Help with Water Profile

Well, I just got back from a long tour of duty away from my brewing equipment. Now that I'm back, I can't believe how much I've forgotten and/or lost. I cannot find my water addition notes. Anyway, here's what I'm thinking/trying to remember. I know all you professionals will have the correct answers.

Corpus Christi Water Profile:

Ca - 67 ppm
Mg - .05
Na - 109.12
So4 - 92.1
Cl - 193.22
CaCO3 - 120.13
PH - 7.8

Doing the chart thing and connecting the Mg and Ca gives me an effective hardness of 45. drawing up through CaCO3 (120) give me a mash ph of 5.83.

I'm brewing a Stone IPA clone.
14 # pale
1.25 caramel 20L
1.25 Munich

Right now I'm only planning on adding 2 grams of Gypsum and 1 gram Epsom Salt. Raising the CaCO3 to 89. I'm looking at a SRM for this beer to be 8.1. Now looking at the wonderful spreadsheet. I'm at the low end of the scale with CaCO3 at 89. Should I add anything else? Are my Sulfates getting to high at 251? How's the Ph look? How about my sparge water? Any additions to it?

Thanks

I can't make this profile work. I assume CaCO3 is the alkalinity in ppm as CaCO3. If I interpret the calcium hardness as being in the same units the profile is horribly unbalanced. If I interpret it as mg/L then the balance is better (but still not very good). In this case, however, the effective hardness comes out to 167 ppm as CaCO3. In either case the effective hardness is the calcium hardness plus half the magnesium hardness which under neither interpretation come out to 45.

So I really can't be too specific because I don't know what you are working with. However it is clear that the water is pretty alkaline and that will lead to mash pH which could easily reach 5.8 or even higher. That is, of course, much too high. You will have to decarbonate the water (or stick to brewing very dark beers) and the easiest way to do that is to dilute with RO or DI water. See the Primer in the Stickies section.

My report lists T. Alk. (mg CACO3/L) as 120 and T Hardness (mgCaCO3/L) as 220. Which has me confused at to which to use. May switch to bottled water.

"T" when associated with alkalinity usually means "Total". Associated with hardness it could mean either "Total" or temporary. With 67 mg/L calcium and 120 mg/L alkalinity the temporary hardness is 120 and, with 0.05 mg/L magnesium the total hardness is 167. So I'm still confused.

If your confused...I'm completly lost!

Here's the link to the online report maybe I'm misreading it.

http://www.cctexas.com/files/g17/MonthlyMineralReport.pdf

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do, but after messing with EzWater it looks like I'll be adding 1g Gypsum, 1g Calc Chloride, 1.5g Eposom salt, and 2ml Lactic Acid. This will get my Mash down to 5.23 with a chloride to sulfate ratio of 1.15 (balanced). That's if my starting numbers are correct. I may go with 20% Distilled water to just to be safe.

That helps quite a bit. The main problem in the numbers you posted earlier is that the magnesium concentration is 12.8 mg/L (deduced by computing the calcium hardness (50*67/20) and subtracting from the total hardness 220 (7/14/09 data) which gives the magnesium hardness which is converted back to "as the ion" by dividing by 50 and multiplying by 12.15 (the equivalent weight of magnesium). Doing this gives a fairly well balanced profile (cations 9.16; anions 9.39) with an effective hardness of 194 and RA of 64.7.

Assuming 5 gal water treated adding a gram of gypsum, a gram of calcium chloride and a gram and a half of magnesium sulfate will lower the alkalinity from 64.7 (on the wrong side of 50) to 32 (on the right side of 50) but this will not result in appreciable pH reduction. Assuming a distilled mash pH of 5.75 you might expect something like 5.86 with out the additions and 5.80 with. To get to pH 5.5 would require about 3% sauermalz or about 220 grams. Assuming sauermalz to be 2% lactic acid that is 4.4 grams pure lactic acid. An 88% lactic acid solution contains about a gram/cc so 2mL would only take you to perhaps 5.67. About 4 mL would be required to attain 5.5. All these numbers are, of course, approximations.

