Randy Mosher's Water Profiles by style

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Reelale

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Does anyone happen to have these water profiles that can be input into TH's spreadsheet? Or do I need to buy the book;)
 
Several years back I pulled together a collection of profiles and developed recipes for them. They can be found at www.wetnewf.org. The "server" (an old Mac Mini) and my ISP's attempts to prevent its customers from operating websites can sometimes conspire to make access difficult so don't give up if you don't succeed at first try.
 
OK, two things:

I did not make these up, I've collected them from the net and books over the years. If you don't think they are correct, please help me adjust them.

Second, I've tried to make everything line up but I really can't. I know it makes it hard to read but if it's in tables, tabs or just a ton of spaces, I can't make it work. Feel free to fix as well.



Calcium Magnesium Sodium Sulfate Chloride Carbonate Hardness BicarbonateHCO3 Alkalinity
Ideal Alt 38 0 28 90 45 0 26.8 0 0
Ideal Bitter 90 10 28 240 38 0 70.2 0 0
Ideal Bock 60 0 50 45 75 60 42.9 60 49
Ideal Brown Ale 23 0 50 53 75 0 16.1 0 0
Ideal Burton Pale Ale 111 18 35 337 32 38 89.9 37.82 31
Ideal Dark Lager 83 0 50 53 75 90 58.9 90 74
Ideal Dark Lager 73 13 52 125 80 63 59.8 129.32 106
Ideal Dopplebock 78 0 55 45 85 90 55.4 90 74
Ideal Dortmunder 75 0 53 175 80 0 53.6 0 0
Ideal English Ale 52 10 6.2 65 9.6 63 43.0 129.32 106
Ideal Light Lager 45 0 28 108 45 0 32.1 0 0
Ideal Light Lager 21 5.2 18 21 16 51 18.1 84.18 69
Ideal Maerzen 45 0 35 105 53 0 32.1 0 0
Ideal Medium Lager 74 5.2 10 21 16 111 55.9 225.7 185
Ideal Mild 38 10 35 133 55 0 33.0 0 0
Ideal Mild/Dark Lager 75 12 35 120 100 100 60.6 100 82
Ideal Munich Dark 63 0 10 28 13 60 44.6 60 49
Ideal Pale Ale 125 20 25 363 40 0 101.1 0 0
Ideal Pale Ale 110 18 17 350 50 0 89.2 0 0
Ideal Pale Ale 110 18 17 350 50 57 89.2 57 47
Ideal Pale Ale 126 19 18 281 48 66 101.2 66 54
Ideal Pale Lager 1 0.5 1.05 5 0 0 1.0 0 0
Ideal Pilsner 7 5 2 6 5 15 7.9 15 12
Ideal Porter 65 0 40 60 60 60 46.4 60 49
Ideal Scottish 25 0 16 60 24 0 17.9 0 0
Ideal Stout 50 12 60 46 175 0 42.8 0 0
Ideal Stout (Dry) 90 10 15 73 24 130 70.2 130 107
Ideal Stout (Sweet) 65 0 15 45 24 70 46.4 70 57
Ideal Weizen 23 0 10 53 15 0 16.1 0 0
 
Looking at the Bock:
You state Ca++ at 60 and Mg++ at 0 but then list the hardness as 42.9. If the 60 number is ppm as CaCO3 and there is no Mg then the hardness in ppm as CaCO3 is 60. If the 60 is ppm as the ion then the hardness is 50*60/20 = 150 so there is a discrepancy there. You also list CO3 as 60, HCO3 as 60 and alkalinity as 49 and you do not specify a pH. For CO3-- and HCO3- to be equal the pH would have to be 10.38 and that's an impossible amount of CO3-- so I don't think that's what those really mean. If the bicarbonate really means bicarbonate and the pH is reasonable then the alkalinity would be approximately 50*60/61 = 49 and that's what is listed. Interpreting it that way the profile is pretty badly balanced (by 1.2 mEq/L) if the calcium is interpreted as the ion. If interpreted as CaCO3 it's still imbalanced (0.6 mEq/L) but not quite so badly.

So there is something I'm obviously not understanding here. Can you check the column headings and tell me what the units are for each column? Without that info all I can do is fiddle around trying to figure out what these numbers mean. I think it's clear what the bicarbonate/alkalinity relationship and the CO3, whenever given, seems to be the same as the bicarbonate which, as noted above, only occurs at pH 10.38.
 
OK, two things:

I did not make these up, I've collected them from the net and books over the years.

I see what you mean and again, I just posted to put the info out there for discussion. I think as a group we should tackle this project, maybe one style at a time.

I've started look at things from a different angle basing things on some minimums, maximums, Cl:SO4 ratios, and RA based on what the particular style demands for color/balance and not on where the beers originally came from.

Since the Bock was the first one brought up:


From the Quickie Water Chemistry Primer
http://www.brewery.org/brewery/library/wchmprimer.html

Dark Lagers -- Bocks, for example. Model: Mosher's "Ideal Mild Ale / Dark Lager"
Ca 73
Mg 13
Na 52
Cl 80
SO4 125
HCO3 63
Alkalinity 106
Hardness 51.6
RA 46.3
SRM Low 9.0
SRM High 13.8
Cl:SO4 0.64
Balance Bitter

Based on the style description:

Traditional Bock 5B
SRM 14 to 22
Mean OG 1.068
Mean FG 1.016
RTE* 25.36
Mean IBU 23.5
BV** 0.74
BV Balance Slightly Malty

From:
http://beercolor.netfirms.com/balance.html
*RTE = 0.82 x FG + 0.18 x OG
**BV = 0.8 x IBU / RTE

This would show that the two don't really align.

After some tweaking:

Ca 50
Mg 13
Na 60
Cl 100
SO4 50
CO3 176.5
Alkalinity 150
Hardness 178.7
RA 106.7
SRM Low 13.9
SRM High 18.8
Cl:SO4 2
Balance Malty

Now the colors line up as well as the balance.

Thoughts?
 
I've started look at things from a different angle basing things on some minimums, maximums, Cl:SO4 ratios, and RA based on what the particular style demands for color/balance and not on where the beers originally came from.

I think you'd do better by trying to find out anything you can about the water that defined the beer. There is no usable information about water chemistry in beer color and there are no "requirements" for a particular chloride to sulfate ratio. The spreadsheets that advise setting RA in accordance with color will only lead you astray. Yes, people used dark malt to offset highly alkaline water in the past which is why some styles are dark and others aren't but the spreadsheet formulas are based on poor fits to, AFAIK, colors calculated from grist bills using one of the popular color models and heaven knows what for water chemistry data since most of that out in public is bogus. Palmer came up with a slope of 7 RA per unit of SRM. I can at least measure color but still don't have anything other than reported chemistry to work from and I got a slope more like 1 and Pearson' coefficient for that was less than 0.5. If were were talking money instead of RA I certainly wouldn't be placing any bets based on either model.

A good RA for all beers is 0 or less. You should never increase alkalinity (of RA) unless 1) Your mash pH is way low 2) You want bicarbonate taste in your beer. The reason I mention this is because some authors think Bock should have some residual carbonate taste. I don't. The less the better.

A couple of papers were written in the UK suggesting that chloride to sulfate ratio was better correlated with taste panel impressions that the absolute values. This is by no means universally accepted. Among German brewers a good ratio is infinite (i.e. no sulfate).

Since the Bock was the first one brought up:
My most recent Bock (hadn't done a Bock in a long time) came out at 26 SRM. I have 5 reported profiles for Munich water. Four of these are from the literature, none balances electrically and they all give, based on what is clearly under reported bicarbonate, RA's of around 60. A sample of Munich water I measured myself had an RA of 205. So which is more suitable for the beer? Or should I just take Palmer's spreadheet and decide I need 195 - 254 RA and shoot for that or use the EZ spreadsheet only to have it tell me that I will get a mash pH of 4.93 if I take the approach I did which is to completely ignore color and shoot for a slightly elevated (over my well water) RA of 80 acheived by adding a bit of calcium chloride and a bit of chalk. Dough in pH came out at 5.2 and settled in at 5.3 using 2.5% sauermalz. I said earlier that a good RA is <= 0 so why did I raise RA. It was based on Daryl Richman's monograph telling me that some bicarbonate is part of the profile of Bock to which I say, having brewed the beer, hooey. As always, when I make a statement like that I say that if you like bicarbonate taste in your beer go ahead and use it! It's just not to my taste. Raising RA to 80 did not, by any means, spoil the beer. It's delicious but there was no need for the higher RA and and I won't increase it if I brew this beer again.


At this point we have 5 or 6 conflicting ideas as to what sort of water treatment should be used to brew a Bock beer depending on
1)Whether you think Munich Water represents a good model for Bock (that is, after all, the city where the style was brought to fruition even if it was born in Einbeck
2)Which of several reports on the nature of Munich water you choose to believe in (4 are historical but physically impossible, the other is modern but I expect the good burghers of Munich may have improved the city's water treatment in the last century)
3)Whether you think SRM is tightly correlated to water chemistry (it isn't).
4)Given that you think it is which model (slope of 7 in Palmer's or slope of 1 in AJ's or Kai's).
5)Whether you think the brewers of Munich do or did decarbonate the water before they brewed Bock.
6)Etc.


