Water Profiles by Style

I'm a total noob at the water thing. Could someone please provide me water profiles for various styles. I know of the obvious examples of using Dublin's water profile for making your stout and other famous profiles for styels but it would be nice if there was a deeper database that encompased more styles.

I use blank RO water and build. I can create virtually any profile. I just dont know what some of the ideal profiles are for some styles.

Styles would include: American Wheat, American Pale, American IPA, Robust Porter, fruit beer (raspberry brown), etc...

Thanks for the help!

Well, here's a big list of cities. Sometimes it is obvious which styles are for what cities, others maybe not, but anyway, here it is.

Brewing Waters of the World

Yeah, that's getting closer to what I'm looking for. Still no American information.

I have a few, but I don't know their accuracy.

City Ca Mg Na SO4 HCO3 Cl Total Hardness
Boston 4 1 10 8 10 14 14
Milwaukee96 47 7 26 107 16 434
NY, NY 13 4 11 12 29 21 49
Portland 2 1 2 0 9 2 9
Tacoma 6 1 5 10 37 20 19

z987k said:

I have a few, but I don't know their accuracy.

City Ca Mg Na SO4 HCO3 Cl Total Hardness
Boston 4 1 10 8 10 14 14
Milwaukee96 47 7 26 107 16 434
NY, NY 13 4 11 12 29 21 49
Portland 2 1 2 0 9 2 9
Tacoma 6 1 5 10 37 20 19

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That's what we're looking for. Now I need to figure out what beers are ideal for those locations. Ok, Milwaukee is pretty obvious but what about Portland? Does that make great American Stouts ala Shakspeare by Rogue? What about those other sites and their respective styles?

I guess what I'm getting at is that everybody is talking about how to change your water but I would like to know the ideal water for a recipe. Honestly I've never taken a chemestry class in my life but I'm a life long learner and I think I can figure this stuff out once I get the ball rolling. Maybe I'm a perfectionist. I just know I've got more questions than answers!

The problem with adjusting your water to a specific city is you're assuming the brewery there uses the local water as-is. Most don't. If you're wanting to duplicate a brewery's water, call or e-mail their brewmaster. I'll bet 99 / 100 times, they'll tell ya.

Mosher and Papazian have published water profiles for Maarzens, Pilsners, Pale Ales etc. Brewater 3.0 has all of these profiles in its library, those are what I use to adjust my water.

It would be awesome if we had a "build your water" reference in the Wiki.

A database that lists water profile for the various styles and indicates which minerals/quantities should be added to R/O water to hit that profile.

You can list the water profiles, but you cannot really list the amounts of those salts to add, as this will change with volume. We really DO need a comprehensive water profile list and which styles they are best suited for.

I mean, it wouldnt be hard at all, all of these water profiles already exist and are published in one place or another.

The Pol said:

You can list the water profiles, but you cannot really list the amounts of those salts to add, as this will change with volume.

Click to expand...

Couldn't you just list additives as per gallon of water?

arturo7 said:

It would be awesome if we had a "build your water" reference in the Wiki.

A database that lists water profile for the various styles and indicates which minerals/quantities should be added to R/O water to hit that profile.

Click to expand...

This is what I'm talking about. Maybe a database for blank water that would just go along with styles. I just don't know what hte perfect water recipe is for certain styles. I've got Brewater 3.0 and it doesn't tell me about any IPA's or any American Stouts or anything like that. I'm sure that I'm just being a noob but I would find an actual database helpful.

What I do is create a target profile based on the Brewing Ranges and descriptions in chapter 15-1 of How to Brew.

Then I use a spreadsheet/calculator to get my water to those target values.

In other words, with an idea of how you want the beer to taste and by using the flavor profile of the style, you should be able to easily create a target profile. Decide how you want the beer to taste and then translate that into a target profile.

How to Brew - By John Palmer - Reading a Water Report