Water for Imperial Stout

Stauffbier said:

The only problem with this is the fact my water is different than yours and so are my personal tastes. You might like the taste of minerals that I don't. Hence, the need for personal experimenting...

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ahh I understand, but what I meant by that is I don't want my beer to turn out undrinkable. :rockin:

You can download Bru'n Water calculator or stick with EZ Water calculator and just try to keep you're minerals on the lower end of the spectrum for the style you're brewing. If you need to tweak it to keep your pH good, you can. If you have to approach the high end of the mineral spectrum just to get your pH correct then you need to consider acidifying instead of raising the mineral levels too high. This is just my opinion on the matter. There are people in this thread that are very experienced when it comes to water chemistry, so they might have better advice. If I was in your shoes (which I was when I first started messing with my water) I would start the way I described above. I don't want to discourage you, but you might not hit it perfectly your first time. All things get better with experience..

Stauffbier said:

You can download Bru'n Water calculator or stick with EZ Water calculator and just try to keep you're minerals on the lower end of the spectrum for the style you're brewing. If you need to tweak it to keep your pH good, you can. If you have to approach the high end of the mineral spectrum just to get your pH correct then you need to consider acidifying instead of raising the mineral levels too high. This is just my opinion on the matter. There are people in this thread that are very experienced when it comes to water chemistry, so they might have better advice. If I was in your shoes (which I was when I first started messing with my water) I would start the way I described above. I don't want to discourage you, but you might not hit it perfectly your first time. All things get better with experience..

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I figure experience will dictate what direction to go in in the future. I will use lactic acid to get my pH on track according to EZ water calc. A question I do have is that when I dilute, it is going to bring my sulfate levels to about 20ppm. Is there a problem with this being so low because Palmer's recommendation is to keep it at a minimum of 50ppm.

Nerver mind, Martin Brungard already mentioned that the sulfate is not necessary

So I am finally going to be brewing this beer tomorrow! I picked up 6 gallons of distilled water out of 9.5 total gallons. I am going to be using 5g of CaCl2 and 1 ml of lactic acid. Sulfate is low but from my understanding that is OK for this style of beer (imperial stout). Let me know what you think of my final profile! Thanks guys!
This is my final conclusion on my water profile:
Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 35
Mg: 8
Na: 46
Cl: 77
SO4: 21
CaCO3: 90

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 6.56 / 3.52
RO or distilled %: 38% / 100%

Total Grain (lb): 21.0

Adjustments (grams) Mash / Boil Kettle:
CaSO4: 0 / 0
CaCl2: 5 / 0
MgSO4: 0 / 0
NaHCO3: 0 / 0
CaCO3: 0 / 0
Lactic Acid (ml): 1
Sauermalz (oz): 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 77 / 50
Mg: 5 / 3
Na: 29 / 19
Cl: 145 / 94
SO4: 13 / 8
Cl to SO4 Ratio: 11.13 / 11.13

Alkalinity (CaCO3): 9
RA: -49
Estimated pH: 5.57
(room temp)

Uh....there is little wrong with that starting water profile if Imp Stout is the brew. There is likely to be a problem if you brew with that adjusted water. The alkalinity is going to be too low unless you are reserving all the crystal and roast malts until the end of the mash. And there could still be a problem with the pH of the wort in the kettle being too low due to the too low alkalinity. Something is wrong with your calculation unless there is very little roast or crystal in the grist. My Imp Stouts do include a significant amount and that might be a differentiator for your case.

In addition, the chloride content in the final water is getting on up there. You don't really need to go that high with either the Cl or the Ca. Why are you aiming this high?

mabrungard said:

Uh....there is little wrong with that starting water profile if Imp Stout is the brew. There is likely to be a problem if you brew with that adjusted water. The alkalinity is going to be too low unless you are reserving all the crystal and roast malts until the end of the mash. And there could still be a problem with the pH of the wort in the kettle being too low due to the too low alkalinity. Something is wrong with your calculation unless there is very little roast or crystal in the grist. My Imp Stouts do include a significant amount and that might be a differentiator for your case.

In addition, the chloride content in the final water is getting on up there. You don't really need to go that high with either the Cl or the Ca. Why are you aiming this high?

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I am not sure exactly what my exact numbers should look like. I diluted with distilled to bring my Na down to under 20ppm. I added calcium chloride to bring my numbers minimums. Ca is about 50ppm and Cl is less then 100ppm. I am not sure what else to do with my water to hit the right numbers. So are you saying I should brew with my original tap water? Even if it is at 46ppm of Na?

Or are you saying to dilute with distilled and not add calcium chloride which would give me : Ca 14, Mg 3, Na 19, Cl 31, SO4 8... Let me know, thanks for the feedback!