From the Quickie Water Chemistry Primer
http://www.brewery.org/brewery/library/wchmprimer.html

Dark Lagers -- Bocks, for example. Model: Mosher's "Ideal Mild Ale / Dark Lager"
Ca 73
Mg 13
Na 52
Cl 80
SO4 125
HCO3 63
Alkalinity 106
Hardness 51.6
RA 46.3
SRM Low 9.0
SRM High 13.8
Cl:SO4 0.64
Balance Bitter

In this case, at least we know where this water came from as Ken tells us that on his site. He used 2.0 grams of chalk in 5 gal and mentions on the page that this must be dissolved using CO2. If you make the assumption that he used CO2 to restore the pH of the DI water to 7 after the chalk addition then you get numbers like his for the ion content except that the bicarb he states is about half of what it actually would be (it's actually going to be close to 131). For pH < 8 bicarb ~ 61*alk/50 = 61*106/50 = 129. To get alkalinity of 106 from the additions he used you have to make some assumptions about the final pH and the pH that was used to do the titration when alkalinity was measured. The RA is closer to 49.

The level of sulfate in this profile is totally unacceptable for Bock! Munich water contains less than 10 mg/L sulfate (though 1 of my historical reports says 79 - my guess, given the source of Munich's water, i.e. the Isar, is that this was mis-transcribed or misprinted and should be 7.9 but I certainly can't prove that). A level as high as 125 would be disastrous with the fine hops that we want to give Bock that smooth "The drinker shouldn't know he is drinking bock until he tries to get up from the table" quality. Continental brewers are not really concerned with chloride to sulfate ratio - they want minimum sulfate.

Based on the style description:

Traditional Bock 5B
SRM 14 to 22
Mean OG 1.068
Mean FG 1.016
RTE* 25.36
Mean IBU 23.5
BV** 0.74
BV Balance Slightly Malty

From:
http://beercolor.netfirms.com/balance.html
*RTE = 0.82 x FG + 0.18 x OG
**BV = 0.8 x IBU / RTE

This would show that the two don't really align.
They certainly don't "align" on the sulfate, the color is largely immaterial (as far as mineral additions are concerned) as are the OG, FG and IBU's. I have no idea what RTE is (an estimate of the true extract?) or BV either. I'm guessing that it is some sort of bitterness per unit of true extract with true extract representing sweetness. That wouldn't be controlled with water chemistry but by rest temperatures, number of decoctions, yeast strain...

After some tweaking:

Ca 50
Mg 13
Na 60
Cl 100
SO4 50
CO3 176.5
Alkalinity 150
Hardness 178.7
RA 106.7
SRM Low 13.9
SRM High 18.8
Cl:SO4 2
Balance Malty

Now the colors line up as well as the balance.

Thoughts?

As noted color really has almost nothing to do with this and it appears you are comparing "balance" based on chloride to sulfate ratio in one case and IBU to TE ratio in the other. The latter would be more valuable IMO. If you offered me that profile as a strawman for Bock I'd ask you if you particularly wanted residual bicarb going into the mash and if you said "yes" I'd say OK go with that but drop the sulfate. If you said "no" I'd say get rid of the bicarb too. I'd advise using less sauermalz with the bicarb gone or better still, a test mash to determine the amount of sauermalz needed.

The sodium and chloride are also way high for Munich.

In summary, my philosophy is that there is no "ideal" profile for any style of beer. What I have sketched out here is an approach where we assume that the water of the Isar is responsible for the qualities of Bock and that we should therefore at least approximately try to match Munich water. But then you could argue that I should be trying to match Einbeck and I wouldn't argue back very hard.

If asked what I think the ideal water for bock would be I'd say take RO water (it's much easier to get now than when I started looking at this) and add 1 tsp calcium chloride to each 5 gal. Be sure to use sauermalz to set mash pH and check it. If you think the beer is lacking mineral character that you want (or think a judge might want) then add that mineral next time you brew and see if the resulting beer is better. But then I say that for all brew styles.

Disclaimer: I've used a narrative style here that might be interpreted as meaning that I'm stating proven fact. Certainly there are factual statements in the post but the philosophy definitely represents an opinion based on my experience. It is an opinion that, as it has solidified, is yielding consistently good beer but an opinion nevertheless.
 
I think you'd do better by trying to find out anything you can about the water that defined the beer.


While I understand the certain beers styles were developed out of necessity based on what the region's water supply allowed, it is a bad idea to try to replicate the water exactly. I know that when I want to make an IPA, the Seattle water supply won't provided the crispness but I'm certainly not going 600+ on the Sulphate just because Burton did. We should be examining why these styles were developed and trying to mimic the benefits while staying within moderation.

There is no usable information about water chemistry in beer color and there are no "requirements" for a particular chloride to sulfate ratio.

I understand that the Chloride to Sulfate ratio ratios or any ranges are not defined in the style guidelines but when attempting to develop a brew water for a batch, we should take into consideration the attributes of the beer that is being brewed and tweak accordingly. This is what I was attempting to do in a more quantifiable manner using the RTE and BV. (more on that later)



The spreadsheets that advise setting RA in accordance with color will only lead you astray. Yes, people used dark malt to offset highly alkaline water in the past which is why some styles are dark and others aren't but the spreadsheet formulas are based on poor fits to, AFAIK, colors calculated from grist bills using one of the popular color models and heaven knows what for water chemistry data since most of that out in public is bogus. Palmer came up with a slope of 7 RA per unit of SRM. I can at least measure color but still don't have anything other than reported chemistry to work from and I got a slope more like 1 and Pearson' coefficient for that was less than 0.5. If were were talking money instead of RA I certainly wouldn't be placing any bets based on either model.

While I agree that the models in place are not completely accurate because there's more than one way to make the same colored beer, each of which will affect your mash pH, I think they are a good jumping off point and better than nothing or just using the city of origin. This is also the reason I think so many people want to see an "Ideal" water profile by style. That way they're not playing around with spreadsheets until they hit the right color and balance while drastically over-treating.

A good RA for all beers is 0 or less. You should never increase alkalinity (of RA) unless 1) Your mash pH is way low 2) You want bicarbonate taste in your beer. The reason I mention this is because some authors think Bock should have some residual carbonate taste. I don't. The less the better.

Really? So any city that has water over an RA of zero can't make good beer? How do explain the success of Dublin?



A couple of papers were written in the UK suggesting that chloride to sulfate ratio was better correlated with taste panel impressions that the absolute values. This is by no means universally accepted. Among German brewers a good ratio is infinite (i.e. no sulfate).

Maybe for the beers that they are brewing and the hops they are using but this is not a universal truth. I agree that it is the ratio and not the absolute amounts that are important. This is right in line with my attempt to use the RTE and BV while designing water.


They certainly don't "align" on the sulfate, the color is largely immaterial (as far as mineral additions are concerned) as are the OG, FG and IBU's. I have no idea what RTE is (an estimate of the true extract?) or BV either. I'm guessing that it is some sort of bitterness per unit of true extract with true extract representing sweetness. That wouldn't be controlled with water chemistry but by rest temperatures, number of decoctions, yeast strain...

From:
http://beercolor.netfirms.com/balance.html
*RTE = 0.82 x FG + 0.18 x OG
**BV = 0.8 x IBU / RTE

Real Terminal Extract (RTE) is one way to look a finished beer because it takes attenuation out as a variable unlike a simple IBU:OG ratio.

I think you are missing the point. I'm not saying that the RTE of BV are defined by the water chem but that we should be taking it into account when developing water for styles. We should be looking at adjusting water to it aligns with the balance of the beer.


As noted color really has almost nothing to do with this and it appears you are comparing "balance" based on chloride to sulfate ratio in one case and IBU to TE ratio in the other. The latter would be more valuable IMO.

Exactly. Chloride to Sulfate ratio is the "balance" for the brewing water while the IBU to RTE is the balance of the beer. I'm just saying that we need to make sure the two match. I have "Very Malty" water so when I brew a "Very Hoppy" beer, I need to adjust my water to have a "Very Hoppy" ratio.


In summary, my philosophy is that there is no "ideal" profile for any style of beer.

I agree that there is not one "Ideal" water to brew a beer with but there are some key attributes that the water should have based on the attributes you are trying to make in the beer. Again, while I know that the correlation for RA and color are not something you can completely, accurately define, I don't think they should be ignored all together. They should be taken with a "grain of salt" when creating brewing water.

I don't really care what types of water others are using to brew with. I know what I use and how I do things. I think the goal of this post and others like it was to give some guidance to people who may be new to brewing or at least to water adjustments so when they want to brew a certain style of beer, they know what types of water to use and not have to fiddle around with the numbers too much.
 
While I understand the certain beers styles were developed out of necessity based on what the region's water supply allowed, it is a bad idea to try to replicate the water exactly.
I think you missed my point here. Burton ales are Burton ales because of the Burton water supply. Therefore it makes sense to know something about Burton water if you want to brew Burton ale. But I certainly agree that you shouldn't try to duplicate Burton water exactly because:
1) You can't - there is not physically realizable profile in the half dozen or so in my collection.
2) Even if you could, there were multiple wells in Burton. Which would you choose?
3) Burton style beers brewed with softer water are better beers than ones brewed with "authentic" water.

We should be examining why these styles were developed and trying to mimic the benefits while staying within moderation.

Yes!

