Tried and True Water Profiles for Classic Styles

Hey Y'all,

I would like to organize a set of tried and true water profiles for classic styles. I am a total water chem newbie, but I'm in it for the long haul. I don't have any first hand experience with which profiles work very well with which styles, so I am relying on 2nd/3rd hand information.

Perhaps we can start to organize a water profile set and we can have people comment on what has worked well for them (actually tried it), and what hasn't.

For source material, I so far can only really find the "city" water profiles in Beersmith and the few profiles in BreWater 3.0. There has to be some more definitive information out there. Let's organize it a bit and share our experiences?

Right now, I am fermenting a Robust Porter w/ water adjustments and a Scottish 70/ with adjustments. I have a control beer for the porter, but not for the scottish.

I don't want this to turn into a "you don't need water chem" thread or a thread debating the merits of this process, but rather a place to share successes and lessons learned.

No takers so far, so let me kick off a discussion point. I am brewing an English IPA today. Should i just target burton, or is there a better water profile I can achieve? I am looking at about 60IBUS and 6.6SRM.

My base water, Portland, OR, is like so:

Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 1.1
Mg: 0.6
Na: 2.6
Cl: 1.9
SO4: 3.7
CaCO3: 8.5

I would not use Burton ever, try mosher's ideal pale ale in brewater. I have used it and like it, although some people find it a little bitter. I have also used Vista, CA's water profile since Green Flash makes great IPAs. I also like this water profile for bitter beers. Here it is:

Ca=57
SO4=136
Mg=22
Na=71
Cl=88
Carb=147
Hard=233
Alk=122

Although the water from a certain region may traditionally be used for particular beer styles, and in some cases, the style developed to take advantage of the local water, those profiles may not be optimal. For instance, say you have a region known for dark ales because they have high residual alkalinity in the water. You could target that profile when you make a dark ale, or you could custom-build a profile to fit your exact recipe. Try palmer's free spreadsheet for a simple tool to help tailor a water profile for a particular beer. You'll mainly be concerned with residual alkalinity and sulfate/chloride ratio. By manipulating those two things, you can create a water profile for the specific beer you intend to brew.

KingBrianI said:

Although the water from a certain region may traditionally be used for particular beer styles, and in some cases, the style developed to take advantage of the local water, those profiles may not be optimal. For instance, say you have a region known for dark ales because they have high residual alkalinity in the water. You could target that profile when you make a dark ale, or you could custom-build a profile to fit your exact recipe. Try palmer's free spreadsheet for a simple tool to help tailor a water profile for a particular beer. You'll mainly be concerned with residual alkalinity and sulfate/chloride ratio. By manipulating those two things, you can create a water profile for the specific beer you intend to brew.

Click to expand...

Yes this is what I was trying to get at. This is the point of this thread - there has got to be a contrast between "ideal profile" and "historical profile", that is what I would like to discuss. I can tweak stuff in the spreadsheet and come up with something, I just wanted to try to help build a reference of what people have tried for given styles and what they liked/didn't like. For example, how can we improve upon the burton water profile for English IPAs?

Well, I've tried Dublin for a dry stout and Burton for an English bitter. Both are so high in some minerals that they gave off-flavors for me. Chalkiness in the case of the dry stout and a minerally metallic bite to the bitter. The Chimay profile has worked well for me on several occasions for strong belgian ales.

Kaiser has some good ones on his website.

Water profiles for hoppy beers are a bit of an art form, but in addition to some listed above Tasty McDole uses the same water for all of his beers and is known for very good hoppy beers. Thats on the interwebs somewhere.

Ok I found the Mosher Pale Ale profile in BreWater 3.0... so this is what I worked out for my english IPA. I always calculate my sparge amount as I go, so I'll add that when I get it:

Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 1.1
Mg: 0.6
Na: 2.6
Cl: 1.9
SO4: 3.7
CaCO3: 8.5

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 5.75 / 0
Dilution Rate: 0%

Adjustments (grams) Mash / Boil Kettle:
CaCO3: 1 / 0
CaSO4: 8 / 0
CaCl2: 2 / 0
MgSO4: 6 / 0
NaHCO3: 1 / 0
NaCl: 0 / 0
HCL Acid: 0 / 0
Lactic Acid: 0 / 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 128 / 128
Mg: 26 / 26
Na: 15 / 15
Cl: 46 / 46
SO4: 316 / 316
CaCO3: 69 / 69

RA (mash only): -38 (2 to 7 SRM)
Cl to SO4 (total water): 0.15 (Very Bitter)

Brewed a Red Amber Ale (Jamil's Evil Twin) the other day. Went back to a more generic basic water profile instead of the Moshers Pale Ale that I had used recently.


Water:
8 g Baking Soda ()
5 g Calcite (Calcium Carbonate)
4.0 g Calcium Chloride (Calcium Chloride (anhydrous))
3 g Epsom Salts (Magnesium Sulfate)
1 g Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate)
1.0 g Table Salt (Sodium Chloride)
14.0 gal RO water - Portland


But in all honesty unless I brewed a beer side by side with two different water profiles I am not sure I could tell the difference. It may just be a mental exercise until someone proves it to me with beer.