Johnnyboy1012 said:

I am not sure exactly what my exact numbers should look like. !

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If you haven't read this already, it might help to give you some guidance..
http://howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-2.html

Stauffbier said:

If you haven't read this already, it might help to give you some guidance..
http://howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-2.html

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This will have you replicating a bs classic city water profile of...london?...i guess thats where imperial stouts originally came from. AJ and Brungard are both experts (you will see AJ cited in How To Brew) and you are better off going with their advice.

Water is the most confusing aspect of homebrewing and there is no agreement among the experts. Read about this stuff if it interests you but don't stress too much about it. Brew the beer, see how it turns out and make adjustments on future batches based off of your results

Although 100 ppm is a general limit for chloride, that doesn't mean that you should try and hit it. A more modest chloride concentration may be more pleasant. The sodium concentration at 46 ppm is not desirable, but isn't really too high. You could get by with that sodium content and diluting at 1:1 would make it cleaner, but its not a requirement. My primary advice is not to go overboard on the chloride, but I see that you were just using the calcium chloride to boost your Ca to a desirable minimum. Given that the sulfate is at such low concentration, you could afford to boost the calcium content with a bit of gypsum to help reach the calcium goal. Imp Stout is not all about malt. There can be some hop expression and the drying effect of sulfate could actually be welcome in this big beer.

The proposed water profile should still work well, so don't be afraid to try it. If you brew this beer again and you found the original too sweet or lacking in a more drying finish, then you might try a touch more sulfate and touch less chloride.

Enjoy!

I want to give everyone an update on how my brew day went and thank everyone for the help. I bought 6 individual gallons of distilled water and didn't realize that in a one gallon jug of water is actually more then one gallon. Long story short, I boiled off a good amount of the extra water, added 12oz of sugar, and ended up with 6 gallons of 1.090 wort instead of 5 gallons of 1.096. I don't mind having extra beer and 1.090 is still a strong beer so I am satisfied with this. I also ended up adding an extra gram of CaCl2 to the boil to account for the extra water. With this beer being a Chocolate stout, I used 4oz of Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder in the last minute of the boil and I oxygenated my beer for the first time with a diffusion stone and an O2 disposable welding tank for 45 seconds.

Saturday at 4:30pm I pitched a decanted starter of about 3 billion cells of WLP 002 English Ale yeast. By 10:30pm I had bubbles in the air lock and I could see bubbles rising to the top of the carboy. When I woke up Sunday morning I was expecting to see a huge krausen because the beer's high OG, but instead it had about a half inch of krausen that looked like mud which I'm guessing is from the cocoa powder. The weird thing about this beer is that the krausen at one point overnight reached about 4 inches above the beer because it stuck on the inside of the glass, but I guess it fell back into the beer. Is it possible for the krausen to fall that fast? Is it oxygenating the wort with pure O2 that sped up the fermentation process that much? All of Sunday the airlock was going crazy...a very vigorous fermentation. It is now Monday at 6:45pm and my airlock has slowed down significantly (maybe one bubble per second). I know this yeast flocculates easily so I am going to stir up the fermenter a little bit to arouse the yeast. Is it possible that fermentation went that quickly and is now slowing down a day and a half later? Thanks again guys for the help! I will post another update when I try taste it.

If you only pitched 3 billion cells on a beer that big, then you WAY under pitched! According to yeastcalc for 6 gallons at 1.090 you should have pitched 367 billion. I'll assume that what you wrote was a type-o, and you actually meant to type 300 billion? If you pitched 3 billion then that is likely your problem. If you pitched 300 billion, then it's probably fine. What temp are you fermenting it at? If you have any doubts, you should check the gravity...

I'm sorry, that was a typo. I made 2 2-liter step starter and decanted the last second one. I'm assuming that I was at least close to pitching the proper amount of yeast being that there was hardly any lag time and an extremely vigorous fermentation when I woke up the next morning (about 15 hours after pitching).

I figured that was the case. 2 2L step-ups should have been more than enough. Did you oxygenate twice? Or just once before pitching? On a beer that big I like to hit it with pure oxygen again 12 hours after pitching. Although, if you didn't it likely wouldn't matter. I'm guessing it's just fine. Check gravity in a few days to see where it's at. Big beers can take longer to ferment, but it might not necessarily be vigorous in nature...