In the case of Burton the hardness was sufficient that mash pH settled into a reasonable (if not ideal) range. The sulfate they had was the sulfate they had. If they had any way to take some of that sulfate out they probably would have. And if they had had pH meters they probably would have started adding acid to their mashes earlier than they did.



when attempting to develop a brew water for a batch, we should take into consideration the attributes of the beer that is being brewed and tweak accordingly.

Absolutely. So, using Burton as the new example, knowing that it was born of high sulfate and relatively low in carbonate we should synthesize water with those general properties and then experiment. It's no different than cooking. If you make a bernaise sauce you can have any ratio of chervil, tarragon, salt, black pepper, cayenne and lemon juice you like but you darn well better keep the temperature below the point where it curdles. This seems a good analogy for beer because it doesn't matter if you get the magnesium, calcium, sulfate, bicarbonate flavors right on if you don't get the mash pH right. That's why I tell people to use RO water, use acid to set mash pH and then worry about the "stylistic" ions. Given that you are going to take this approach you might as well start with a clean sheet of paper and taste your way along rather than trying to deduce how much chalk to add from some seriously flawed model relating that to color.




I think they are a good jumping off point and better than nothing or just using the city of origin.

I have seen the conclusions that use of this model lead to. I've never tasted a beer brewed using them but I've had them described to me. Chalky and like Alka Selzer come to mind.

This is also the reason I think so many people want to see an "Ideal" water profile by style.

I think they want an "ideal" profile because they are totally bewildered by brewing water chemistry and they have a right to be given the misinformation and misinterpretation of valid information that abounds.

That way they're not playing around with spreadsheets until they hit the right color and balance while drastically over-treating.

There is no such thing as an ideal profile for a style IMO. Are you shooting for authenticity or the best beer? The water treatment will be different in many cases. Are you brewing for yourself and family/friends or a judge. If a judge, what's his take on the mineral related flavors appropriate for a beer. Should Export have mineral crispness or not (this is an interesting one as the BJCP guidelines used to say "yes" but don't any more). A nominal profile would be nice and that is, I suppose, doable but I think it has to be based on the style's origins - not just numbers deduced from color and degree of fermentation.




Really? So any city that has water over an RA of zero can't make good beer? How do explain the success of Dublin?
Didn't say that. If you have an RA larger than 0 you can make good beer but you must compensate for it. In Dublin they did that with roast barley and, of course, Guiness wouldn't be Guiness if they had been "smart" enough back then to decarbonate and/or use acid. This brings in another city but it is an intersting example. I use enough roast barley in my Irish stout to give me colors between 60 and 80 SRM. My water has RA that ranges from 1/5 to about the same as Dublin's depending on whose report I look at. I use no chalk in the mash or the water and get a pH of 5.5. That's high. I'd like it lower but I don't use acid. I can make very good Irish stout without even thinking about the water - no spreadsheets, no calculations of any kind. Just a pH check.



I agree that it is the ratio and not the absolute amounts that are important. This is right in line with my attempt to use the RTE and BV while designing water.

Just to be clear, this is not my position. It is clearly the absolute levels that matter. Forgive the use of reductio in absurdam but if the sulfate is 1 mg/L and the chloride also 1 (ratio 1:1) the beer will have a very different character than if the sulfate is 100 and the chloride 100 (also 1:1). The first would make a fine Pils but the second wouldn't!


Real Terminal Extract (RTE) is one way to look a finished beer because it takes attenuation out as a variable unlike a simple IBU:OG ratio.
That's what I figured it had to be. I agree that it might be useful to normalize bittering by TE (most authors simply call it True Extract) but if I thought the IBU/TE for a beer was too low water chemistry would be the last place I'd look to fix it. I'd increase hopping, use a higher alpha hop, convert at a temperature that gives more maltose... Apparently people think that by changing the ratio of sulfate to chloride they can change the bitterness vs maltiness. This is not, IMO, the case at all. Adding sulfate only makes hops bitterness harsher and dryer (and IMO, less pleasant) whereas increasing chloride enhances the mouthfeel and mellowness and up to a point, sweetness. But maltiness is not exclusively sweetness - the melanoiding character is the mainstay of maltiness to me.


I think you are missing the point. I'm not saying that the RTE of BV are defined by the water chem but that we should be taking it into account when developing water for styles. We should be looking at adjusting water to it aligns with the balance of the beer.
How would you do that?




Exactly. Chloride to Sulfate ratio is the "balance" for the brewing water while the IBU to RTE is the balance of the beer. I'm just saying that we need to make sure the two match. I have "Very Malty" water so when I brew a "Very Hoppy" beer, I need to adjust my water to have a "Very Hoppy" ratio.

I guess I have "hoppy" water. I put in an RO system to get rid of sulfate (that's really the only reason I did it) and now supplement all my beers with calcium chloride so I now have "very malty" water. All my beers, hoppy or not are brewed with this "very malty" water.

I looked at data from 4 recently brewed beers (all measured -not calculated) and while that certainly isn't a very big sample there wasn't much of a correlation (Pearsons r = -0.24) between chloride to sulfate ratio and IBU/TE. But note that the correlation is negative. IOW a scatter plot of IBU/TE vs Cl:SO4 is pretty much centered around a horizontal line. I do not take chloride to sulfate ratio or IBU/TE ratio into account when designing brewing water (but I surely do think about TE and hopping levels in planning grist and hop charges) and based on this data I wouldn't. But you are saying perhaps I should? I'm sure as hell not adding any sulfate to my Pils!!! Or my ale - the bitterness is already too harsh for my taste.


Again, while I know that the correlation for RA and color are not something you can completely, accurately define, I don't think they should be ignored all together.

It's not that you can't define it, it's that
1)You can't get data that would let you measure it
2)The data I have measured shows that the correlation doesn't exist (r<1/2 isn't a whole lot better than no correlation at all IMO)


They should be taken with a "grain of salt" when creating brewing water.
I think a lot of people would have been saved from ruining a lot of beer if Palmer had never put that in his spreadheet or had, at least, caveated it in big red letters.

I don't really care what types of water others are using to brew with.
I think you must. If you are using profiles like the ones you posted originally I know I can have you making better beer than you are. Others besides me understand how this works and are getting similar results. Some of them post here.

I know what I use and how I do things.
To me the biggest appeal of homebrewing is the expectation that you will learn to do things better. I've been at this over 20 years and I'm still doing incrementally better beers and expect that trend to continue as long as I can heft a mashing oar.

I think the goal of this post and others like it was to give some guidance to people who may be new to brewing or at least to water adjustments so when they want to brew a certain style of beer, they know what types of water to use and not have to fiddle around with the numbers too much.

That's a very noble goal but let's be sure we are leading them, not misleading them.
 
3) Burton style beers brewed with softer water are better beers than ones brewed with "authentic" water.

This has been my whole point all along. Start with the highlights of the water of origin and then tone it back if possible. I think people are asking for the what is the toned back version.



That's why I tell people to use RO water, use acid to set mash pH and then worry about the "stylistic" ions. Given that you are going to take this approach you might as well start with a clean sheet of paper and taste your way along rather than trying to deduce how much chalk to add from some seriously flawed model relating that to color.


I completely disagree with starting with 100% RO. While you may be able to get water that mimics the big brewing ions, you are also eliminating others that are important that can't be added back with brewing salts. RO should only be used to dilute out practically hard water to get it to a more usable level.



There is no such thing as an ideal profile for a style IMO. Are you shooting for authenticity or the best beer? The water treatment will be different in many cases.

So when you start to brew a certain style, you always use a different water profile or do you use a basic variation of one that you've worked out before for that style? I think people are looking for the "this is what I've found works best for a style ....." profile.




That's what I figured it had to be. I agree that it might be useful to normalize bittering by TE (most authors simply call it True Extract) but if I thought the IBU/TE for a beer was too low water chemistry would be the last place I'd look to fix it. I'd increase hopping, use a higher alpha hop, convert at a temperature that gives more maltose... Apparently people think that by changing the ratio of sulfate to chloride they can change the bitterness vs maltiness. This is not, IMO, the case at all. Adding sulfate only makes hops bitterness harsher and dryer (and IMO, less pleasant) whereas increasing chloride enhances the mouthfeel and mellowness and up to a point, sweetness. But maltiness is not exclusively sweetness - the melanoiding character is the mainstay of maltiness to me.


Ok so you are completely missing the point. I'm not saying that if I don't want to use enough hops to make an IPA all I have to do is compensate by jacking up the Sulphate. The two go hand in hand. If you want a nice crisp bitterness, you need both. One without the other won't get the job done.
The point is you have to start with a recipe to match a style and then follow it up with a water profile that will work with the attributes of the beer you are trying to brew. The "balance" of your recipe should be in line with the "balance" of your water.



I guess I have "hoppy" water. I put in an RO system to get rid of sulfate (that's really the only reason I did it) and now supplement all my beers with calcium chloride so I now have "very malty" water. All my beers, hoppy or not are brewed with this "very malty" water.

I looked at data from 4 recently brewed beers (all measured -not calculated) and while that certainly isn't a very big sample there wasn't much of a correlation (Pearsons r = -0.24) between chloride to sulfate ratio and IBU/TE. But note that the correlation is negative. IOW a scatter plot of IBU/TE vs Cl:SO4 is pretty much centered around a horizontal line. I do not take chloride to sulfate ratio or IBU/TE ratio into account when designing brewing water (but I surely do think about TE and hopping levels in planning grist and hop charges) and based on this data I wouldn't. But you are saying perhaps I should? I'm sure as hell not adding any sulfate to my Pils!!! Or my ale - the bitterness is already too harsh for my taste.