The sulfate should go from 75 to 164. That can be fine if you like the effects of sulfate or a disaster if you don't.

The alkalinity remains unchanged by this but the residual alkalinity does shift because of the added calcium and magnesium.

SRM really doesn't have anything to do with this.

Ajdelange,

I totally appreciate the help, but you lost me. So, for an American Pale Ale what additions would you make to my water profile? What I think your saying is: 1g Gypsum, 1g Calc Chloride, 1g mag Sulfate, 5 ml of 88% Lactic Acid. Should get me in the ball park treating 5 gals of water. Sulfate at 164 doesn’t sound high to me, is it? Burton is like 750, parts of LA is 151. This is all clear as mudd!

If I were brewing with this water I would cut it 2:1 with RO water and add 5 grams CaCl2.2H2O. This would drop the RA to 21 so that mash pH, without any acid addition, would be only slightly higher than the DI water mash. Depending on the malt this could be 5.6 to 5.75 but I would check mash pH (with a meter, not strips). I would add sauermalz (or the equivalent in lactic acid computed using the 1% of grist/0.1 pH drop desired) depending on the pH meter reading (you can pre-grind an appropriate amount and have it ready to go if it is needed. After the sauermalz addition I would be sure to check pH after say half an hour. If 2% didn't get me to 5.4 - 5.5 I'd use more next time. If it took me below say 5.3 I'd use less next time I brewed this beer.

In the blind (no meter) I would use 2% sauermalz (or lactic acid equivalent).

This would take care of your first duty - to get mash pH right. Notice I'm not suggesting any sulfate additions at this point. Taste the beer critically. If I were looking for the assertive character of UK variety hops in this brew you will probably find it disappointing but I would probably still find it good (provided I took care of all the other aspects such as sanitation, proper pitching, oxygenation....). So next time I'd add 5 grams of gypsum as well as the 5 grams of calcium chloride. Upon tasting that beer I'd decide whether the sulfate addition improved the beer and if so if it improved it enough. On subsequent brews I would supplement or decrement the gypsum addition trying to hit the sweet spot and on still later ones tweak the chloride levels - up or down again looking for the beer I liked best. This requires a commitment to brewing the same beer over and over again and I know this is anathema to many homebrewers who want to brew a Bock today and a Pliny clone tomorrow but it is the only way to consistently get really good beer.

All that aside - your interpretation is correct. The proposed additions to your water should get you a pretty good beer. I would not, however, use the whole 5 mL of lactic acid without pH checks with a meter. I cannot overemphasize the importance of knowing and controlling mash pH.

I can't answer the question about how much sulfate is too much. Yes, Burton has a ton of it in every liter and they figured out how to brew a beer with it but could that have been better beer if they had figured out how to get rid of some of that sulfate? The amount you use is the amount that gives a beer you like. That's why I recommend working up from low sulfate levels.

Ajdelange,

If you were here in Texas, I'd buy you a beer! I don't know what CaCl2.2H2O is but hell, I've got the internet who needs to remember high school chemistry class. Just so I have it correct in my head. 2:1 with RO: is 2 parts my water, 1 part RO water. Correct?

I'll be picking up a meter next month. I'm going to ball part this batch and go with a UK flavor profile. With the 2:1 cut I think 4g gypsum and 4 Calc Chloride with 2% lactic acid equivalent should make for a good start.

Do you treat mash and sparge water or just mash water? I read somewhere that you don't treat sparge water you just add the additions to the boil. I'll be pulling 7 gallons to the boil shooting for 5.5 gallon batch. I was planning on treating both any issues with that?

CaCl2.2H2O is calcium chloride dihydrate - the form sold by home brewing suppliers.

The other way round - 2 parts RO water and 1 part your water.

I think your proposed additions should work just fine.

Personally, I always treat the whole volume of water. I brew with very soft water so pH rise and tannin extraction are not problems for me and 9 out of 10 beers I brew are decoction mashed so phenols have already been extracted. I do not add additional salts or acids to the kettle though I am considering doing that as my kettle pH's are higher than the 4.2 value that seems to be considered a good one.