Johnnyboy1012 said:

...When I woke up Sunday morning I was expecting to see a huge krausen because the beer's high OG, but instead it had about a half inch of krausen that looked like mud which I'm guessing is from the cocoa powder. The weird thing about this beer is that the krausen at one point overnight reached about 4 inches above the beer because it stuck on the inside of the glass, but I guess it fell back into the beer. Is it possible for the krausen to fall that fast? Is it oxygenating the wort with pure O2 that sped up the fermentation process that much? All of Sunday the airlock was going crazy...a very vigorous fermentation. It is now Monday at 6:45pm and my airlock has slowed down significantly (maybe one bubble per second). I know this yeast flocculates easily so I am going to stir up the fermenter a little bit to arouse the yeast. Is it possible that fermentation went that quickly and is now slowing down a day and a half later? Thanks again guys for the help! I will post another update when I try taste it.

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I have never used wlp002 but I use wy1968 a lot which apparently is the same fuller's strain...I also have never gone higher than 1.065 with that yeast...but what you describe would not surprise me if i saw that with wy1968. It isn't a top cropper and often doesn't create a huge krausen. Sometimes it will blow over within the first 12hours and then fall back into the wort with zero krausen, looking just like full boil - churning with bubbles and trub floating around with just a wispy amount of foam that dissipates quickly. (I have a mild fermenting in my basement right now that is following this fermentation pattern). When I first saw this I emailed wyeast to see if it was normal and they said that it is sometime a result of its extreme flocculation - the yeast clumps can be so heavy that it takes a very active fermentation to keep them at the top. I've never had a problem with wy1968 floccing out to early but rousing would probably be a good idea. Take a grav sample and see where its at. Definitely leave it on the yeast for a while after its done as it probably will have crapped out a ton of diacetyl. Maybe a week? pull samples until its clean.

gbx said:

I have never used wlp002 but I use wy1968 a lot which apparently is the same fuller's strain...I also have never gone higher than 1.065 with that yeast...but what you describe would not surprise me if i saw that with wy1968. It isn't a top cropper and often doesn't create a huge krausen. Sometimes it will blow over within the first 12hours and then fall back into the wort with zero krausen, looking just like full boil - churning with bubbles and trub floating around with just a wispy amount of foam that dissipates quickly. (I have a mild fermenting in my basement right now that is following this fermentation pattern). When I first saw this I emailed wyeast to see if it was normal and they said that it is sometime a result of its extreme flocculation - the yeast clumps can be so heavy that it takes a very active fermentation to keep them at the top. I've never had a problem with wy1968 floccing out to early but rousing would probably be a good idea. Take a grav sample and see where its at. Definitely leave it on the yeast for a while after its done as it probably will have crapped out a ton of diacetyl. Maybe a week? pull samples until its clean.

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That's exactly what I saw! No krausen and it looked like a boil. I plan on keeping it in the fermenter for 2-3 weeks and either racking it to a secondary on top of cacao nibs that I have soaking in vodka. Or my other option is to go right to the keg after 2 weeks and putting the nibs in in a muslin sack. Thanks for the reply gbx, cheers!

So much talk about avoiding minerals in this thread. I even saw mention 46 sodilum was too high. Palmer writes that 50 of sodium rounds out the flavor. I have building water using Bru n water. Sometimes the minerals seem like a lot. After reading Palmer I felt better about it. My beer has greatly improved with the additional minerals. In fact before brewing my last batch, I mixed the minerals in the RO water and tasted it. RO by itself is very crisp and refreshing almost a metallic sensation and it leaves my beers with a watery mouth feel. The mineral added water was smooth and reminded me of good natural spring water and seemed to lend mouthfeel to the beers. No more watery sensation and despite using some baking soda and salt no perceived saltiness. Maybe I should buy a ph meter but heck the beer has been so good, I think it would just mess with my mind. I read the whole thread. I bet your Imperial stout will be good.

If you are contemplating going all grain then you definitely should buy a pH meter. pH in the mash is as important as temperature. If you are doing partial mash it isn't so important.

Given that pH is under control you turn your attention to the 'stylistic ions' i.e. those that determine the character of the style. Sulfate, chloride and sodium are generally thought of as being the stylistic ions with calcium and bicarbonate excluded. But really they are all stylistic ions as all have flavor and/or mouthfeel effect. Setting these is purely a matter of personal preference or, if you are trying to win a ribbon, adherence to a style guideline. If you fell that minerally water improves your beer then load your water up with minerals. If you prefer the soft water qualities of, for example, the delicate lagers, then use water with minimal mineral content. It is up to you. The reason you see so much about low mineral water is that the brewing industry and home brewers have 'discovered' that low mineral water makes more pleasing beer (i.e. beer that sells better). Modern brewers are no longer constrained to work with the water they have available. They can have any water they want. The only thing that bothers me a little bit about this is the analogy with white bread. Mineral character can be interesting and Export, for example, wouldn't be export without it.