I guess I'm not really following you on this one. The only way there would be a correlation between chloride to sulfate ratio and IBU/TE is if you made one through design. Anyone can brew a stout with RO, or a pilsner with Pacific Ocean water, they just won't taste right. The point is you need to match the water style to the type of beer you are brewing. The fact that you say they don't correlate just means you are doing something wrong in recipe or water design.


It's not that you can't define it, it's that
1)You can't get data that would let you measure it
2)The data I have measured shows that the correlation doesn't exist (r<1/2 isn't a whole lot better than no correlation at all IMO)

Let's be clear, both the balance on the water and recipe side can be calculated. To be the best brewers, we should be taking both into account and making sure they are appropriate.



I think a lot of people would have been saved from ruining a lot of beer if Palmer had never put that in his spreadheet or had, at least, caveated it in big red letters.

I know you're new but be carfull trashing the all might Palmer around here, it's like drawing the Proffet Muhamed eating a BLT. jk


I think you must. If you are using profiles like the ones you posted originally I know I can have you making better beer than you are. Others besides me understand how this works and are getting similar results. Some of them post here.

Again, I posted the profiles I'd seen around the web because John000smith ask for them in this post. I also said we should discuss and try to make them better and take on the whole gamet of style/water profiles as a group.
 
Again, I posted the profiles I'd seen around the web because John000smith ask for them in this post. I also said we should discuss and try to make them better and take on the whole gamet of style/water profiles as a group.

THIS. I'm trying to wrap my head around the 'why' of water adjustments at the moments. One thing to have a list to go from, another to understand WHY.....
 
This has been my whole point all along. Start with the highlights of the water of origin and then tone it back if possible. I think people are asking for the what is the toned back version.

The problem with that approach is that it doesn't please everyone. Personal taste really comes into it. I don't know if you have any training in science but if you do you know that you cannot speak of optimality without having an optimality criterion. Win a ribbon, make a beer my mates like and make a beer my wife will like are distinct criteria which may result in three different water profiles for the same beer.

I completely disagree with starting with 100% RO. While you may be able to get water that mimics the big brewing ions, you are also eliminating others that are important that can't be added back with brewing salts. RO should only be used to dilute out practically hard water to get it to a more usable level.

That is, of course, your prerogative but it is entirely possible to brew with straight RO water for a couple of reasons. First, RO units do not reject 100% of anything i.e. RO water is not pure. With moderate mineral content in the feed the permeate of an RO unit will be pretty close to the water of say Ceske Budejovice - i.e. very soft, but not ion free. Second there are plenty of minerals in malt - certainly enough to supply cofactors for all all the enzymes. Barley malt is, for example, about 0.15% magnesium by weight. To those who feel as you do I say OK, blend back 5-10% of your source water (this is like dialing down the rejection of your RO unit).

Then remember that if you hit 100% efficiency (using the scheme that home brewers like) in conversion that means that you have gotten as much extract as the laboratory got using distilled water.


So when you start to brew a certain style, you always use a different water profile or do you use a basic variation of one that you've worked out before for that style? I think people are looking for the "this is what I've found works best for a style ....." profile.

The latter. I have figured out how to do this over the years but I'm always experimenting. If you ask me how to brew a style I have brewed I can tell you what to do with the water but I can't guarantee that you will agree that what I have given you is optimum. It depends, as I noted above, on your criteria for optimality. Very soft water is required for authenticity in Bohemian Pilsner, for example, and very soft water makes great Boh. Pils if you use acid properly to set the pH (and this, is of course, exactly what the brewers of these beers in the Czech republic do). But suppose we added some extra chloride. Might the beer be "better". Not by the authenticity definition of optimality but perhaps by the "my wife likes" it one. Again I retrun to the Bernaise sauce analogy. I can give you a recipe for a Bernaise sauce that I and all my friends like but you may think it's too salty.

The two go hand in hand. If you want a nice crisp bitterness, you need both. One without the other won't get the job done.
The point is you have to start with a recipe to match a style and then follow it up with a water profile that will work with the attributes of the beer you are trying to brew. The "balance" of your recipe should be in line with the "balance" of your water.

Not necessarily so. The anecdote I've told here and in other fora till I'm sick of typing it regards identical Burton style ales I brewed for a water class. One was done with "authentic" Burton water and the other with much softer, much less gypseous water. Everyone who tasted them agreed that the "authentic" wate one was more authentic but the softer water one was better. That included a professional brewer who asked "how do you get that wonderful smooth hops character". I'd seen the sacks of terra alba (gypsum) at his brewery and told him to just refrain from dumping one of those into the mash tun. He brewed it once (while I was out of country - the turkey) but it didn't go into their portfolio. Don't know why but my guess would be that it was because it didn't resemble what the clientele think of as "Ale". So again we have the question of definition of optimum. In the business optimum is defined in terms of how well it sells. Period.




The point is you need to match the water style to the type of beer you are brewing. The fact that you say they don't correlate just means you are doing something wrong in recipe or water design.

Guess I must be doing something wrong then but I guess I'll continue to do it because the beers keep getting better! Little tongue in cheek there but the real point is that chloride to sulfate ratio is not a design parameter for a beer. You need to understand what chloride does and you need to understand what sulfate does and you need to understand what influences RDF. These are largely independent of one another. The whole chloride sulfate ratio got kicked off, I believe, when the following paragraph appeared in the second edition of the Handbook of Brewing (p111). Prior to the paragraph in question he had referred to the "somewhat antagonistic" effects of chloride and sulfate. Here's the quote: "These effects are repeatable at different absolute concentrations of chloride and sulfate. It appears that, in many cases, it is the relative ratio of the two ions that has the major flavor influence, often irrespective of the accompanying cations." Someone latched on to this and launched the Cl:SO4 ratio thing. Note that he says "in many cases". That does not mean all cases. German brewing texts are much more direct. They just advise minimizing sulfate.


Let's be clear, both the balance on the water and recipe side can be calculated. To be the best brewers, we should be taking both into account and making sure they are appropriate.

The best brewers will understand what the effects of each ion are and will have determined by experimentation, what makes the beer that is "best" under his optimality criterion. If he wants a stingingly (to quote Dave Miller) hoppy pils he'll know that his sulfate should be, ideally 0 (i.e. chloride to sulfate ratio infinite). I chose this example because it flies in the face of hoppy beers requiring low chloride to sulfate ratio.

How does one calculate when he has no data to work with? We've established that the reports for water that you have are largely flawed and water reports you get from you water supplier are hokey too because they often represent averages or the sulfate is measured on alternate thursdays wheras the chloride on measured every tuesday. You can, of course, measure the water parameters yourself. Are you willing to do that. And you can measure true extract (quite simply actually) yourself but are you willing to do that. The same goes for color and bitterness but these take expensive equipment and time.


I know you're new but be carfull trashing the all might Palmer around here, it's like drawing the Proffet Muhamed eating a BLT. jk

I've known John for years. If you look in the acknowledgments and footnotes to his water chapter you'll find me there. I've met him at AHA conferences, corresponded with him and appeared with him on Brew Strong. I never could figure out exactly what he was up to with the color/SRM thing but nonetheless don't feel that he would disagree with anything I've said. He himself posted on another forum that the color/SRM thing is "nothing but handwaving". It's like the Cl:SO4 ratio thing. Guys starting out are adrift in a stormy sea (of brewing water) and grasp at straws. Wouldn't it be great if you could plan you water by looking at the SRM and the BU/TE ratio? You could put together a simple spreadsheet.... The problems come in when you go about using a rule that's based on a weak correlation between two variables with high associated uncertainties. You get huge estimation errors.

The same things happen when guys try to use the Tinseth rule to predict hops bitterness. Yes, it's a model (doubtless the best) but it doesn't fit the data very well. And when you try to predict mash pH based on Kolbach's RA based pH shift and titratable acidity of malt. You get a general idea but the result can't be expected to be accurate enough for planning. That's why you must measure/experiment.

Again, I posted the profiles I'd seen around the web because John000smith ask for them in this post. I also said we should discuss and try to make them better and take on the whole gamet of style/water profiles as a group.

Before you post a profile you pick up from the web, a magazine or book you should at least check the cation/anion balance. Most of published ones don't. Now if you give me a profile, any profile, I can come up with a "best" approximation to it using common salts. But you must define your optimality criterion here too. Do you want to minimize the average error (difference between what you want and what you get), the rmse (root mean square error), the peak error or the rms log error? And do you want to weight bicarbonate more than sulfate, for example? Also you must recognize that anything I can synthesize will be anion/cation balanced (this is because of the laws of physics, not because I'm stubborn). Therefore, I can't do a very good job at matching an imbalanced target.

I know you are trying to give them something simple they can use. After pondering this over the years I conclude that this is:

Use RO water with a tsp of calcium chloride per 5 gal, adjust pH with acid and add gypsum to taste on subsequent brews.
 
Well, I was the one who started this thread, and I think that this dialogue is great. Couple of questions; is there a "recommended range" of a given suite of minerals, like TH's original spreadsheet recommends (from Palmer, I assume). In other words, shouldn't one strive to at least be in that range?

