Brewing Water Profiles And Tools

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HenryHill

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Please stick this to the top of our Brew Science Forum.

Many of the spreadsheets have the world water profiles in them on another page.

Spreadsheets:
Palmer's in English Units
http://howtobrew.com/section3/Palmers_Mash_RA_ver2d.xls
Palmer's in Metric Units
http://howtobrew.com/section3/Palmers_Metric_RA_ver2d.xls
Spine's
http://www.photo-swiss.com/brewing/spreadsheet.zip
saq's
http://www.thesaq.net/beer/waterprofile/

Nomographs:
Interactive:
Mash pH Nomograph
Palmer's
http://www.howtobrew.com/images/f83.pdf


Mineral Calculators:

Brewing Water Chemistry Calculator | Brewer's Friend

Links To Understanding Mash pH And Mash Minerals:
How to Brew - By John Palmer - Understanding the Mash pH
http://www.tcbrewmasters.org/articles/6.PDF
Mash pH – Hard Water Treatment for Brewing Beer | Home Brewing Beer Blog by BeerSmith
International Water Profiles:
How to Brew - By John Palmer - Balancing the Malts and Minerals
Water And Homebrewing

"Water chemistry of classic brewing cities
Pilsen Dortmund Munich Vienna London Burton Dublin
Calcium 7 225 75 200 52 268 118
Magnesium 2 40 18 60 16 62 4
Sodium 2 60 7 8 99 54 12
Chloride 5 60 10 12 60 36 19
Sulfate 5 120 10 125 77 638 54
Alkalinity 14 180 152 120 156 200 319


Pilsen: Very soft water allows pale color and clean bitterness of Pilsner.

Dortmund: Very hard water, with high levels of nearly all the water minerals. Used for making the medium-bitter, pale style known as "Export" lager.

Munich: High carbonate content leads to low hopping rates and darker color as found in Dunkel and Bock.

Vienna: Low sodium and chloride levels surrounded by high overall hardness. This city is famous for the production of well-balanced amber-style lagers.

London: Carbonate plus high levels of sodium and chloride encourage balanced, smooth dark beers such as porter and mild.

Burton-on-Trent: High sulfate content contributes to sharp, clean bitterness of classic pale ale, India pale ale.

Dublin: Extremely high carbonate content requires the use of acidic dark malts to achieve a more neutral pH. Thus, Dublin stouts like Guinness, include 10 percent roast barley in their grists. "

From Kaiser:

3 part series on pH in brewing:
Water

And my spreadsheet:
Kaiser_water_calculator.xls
 
Wow I didn't notice my spreadsheet I've been talking about in chat had made it into a brewing science stickied thread post! I'm flattered!

I have made a pretty significant overhaul to my water profile spreadsheet and its now at version 8.1. Its a bit more streamlined and now calculates RA and estimates optimal SRM levels as well as SO4:CL. Please let me know what you think.
 
I've noted over the years that brewing water profiles are one of those urban legends that keep growing. I keep seeing the same 'garbage' profiles repeated in multiple sources. There are some real bombs out there and brewers try them out and end up with a 'Soda Water' batch of beer. Some of the better sources have been Daniel's Designing Great Beer and Miller's Homebrewing book. But, even those sources had errors.

I took the time to thoroughly research existing and historic water profiles from the great brewing centers around the world. I went so far as to research the historic water sources back then and what those sources would have contributed to the water. In some cases, the modern water supply in those cities are the same as they were over a hundred years ago and the water is treated the same then as it is now. In some cases, water sources have changed and more digging was necessary.

Those water profiles were compiled using the best information available and checked for balance and accuracy. All of those profiles are now available in Bru'n Water.

Another factor that many people don't understand about some water profiles from those historic brewing centers is that the brewers of old did not always use that profile without adjustment. Even way back then, there were treatment methods to make the local water profile more amenable to the beers those brewers wanted to brew. One method is boiling and decanting to remove temporary hardness and alkalinity. I've included the estimated water profiles of those historic water profiles after they have been boiled and decanted so that brewers can use the most appropriate historic profile for brewing certain styles.

Another feature of Bru'n Water is the inclusion of generic water profiles that have been created to serve as good starting points for beer styles with various color and flavor requirements.

Bru'n Water goes even further and allows the brewer to assess their proposed water profile in conjunction with their actual mash grist to see if they will produce an acceptable mash pH.

Bru'n Water helps the brewer understand how a water profile affects the mash pH. There is a lot of knowledge and accurate water profiles in Bru'n Water. You can download it from the link in my signature line.

Enjoy.
 
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