don't use it unless you are doing the CO2 sparge.

stepcg6 said:

13 lb - American - Pale 2-Row (68.4%)
1 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 80L (5.3%)
1.5 lb - American - Chocolate (7.9%)
2 lb - United Kingdom - Brown (10.5%)
0.5 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 40L (2.6%)
0.5 lb - United Kingdom - Roasted Barley (2.6%)
0.5 lb - Flaked Oats (2.6%)

Click to expand...

There is enough dark grain in this bill (30%) that you may well need some alkalinity with your source water alkalinity of 93 but then again you might not. It will depend on the proton surfeits (acidities) of the dark malt and the proton deficits (alkalinities) of the base malt and oats. The only way to know for sure is to use a pH meter to check mash pH.

Were I to do this beer with the water you have I would probably ponder a small addition of pickling lime and then decide that working in the blind I would rather risk being under in mash pH than over and just go with what you have.

The dark beers are said to be more forgiving of error because the roast flavors mask problems but if you want to brew really good dark beers a pH meter is in your future.

More than likely, there is sufficient alkalinity in that water to result in an acceptable mash pH with that grist. Do not use historic water profiles without understanding what those historic brewers did to brew with those waters.

EDIT - post deleted. OP is in good hands without my input.

Not to hijack the thread, but I've actually got the exact same question myself. I'm looking to brew marubozo's RIS this weekend and this will be my first big/dark all-grain beer. In Fort Collins, CO we've got pretty soft water

Alkalinity as CaCO3 = 36.1 mg/L
Calcium as CaCO3 = 44.6 mg/L
Hardness as CaCO3 = 51.7 mg/L Lachat (don't know what Lachat is)
pH = 7.97
Chloride = 0 ? (The chart is blank so I'm assuming that means 0)
Sulfate = 0 ? (Same as chloride)
Calcium by AA = 19.0 mg/L (Don't know what the "by AA" means)
Magnesium = 1.9 mg/L
Sodium = 3.1 mg/L

Since I've gone to all-grain I've only done two lighter colored beers (a saison and citra-wheat) so I've haven't given water much thought and the results have been great. I started looking at water chemistry stuff to get ready for the RIS brew and based on the sticky primer I just go with a 1 tsp of calcium chloride dihydrate per 5 gallons of water and don't look back? Thanks!