Secondly, if there is no correlation between SRM and mash pH, why would it be published? Isn't there more than one way to skin a cat?
 
Secondly, if there is no correlation between SRM and mash pH, why would it be published? Isn't there more than one way to skin a cat?

There is a weak correlation, nobody is denying that. It just isn't good enough to rely on and if you try to extrapolate the model to very dark beers it gives absurd recommendations and people using the model seem to uniformly not understand that weakness.

Let me ask you the opposite question, if the correlation exists and is useful, why did only a small handful of the hundreds of people who have written about water in brewing publish it?

You can use Palmer's model and check mash pH with a pH meter and observe that it is wrong nearly all of the time (and badly wrong for dark beers). That is not disputable.

That's not to say Palmer's model isn't useful, just that if you don't understand it's limitations it will do more harm than good.
 
Well, I was the one who started this thread, and I think that this dialogue is great. Couple of questions; is there a "recommended range" of a given suite of minerals, like TH's original spreadsheet recommends (from Palmer, I assume). In other words, shouldn't one strive to at least be in that range?

I tend to think there is and I believe the debate here is as to how to define it as the edges of that range would be, I think, pretty fuzzy. I sometimes refer people to my water map at http://www.pbase.com/agamid/image/57446374. This plots the reported waters of several famous brewing cities by their effective hardness (calcium hardness plus half magnesium hardness) against their alkalinities. If you make such a plot lines of constant residual alkalinity are diagonals and the "map" shows those too. If you want to brew a Pilsner and buy the concept that Pilsner was defined by the water of Pilsen you locate Pilsn (lower left corner of the map) and see that the water is very soft (low effective hardness) and has very low alkalinity. Knowing that Pilsner uses noble hops you conclude that sulfate should also be low and proceed. In this case, you have made all the right decisions. Your beer will be very good. But how hard can the water be or how high can it's alkalinity be and still give you a good Pils? Or how much sulfate can you tolerate? Those questions are harder to answer. Look now at Burton. It's obvious that there is lots more mineral content in Burton water but there are about 6 reports for Burton plotted on the chart. They are pretty consistent WRT effective hardness but quite disparate WRT alkalinity. Which should be choose in making a recommendation for a Burton ale? Perhaps just going into the center of mass of the Burton reports would do. But looking at the Burton reports we see that none really balances at reasonable pH. One balances better than the others, though. Should be choose that one. Or should be just say these beers are characterized by a lot of hardness, a lot of sulfate and modest alkalinity and put together water with a lot of sulfate, a lot of calcium and modest alkalinity.

To get the modest alkalinity you must dissolve limestone with carbon dioxide gas. If you try to do it with acid you get calcium sulfate or calcium chloride, not calcium bicarbonate which is what is in Burton water. So what do you do about that? If you go to all the trouble to do it "properly" with carbon dioxide and heat the result in your HLT much of the calcium carbonate will drop out. Was this done in Burton or did they strike cold? How do you compensate for that?

My recommendation for a Burton ale is soft water with supplements of calcium chloride and calcium sulfate in about equal amounts - i.e. 1 tsp of each for 5 gal. If you find that a beer made that way lacks "mineral crispness" add more of each. If you find adding more of each makes the hops too harsh, emphasize the chloride at the expense of the sulfate. If you want really sharp hoppiness emphasize the sulfate. You are going to have to experiment to get what suits you best because you are a unique person.

Thanks to remilard for answering the other question. I get a bit weary of being the vox clamantis.
 
There is a weak correlation, nobody is denying that. It just isn't good enough to rely on and if you try to extrapolate the model to very dark beers it gives absurd recommendations and people using the model seem to uniformly not understand that weakness.

Let me ask you the opposite question, if the correlation exists and is useful, why did only a small handful of the hundreds of people who have written about water in brewing publish it?

You can use Palmer's model and check mash pH with a pH meter and observe that it is wrong nearly all of the time (and badly wrong for dark beers). That is not disputable.

That's not to say Palmer's model isn't useful, just that if you don't understand it's limitations it will do more harm than good.

How does this limitation apply to TH's revised spreadsheet? I guess I should ask him directly. I don't currently have a pH meter, and I guess I took it for granted that the modest additions of Ca, Mg, and Cl2 would work to bring me at least within the recommended brewing ranges.

I tend to think there is and I believe the debate here is as to how to define it as the edges of that range would be, I think, pretty fuzzy. I sometimes refer people to my water map at http://www.pbase.com/agamid/image/57446374. This plots the reported waters of several famous brewing cities by their effective hardness (calcium hardness plus half magnesium hardness) against their alkalinities. If you make such a plot lines of constant residual alkalinity are diagonals and the "map" shows those too.

My water is very soft, almost Pilsen-like. As you can see, the majority of minerals are well outside the "recommended range" for brewing. My pale ales seemed fine however, I was unable to brew stouts that had any body. Hence the addition of CaSO4 and CaCO3 to bring me within an acceptable range. It's quite a shock to me, as well as other people I'm sure, that Palmer's model, and all subsequent revisions have been leading us down the wrong path perhaps. All I want to do is be able to brew the best beer I can, across the SRM ranges. How would one realistically achieve this through water modification without a chemical engineering background? I'm sure we can make this as complicated as we wish, but the real challenge is to make it simple enough for the average homebrewer to understand and implement.

Here is my starting water profile, via Ward Labs:

Ca-8
Mg-2
Na-25
Cl-15
SO4-11
Alkalinity (as CaCO3)-20
 
My water is very soft, almost Pilsen-like. As you can see, the majority of minerals are well outside the "recommended range" for brewing. My pale ales seemed fine however, I was unable to brew stouts that had any body. Hence the addition of CaSO4 and CaCO3 to bring me within an acceptable range. It's quite a shock to me, as well as other people I'm sure, that Palmer's model, and all subsequent revisions have been leading us down the wrong path perhaps. All I want to do is be able to brew the best beer I can, across the SRM ranges. How would one realistically achieve this through water modification without a chemical engineering background?

Here is my starting water profile, via Ward Labs:

Ca-8
Mg-2
Na-25
Cl-15
SO4-11
Alkalinity (as CaCO3)-20

[/QUOTE]

Is that sulfate number SO4-S 11 on the report or have you converted it to as SO4? SO4-S = 11 means SO4 = 33. Taking it as you have posted it the following should serve you well:


Baseline Treatment: add one tsp calcium chloride to each 5 gal of water being treated. Add 2% sauermalz to the grist.

Deviate from the baseline as follows:

For soft water beers (i.e Pils, Helles). Use half that amount of calcium chloride increase the sauermalz to 3%

For beers that use roast malt (Stout, porter): Skip the sauermalz

For British beers: Add 1 tsp gypsum as well as 1 tsp calcium chloride

For very minerally beers (Export, Burton ale): Double the calcium chloride and the gypsum.


If the sulfate was SO4-S = 11 then you will want to cut the water 1:1 with RO water when doing anything using noble hops because that much sulfate is too much for them.


This should get you started but won't necessarily give you the "best" beer (remembering from the discussion in this thread that "best" has multiple definitions). To move from the baseline to "best" you will need to experiment increasing one salt on one brew and decreasing it on the next both in order to educate you palate with respect to what the individual salts do and to give you guidance on how ultimately to set them. It is really extremely helpful to have a pH meter available. This is the only way to be sure you are getting mash pH correct.
 
Is that sulfate number SO4-S 11 on the report or have you converted it to as SO4? SO4-S = 11 means SO4 = 33. Taking it as you have posted it the following should serve you well:


Baseline Treatment: add one tsp calcium chloride to each 5 gal of water being treated. Add 2% sauermalz to the grist.

Deviate from the baseline as follows:

For soft water beers (i.e Pils, Helles). Use half that amount of calcium chloride increase the sauermalz to 3%

For beers that use roast malt (Stout, porter): Skip the sauermalz

For British beers: Add 1 tsp gypsum as well as 1 tsp calcium chloride

For very minerally beers (Export, Burton ale): Double the calcium chloride and the gypsum.


If the sulfate was SO4-S = 11 then you will want to cut the water 1:1 with RO water when doing anything using noble hops because that much sulfate is too much for them.


This should get you started but won't necessarily give you the "best" beer (remembering from the discussion in this thread that "best" has multiple definitions). To move from the baseline to "best" you will need to experiment increasing one salt on one brew and decreasing it on the next both in order to educate you palate with respect to what the individual salts do and to give you guidance on how ultimately to set them. It is really extremely helpful to have a pH meter available. This is the only way to be sure you are getting mash pH correct.

Why sauermalz instead of an acid rest or lactic acid. Ease, personal preference?
 
Why sauermalz instead of an acid rest or lactic acid. Ease, personal preference?

Ease and certainty. An acid rest takes hours, needs to be done at elevated temperature, has the lactos consuming some extract and risks spoilage. With acid you need to do calculations and measure out the acid rather precisely. If a pH meter is available, then that's a good way to go but if you are relying solely on the 1 % of grist per 0.1 pH drop rule of thumb the sauermalz seems to me the easier way to do it. In continental beers sauermalz also adds subtle complexity that actually improves the beers. It is definitely not traditional in British brewing but the more authentic alternative, CRS, is not available in the US (AFAIK).
 
