Critique My Water Recipe for a DIPA, using 100% distilled Water.

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Stankonia

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I'm venturing into water chemisty, and plan on brewing with 100% Distilled Water. I've been doing tons of reading trying to grasp the concepts. Every time I think it begins to make sense, I'll read something else that confuses me :drunk:

For now, I'm using various water tools that are available, and plugging numbers in to get the range that fit the style of beer I am doing.

This beer will be a DIPA:

4.5gal batch (5 gal fermentor)
88 IBUs
8 SRM

Grain Bill:
13.5lbs 2-row
.5lbs Victory
.25 C-40
.25 Corn Sugar

14.5lb total grain bill using 7.5g strike water (This will be no-sparge) is 2.07 lbs/qt.

Here are my mash salt additions:

Gypsum: 6g
CaCl: 5g
Epsom Salt: 3g
Baking Soda: .5g
Chalk: 1g

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I've plugged these numbers into 3 different tools out there, and each one gives pretty similar results:

Calcium: 110ppm
Mg: 10ppm
Sodium: 5ppm
Chloride: 85ppm
Sulfate: 159ppm
Alkalinity (CaCO3): 28ppm

Est. Mash pH:
EZ_Water = 5.41
Kaiser Calc = 5.37
Brewer's Friend = 5.7 (I'm guessing this is higher because it is adjusting for temperature?)

-------------------------

Can you please take a look at this, and tell me if my calculated additions seem way off-base, or pretty close for a hoppy profile? The total amount of the additions (15.5g) seems like a lot from what I've seen from other posts.

I appreciate any feedback and tips!
 
Ditch the baking soda, chalk, and epsom salts. The gypsum and calcium chloride should be fine.

Do you have any acid to adjust mash pH, or a way to check mash pH?
 
I don't currently have any acids. My LHBS carries lactic acid though.

For testing, I have the colorpHast - 4.0 - 7.0 strips from MoreBeer.

Thanks for the feedback! Would ditching the baking soda, salt, and Epsom drop the pH too much?
 
I don't currently have any acids. My LHBS carries lactic acid though.

For testing, I have the colorpHast - 4.0 - 7.0 strips from MoreBeer.

Thanks for the feedback! Would ditching the baking soda, salt, and Epsom drop the pH too much?

It's the chalk, baking soda, and epsom salts to drop (not sure if that's what you meant). I don't think there is a chance at all that grainbill will drop below 5.4 without any acid or acid malt, but I didn't run any spreadsheets to look at it.
 
When I said drop the pH, I meant become more acidic

I just entered it on the spread sheets again using your recommendations, and the pH got more acidic only very slightly, and didn't really seem to make much of a difference in the estimated pH.

It's now estimated in the 5.3-5.4 range @ room temp, which would be 5.6-5.7 at mashing temps correct?
 

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