Ease and certainty. An acid rest takes hours, needs to be done at elevated temperature, has the lactos consuming some extract and risks spoilage. With acid you need to do calculations and measure out the acid rather precisely. If a pH meter is available, then that's a good way to go but if you are relying solely on the 1 % of grist per 0.1 pH drop rule of thumb the sauermalz seems to me the easier way to do it. In continental beers sauermalz also adds subtle complexity that actually improves the beers. It is definitely not traditional in British brewing but the more authentic alternative, CRS, is not available in the US (AFAIK).

Thanks. Going to do a common bitter for my next brew. Seems simple enough to give it a whirl. I'll have to hunt down some calcium chloride and see if the local HBS carries acidified malt though.... I've got two weeks. Should be doable...
 
Is that sulfate number SO4-S 11 on the report or have you converted it to as SO4? SO4-S = 11 means SO4 = 33. Taking it as you have posted it the following should serve you well:

Baseline Treatment: add one tsp calcium chloride to each 5 gal of water being treated. Add 2% sauermalz to the grist.

Deviate from the baseline as follows:

For soft water beers (i.e Pils, Helles). Use half that amount of calcium chloride increase the sauermalz to 3%

For beers that use roast malt (Stout, porter): Skip the sauermalz

For British beers: Add 1 tsp gypsum as well as 1 tsp calcium chloride

For very minerally beers (Export, Burton ale): Double the calcium chloride and the gypsum.


If the sulfate was SO4-S = 11 then you will want to cut the water 1:1 with RO water when doing anything using noble hops because that much sulfate is too much for them.

Yes, the sulfate is S04-S. I'm assuming that using CaS04 in my case vice CaC03 is due to the solubility issues you discussed earlier? This brings up another question; does TH's spreadsheet, the original, use the actual S04 value or the S04-S value as is reported on a very well-known labs reports. This would be very good information to know. As you pointed out, they are vastly different. What is the conversion factor for S04-S to S04?

You mention that this amount of sulfate is way too much for noble hops, but what about IPAs using American hops? I was under the impression that sulfates accentuated hop bitterness and flavor.

And thanks for taking the time to explain this so well.
 
Both spreadsheets require sulfate as sulfate AFAIK. It's Ward Labs that's a bit out of kilter here. In the brewing and water treatment industries it's reported as sulfate. In the revised spreadsheet he has included a notice that if you have a report that lists it SO4-S you should multiply by 3. That is the conversion factor.

No, the resason for using calcium sulfate instead of carbonate is that carbonate is powerfully alkaline and increases mash pH dramatically. We are adding acid (sauermalz) to most grists to get the pH lower. CaCO3 would send it higher - exactly the opposite of what we want to do.

Again, AFAIK, all the spreadsheets want sulfate specified as sulfate. I have never used Ward Labs so I've only seen reports in places like your post where people just say SO4 11. I had noticed for some time that I never got the same anion numbers that people posted from their Ward Labs reports and could never figure it out until one day some guy cut and pasted from an e-mail report, I noticed the -S and the mystery was resolved. I can't believe I was the first guy to notice this but perhaps I was.
 
Both spreadsheets require sulfate as sulfate AFAIK. It's Ward Labs that's a bit out of kilter here. In the brewing and water treatment industries it's reported as sulfate. In the revised spreadsheet he has included a notice that if you have a report that lists it SO4-S you should multiply by 3. That is the conversion factor.

No, the resason for using calcium sulfate instead of carbonate is that carbonate is powerfully alkaline and increases mash pH dramatically. We are adding acid (sauermalz) to most grists to get the pH lower. CaCO3 would send it higher - exactly the opposite of what we want to do.

Again, AFAIK, all the spreadsheets want sulfate specified as sulfate. I have never used Ward Labs so I've only seen reports in places like your post where people just say SO4 11. I had noticed for some time that I never got the same anion numbers that people posted from their Ward Labs reports and could never figure it out until one day some guy cut and pasted from an e-mail report, I noticed the -S and the mystery was resolved. I can't believe I was the first guy to notice this but perhaps I was.

Thanks. Yes it was Wards. Now I'm wondering how many people just plugged the value reported into the spreadsheet, as I did. That would have been good information to know, and I'm glad the revision noted it. I had a sneaking suspicion while mucking about with mineral additions that it couldn't be that easy.....I was right.
 
The problem with that approach is that it doesn't please everyone. Personal taste really comes into it.
I don’t think the people are asking for an end all be all water profile that will never need any personal adjustments. In actuality, unless they are using DI and not their own water, they will only be able to get in the ballpark anyway. What I’d like to help produce is a starting point or some target ranges for styles (or families of styles), that can then be personally tweaked on subsequent brews.

I don't know if you have any training in science but if you do you know that you cannot speak of optimality without having an optimality criterion. Win a ribbon, make a beer my mates like and make a beer my wife will like are distinct criteria which may result in three different water profiles for the same beer.
I’ve got a degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology which required coarse work included General, Organic, Physical and Bio Chem as well as Physics, Statistics and Calc. I’ve worked in the Biotech industry for 16 years, so yeah, I’d say I have a little science training but thanks for the condescension. I’m not saying that there is one optimal profile that will serve all cases. If you can give someone who is new to AG or is starting to adjust their water a good starting point they can adjust later on. You’ve expressed displeasure in the models that are out there and that simply relying on an RA:SRM
The latter. I have figured out how to do this over the years but I'm always experimenting. If you ask me how to brew a style I have brewed I can tell you what to do with the water but I can't guarantee that you will agree that what I have given you is optimum. It depends, as I noted above, on your criteria for optimality.
So why not reply to my original post with “here is what I have found is close to authentic but is slightly higher/lower in x,y,z and has worked for brewing some great, to style, Bocks” followed by the disclaimer that people may need to adjust based on their initial brews? I think people would find that more helpful than the back and forth we’ve been having. It’s better to be a helper than a hater.
Very soft water is required for authenticity in Bohemian Pilsner, for example, and very soft water makes great Boh. Pils if you use acid properly to set the pH (and this, is of course, exactly what the brewers of these beers in the Czech republic do). But suppose we added some extra chloride. Might the beer be "better". Not by the authenticity definition of optimality but perhaps by the "my wife likes" it one.
So forget what makes the best beer that I, my wife or my friends may like, but focus on what would make the best “to style” beer. These are what the general water profiles would focus one. Think about it in terms of the dog show. I have two great mutts. If I rolled up to Westminster dog show, no matter if they are the best dog in the city that day, they wouldn’t come close to winning (or even being let in the building for that matter) because they aren’t to breed. We should try to focus on what would be the most authentic to the attributes of the style without just listing city water profiles.
The anecdote I've told here and in other fora till I'm sick of typing it regards identical Burton style ales I brewed for a water class. One was done with "authentic" Burton water and the other with much softer, much less gypseous water. Everyone who tasted them agreed that the "authentic" wate one was more authentic but the softer water one was better. That included a professional brewer who asked "how do you get that wonderful smooth hops character". I'd seen the sacks of terra alba (gypsum) at his brewery and told him to just refrain from dumping one of those into the mash tun. So again we have the question of definition of optimum. In the business optimum is defined in terms of how well it sells. Period.
Again, I think as home brewers, at least I’d like to try to get as close to the style as possible and not make the best-selling mass marketed beer that appeals to the most people. I agree that a brew pub is a different beast in that they could have the most authentic whatever but if it doesn’t sell, they’re out of business. If we can give the people the starting profile and then they can tune it to their tastes, they’re better off than trying to dump some salts and pray.

The best brewers will understand what the effects of each ion are and will have determined by experimentation, what makes the beer that is "best" under his optimality criterion. If he wants a stingingly (to quote Dave Miller) hoppy pils he'll know that his sulfate should be, ideally 0 (i.e. chloride to sulfate ratio infinite). I chose this example because it flies in the face of hoppy beers requiring low chloride to sulfate ratio.
I don’t think the Ninkasi winners out there would really care about the profile/styles that would be posted. They understand how to brew great, to style beer and what everything does. It’s the inbetweeners out there that are looking for some guidance or people trying to get out of their brewing comfort range with new styles or water treatment as a whole.
How does one calculate when he has no data to work with? We've established that the reports for water that you have are largely flawed and water reports you get from you water supplier are hokey too because they often represent averages or the sulfate is measured on alternate thursdays wheras the chloride on measured every tuesday. You can, of course, measure the water parameters yourself. Are you willing to do that. And you can measure true extract (quite simply actually) yourself but are you willing to do that. The same goes for color and bitterness but these take expensive equipment and time.
So then we should give up and mix some malta, sugar and Fleischman’s and call it beer then? I think you are taking it to the extreme. So if you don’t have your own lab to test the water you are about to brew with, a QC lab to test the malt shipment and hops real-time, then just throw your hands up and don’t even try to build some style parameters into your beers? I understand not everybody has ready access to nice balances, HPLCs, Spectrophotometers, microscopes, pipettes, incubators, -80C Freezer and so on but I’m not following how a good start in the right direction with a water profile for a particular style is a bad thing.

I've known John for years... He himself posted on another forum that the color/SRM thing is "nothing but handwaving". It's like the Cl:SO4 ratio thing. Guys starting out are adrift in a stormy sea (of brewing water) and grasp at straws. Wouldn't it be great if you could plan you water by looking at the SRM and the BU/TE ratio? You could put together a simple spreadsheet.... The problems come in when you go about using a rule that's based on a weak correlation between two variables with high associated uncertainties. You get huge estimation errors.
Hand waving is not great but some basic rules and ranges are better than nothing. Even though I may not know to an exact SRM/IBU what a brew will turn out to be, I still make some approximations and know that they calculated numbers are not the gospel truth. I’m willing to live with some variability and loose controls that get me in the ball park. Even though I’ll never win a gold medal on the dream team, I’ll still shoot some hoops every now and then.

The same things happen when guys try to use the Tinseth rule to predict hops bitterness. Yes, it's a model (doubtless the best) but it doesn't fit the data very well. And when you try to predict mash pH based on Kolbach's RA based pH shift and titratable acidity of malt. You get a general idea but the result can't be expected to be accurate enough for planning. That's why you must measure/experiment.
Exactly. I’m not proposing we can come up with a model that will take into account the exact pH of a mash based on the percentages of the different types of malts/salts used. Models are always a start and can be continually improved with new data/experience/techniques/equipment. I know Rager/Tinseth aren’t perfect but it’s better than saying, F’ it and just tossing in a handful of some random hops because I’ll never know the exact IBUs I’m getting anyway; my watershed is different now than the report was so why weigh out salts, stick with a dash and smidgen, that’s good enough since I’ll never be right on anyway.

Before you post a profile you pick up from the web, a magazine or book you should at least check the cation/anion balance. Most of published ones don't.
Sorry for at least I was trying to help and spur discussion. You could have made some suggestions as to corrections.
Use RO water with a tsp of calcium chloride per 5 gal, adjust pH with acid and add gypsum to taste on subsequent brews.
Baseline Treatment: add one tsp calcium chloride to each 5 gal of water being treated. Add 2% sauermalz to the grist.
Deviate from the baseline as follows:
For soft water beers (i.e Pils, Helles). Use half that amount of calcium chloride increase the sauermalz to 3%
For beers that use roast malt (Stout, porter): Skip the sauermalz
For British beers: Add 1 tsp gypsum as well as 1 tsp calcium chloride
For very minerally beers (Export, Burton ale): Double the calcium chloride and the gypsum.

So this is great. Why not apply this to other styles with ranges and limits?
 
Kind of off topic a little in this thread, but hop IBU calculations seem more variable to me because it doesn't seem like anyone has a good method of figuring out what the residual unfermentables will end up being in a beer. Isn't that what you need to balance with the IBU's? Now couple that with the sulfate levels, how?

On a lighter note, someone told me he was having trouble adjusting his well water for his IPA. I asked him if he had a report on what was in his well water and he said no.......
 
So forget what makes the best beer that I, my wife or my friends may like, but focus on what would make the best “to style” beer. These are what the general water profiles would focus one. Think about it in terms of the dog show. I have two great mutts. If I rolled up to Westminster dog show, no matter if they are the best dog in the city that day, they wouldn’t come close to winning (or even being let in the building for that matter) because they aren’t to breed. We should try to focus on what would be the most authentic to the attributes of the style without just listing city water profiles.

Here is the disconnect.

There is almost zero information in published water reports that will help you make to style beer. Why? First, water is a secondary factor at best, maybe tertiary. It's unlikely your process and ingredients are particularly close to some historical brewery. People want to match Munich water but they don't want to use 100% Munich malt and do a triple decoction, which is the first thing they should be doing to be accurate.

Second, what do we even mean by "to style"? Almost any beer style you can describe is made in different places with different water. Do you mean historical? Do the published reports match history? If so for what particular well? Each brewery had their own.

Finally what is always missing is how the brewery treated the water (boiling, slaked lime, burtonization) and how they set mash pH (acid addition, acid rest, burtonization) and those are at least as important as the starting water.

Someone who wants to make an authentic version of some historical beer can give it a shot but:

1. You'll never know if you got it right.
2. A published water profile will either be of no value or mislead you, you need to do much more research to even get started.
3. If you aren't choosing authentic ingredients (which don't exist typically) and process, why even worry about the water (from an authenticity point of view)?

Also I think the in betweeners you talk about are exactly the people who fail to realize that adding 90 grams of chalk to the mash is astoundingly different than adding it to the water (dissolving with c02) and then heating the water up in the HLT.

That said, the information needed to get an informed and motivated home brewer on the right track to brewing with authentic water exists. There are plenty of texts about beer styles (including the Brewers Publication series, or at least some of them) that exist, so why reinvent the wheel? History hasn't changed.
 
Second, what do we even mean by "to style"? Almost any beer style you can describe is made in different places with different water. Do you mean historical? Do the published reports match history? If so for what particular well? Each brewery had their own.

According to the current BJCP guidelines for the flavor parameters of the beer.

That said, the information needed to get an informed and motivated home brewer on the right track to brewing with authentic water exists. There are plenty of texts about beer styles (including the Brewers Publication series, or at least some of them) that exist, so why reinvent the wheel? History hasn't changed.

Yeah, let's not reinvent anything, maybe just create a single repository on the HBT to find them and all cull out the ones that are inaccurate.

I completely agree with what you are saying. It takes strong technique, ingredients and water. One without the others might not get you there.

So it looks like this thread has gone completely rogue. We've gone from what are the water profiles for particular styles to why would you want that to you can never define them. I'm sure the first poster has moved on to another topic/forum for answers by now.
 
What I’d like to help produce is a starting point or some target ranges for styles (or families of styles), that can then be personally tweaked on subsequent brews.
That's what I tried to do in #18. I think KISS is absolutely essential here. This has got to be totally bewildering to most brewers. But I doubt you'd approve of that approach because, while I suggest holding back on the sauermalz for beers with roast grains, color is not otherwise a factor nor are OG, FG, TE, or IBV.


...which required coarse work included...
Yes, I had a couple of prof's like that too.

...General, Organic, Physical and Bio Chem as well as Physics, Statistics and Calc. I’ve worked in the Biotech industry for 16 years, so yeah, I’d say I have a little science training but thanks for the condescension.

Certainly no condescension was intended. Perhaps I shouldn't have said "science" as a pure scientist is not so likely to be involved in optimization theory as an engineer or statistician. I apologize.

The relevant course work here is statistics. Unfortunately people use and misuse them (often intentionally) all the time and even people that have had a course or 2 are deceived. The SRM/RA thing is a perfect example. If you have used that model you should have said "whoa!" and several have (you can find their posts here and in other fora) but these are the guys with some experience who smelled a rat and questioned what they saw. Those that have less experience blindly follow along and put tablespoonsfulls of chalk in their stout.

If you can give someone who is new to AG or is starting to adjust their water a good starting point they can adjust later on.

That is what I tried to do in #18.

You’ve expressed displeasure in the models that are out there and that simply relying on an RA:SRM

Yes, because they have mislead so many.

So why not reply to my original post with “here is what I have found is close to authentic but is slightly higher/lower in x,y,z and has worked for brewing some great, to style, Bocks”

Here is what I have found makes a great Pils (and vienna and kölsch and weizen and probably bock). Add enough calcium chloride to RO water to take the calcium to about 25 mg/L. Use 2.5%-3% sauermalz in the grist.


I think people would find that more helpful than the back and forth we’ve been having.
Reelale said:
Well, I was the one who started this thread, and I think that this dialogue is great

It’s better to be a helper than a hater.
Given the amount of time I have put into these forums and the number of people I believe I have helped improve their beer I suppose I should take umbrage at that but I don't. The statement is true enough. But hating stuff that leads people down the garden path can be a good thing!


We should try to focus on what would be the most authentic to the attributes of the style without just listing city water profiles.

I have no problem with a focus on authenticity. It's just not necessarily what everyone wants. I'd say tell 'em how to make good beer and then let them adjust for authenticity if they want to. Remember that being authentic (WRT water) requires 1) having an authentic profile to target 2) being willing to do the carbonic acid thing 3)knowing how the brewers of the style used their water. We've discussed the problems with all three.

So I'd say that if you want authentic Burton ale you use the baseline recommendation with extra sulfate (perhaps some in the form of epsom salts). If you want authentic Bock you use the baseline with some baking soda. As has been pointed out in another post, there's a lot more to authenticity than just the water and when, for example, talking about Bock we have to ask whether we are talking about authentic Munich or authentic Einbeck...


If we can give the people the starting profile and then they can tune it to their tastes, they’re better off than trying to dump some salts and pray.

...

..I’m not following how a good start in the right direction with a water profile for a particular style is a bad thing.

It isn't. I'll propose what I posted #18 as a straw man and I'll do that because that's essentially the advice I give to the dozens who post "Here's my Ward Labs report. What do I do?". In response to one of those someone e-mailed me saying that he had seen an article in BYO in which a professional brewer had made essentially the same recommendations.


Hand waving is not great but some basic rules and ranges are better than nothing.

Ick! The SRM/RA is a perfect example of no rule being better than a bad rule. Blind application of that rule has ruined a lot of dark beer in this country (and probably elsewhere too). Perhaps that's a little strong - let's say has kept a lot of dark beers from being what they could be. With trepidation I mention the egregious misapplication of principal components analysis by Michael Mann which led to the famous (or rather, infamous) "hockey stick curve". Application of that erroneous model could have had disastrous consequences - even worse than bad porter. Of course there are still those vigorously promoting that model but let's not go there.

I’m willing to live with some variability and loose controls that get me in the ball park. Even though I’ll never win a gold medal on the dream team, I’ll still shoot some hoops every now and then.
If models weren't of some value we wouldn't bother to make them. But when the models are statistical one needs to understand the implications and shortcomings and few, including, unfortunately, professional scientists such as the aforementioned Dr. Mann don't. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he isn't a statistician. It took a couple of statisticians to figure out what he had done (though it was pretty obvious) wrong.


Models are always a start and can be continually improved with new data/experience/techniques/equipment.

I have an investment that's tied to Moody's seasoned Baa and lose bigtime if that goes up (as it's bound to do). So my advisor says we need to protect against that but no one trades futures in Baa but they do in LIBOR so we should see if there is a correlation between LIBOR and Baa and if there is hedge with LIBOR futures (if you think I have any idea what the hell he's talking about here you give me more credit than is my due). Well, they're both interest rates so they should correlate, and they do Baa = 6.317 + 0.332*LIBOR. But r = 0.6. You can see the data at http://www.pbase.com/agamid/image/127869369. Would you bet on that model? I woudn't. Sure, I could hit a home run but the chances of losing are there too in which case I'd be eating dog food for the rest of my life (I'm retired - no paycheck).


I know Rager/Tinseth aren’t perfect but it’s better than saying, F’ it and just tossing in a handful of some random hops because I’ll never know the exact IBUs I’m getting anyway;

I check the IBU's on all my beers and would conclude that one might almost just as well say "F' it" and throw in what feels right. Given that I have the data I have the luxury of being able to go back and find the parameters to stick in the Tinseth model which give me the best fit to my data. The results aren't terribly impressive. For brew planning I use the model (with adjusted parameters) and it is of value but a long career using models (professionally and in hobbies) has given me perspective on them that people that haven't had my experience simply don't possess. I'm sure that reads arrogant as hell but the point I'm trying to make is that if you are going to offer a model to people without an extensive background in modeling it had darn well better be robust!


Sorry for at least I was trying to help and spur discussion.

Well you did that certainly and at least one reader has benefited from them to the point he said so. I hope you've gotten something out of the discussions. I know I have.

You could have made some suggestions as to corrections.

I looked at a couple of the profiles and found the usual problem with profiles - imbalance. When I see imbalance I don't know how to correct because I don't know whether anions have been underspecified or cations underspecified or both. So I don't know how to fix them. I also noted in the case of the profile recommended for Bock that the sulfate is way out of whack. I can, of course, look at each and every one in some detail but that's a lot of work especially when a sample says I don't have good clay to work with.

That doesn't mean that I'm unwilling to help if I can. Perhaps if you picked a couple in particular you' like me to look at I could do that.


So this is great. Why not apply this to other styles with ranges and limits?

I think I've got most of the styles covered there though I'm sure some refinements could be worked out and I guess one could do a table in which all the categories were listed against which of the deviations, if any, go with that style. Is that what you have in mind?
 
ajdelange
This all seems to make sense to me. Take a clean base, mineral free water, and adjust it to maximize the sweetness of the residual unfermentable malt sugars and then use hops to balance? Do you ever adjust the calcium chloride levels or do you stick with 1 tsp per 5 gallons regardless of doing an American Light Lager or a Barley Wine?
 
ajdelange
This all seems to make sense to me. Take a clean base, mineral free water, and adjust it to maximize the sweetness of the residual unfermentable malt sugars and then use hops to balance? Do you ever adjust the calcium chloride levels or do you stick with 1 tsp per 5 gallons regardless of doing an American Light Lager or a Barley Wine?

I do all kinds of bizarre things but I've been studying brewing water chemistry for over 20 years and have a pretty good feel for it. The recommendations I am making are my attempt to distill the whole 20 years down into something that a beginner or intermediate brewer could use that doesn't involve much if any calculation and which should get him a starting point from which he can step off to move towards something better than a baseline beer. If you have a decent beer to start with you should, by making small adjustments, eventually arrive at something that meets you individual requirements better.

BTW the adjustments I am advocating do not consider hopping or extract or hopping to extract ratios. They are designed to keep sulfate out of the equation where noble hops are used, put some in for styles where it is appropriate and, most importantly, control mash pH. The details of how you want the sulfate/hop interaction to go and where you want TE/IBU to fall is part of the tweaking you must do to get that perfect beer.
 
I think people would find that more helpful than the back and forth we&#8217;ve been having.

Actually, taken as a whole, this discussion has proven very enlightening. Dialogue is good.


Sorry for at least I was trying to help and spur discussion.

But you did.


Here is the disconnect.

First, water is a secondary factor at best, maybe tertiary.

I think that is your opinion. My opinion is that water is very important, probably the most important consideration in a liquid beverage. You do make some very good points on authenticity.

Yeah, let's not reinvent anything, maybe just create a single repository on the HBT to find them and all cull out the ones that are inaccurate..

Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing this morning. Wouldn't it be nice to have one definitive, accurate (at least an accurate approximation), reliable source for information on water chemistry for homebrewers. I know it is a complicated subject and that I tend to oversimplify things that are not simple, but there should be a baseline such as Ajdelange offered on my water profile, and I thank him for that. I learned early on in my career that all models are wrong, some are useful.


I'm sure the first poster has moved on to another topic/forum for answers by now.

No still here, and learning.

Those that have less experience blindly follow along and put tablespoonsfulls of chalk in their stout.

I may have been blindly following, but I did use a gram scale.:)

This thread has been a real bargain.....I originally asked for Mosher's profiles for input into an apparently innaccurate model, and this dialogue was spawned. Sometimes a little off-topic, and sometimes a little ego, but very informative nonetheless. The truth is out there......
 
Actually, taken as a whole, this discussion has proven very enlightening. Dialogue is good.

This thread has been a real bargain.....I originally asked for Mosher's profiles for input into an apparently innaccurate model, and this dialogue was spawned. Sometimes a little off-topic, and sometimes a little ego, but very informative nonetheless. The truth is out there......

AJ's method might seem overly simplistic, but I've been struggling with the various/competing/wrong models out there. Start with 'clean' water and one additive and go on from there.... Might not be a bad 'sticky' in the beginners forum. I think it would save folks a lot of false starts and let them start out with a basic understanding and probably improve their beer and therefore enjoyment of the hobby. It gives a base to build on in terms of understanding what the other components will do when it comes time for 'expansion'.
 
Hi AJ,
I have been through a brief discussion with you before concerning my water. I believe the ion balance is slightly off. I was wondering if you would mind giving me some general addition amounts for general styles as you did earlier in this thread. Thanks
Report
Ca 7
Mg 1
Na 33
K 1
SO4-S 4
Cl 18
Carbonate CO3 <1
Bicarbonate HCO3 52
Total Alkalinity 43
Total Hardness CaCO3 22
Nitrate NO3-N 2.8 safe
pH 7.5
 
Slickfish I think AJ has done that several times in several different places in this thread all ready. With your water being close to RO his advice for starting with RO and a tsp of calcium chloride would be good starting point I'd think. Use a meter to check your mash and acidic malt to set your pH if needed. If you want more hop presence add Ca and stay away from chalk.
 
Hi AJ,
I have been through a brief discussion with you before concerning my water. I believe the ion balance is slightly off. I was wondering if you would mind giving me some general addition amounts for general styles as you did earlier in this thread. Thanks
Report
Ca 7
Mg 1
Na 33
K 1
SO4-S 4
Cl 18
Carbonate CO3 <1
Bicarbonate HCO3 52
Total Alkalinity 43
Total Hardness CaCO3 22
Nitrate NO3-N 2.8 safe
pH 7.5

This report is actually quite well balanced (anions 1.893 cations 1.801).

As this water is pretty soft and not that alkaline I would think the approach I outlined in #18 should work for you using it as is. OTOH as the alkalinity is approaching 50 you might want to consider a 1:1 (or greater) dilution with RO water to cut it back to 26 (or less). This will give you better mash pH. 1:1 dilution will also drop the sodium down to 16 which, while it isn't as valuable as getting the alkalinity down, may be of some value.
 
Thanks, I appreciate the advice. I brewed a stout once with my straight water and it had the most horrible flavor, really undrinkable. This was before I had a pH meter but I imagine the pH was very low. I don't think I can get away with this style without adding some alkalinity. On another note, what do you mean by using sauermalz to "set" mash pH. I would think that it would serve to lower mash pH but to me set means that it would somehow buffer or lock it in to a certain range within reason. Is this what happens? Thanks
 
Thanks, I appreciate the advice. I brewed a stout once with my straight water and it had the most horrible flavor, really undrinkable. This was before I had a pH meter but I imagine the pH was very low. I don't think I can get away with this style without adding some alkalinity. On another note, what do you mean by using sauermalz to "set" mash pH. I would think that it would serve to lower mash pH but to me set means that it would somehow buffer or lock it in to a certain range within reason. Is this what happens? Thanks

It's not likely that the pH of your stouts is too low. Mine never are and my water has RA = 12. I'll get 5.4-5.5 on stouts with no adjustments. I made my last imperial stout pre pH meter but I would bet my pH meter that I wouldn't drop below 5.3 on that one.

I think where is AJ is coming from is that you almost never need to raise mash pH (unless you got overzealous with acid or something) and you almost always want to lower it so 99.9% of the time acid is what you will use to set mash pH.
 
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