Bru'n Water and Bohemian Pilsner

This is my first time building my water. I'm planning a Bohemian Pilsner. In Bru'n Water, what should be my "Desired Water Profile" be? Yellow Balanced, Pilsen or something else? Thanks!

I assume you are starting with RO water. For Boh Pils all you need is a small amount of calcium chloride - enough to give you about 15 mg/L calcium is plenty. OTOH adding a bit more, up to about 35 mg/L calcium will give you a sweeter, rounder, richer beer because of the extra chloride. The small amount of extra calcium is not enough to destroy the soft taste of Boh Pils. Pilsen water is very soft so I assume the Pilsen profile would reflect something similar to what I've given above (without the extra chloride).

Thanks. I am starting from distilled. Any need to look at adding Gypsum or Epsom Salt too to try to perfectly match the Pilsen profile?

Am I understanding correctly that if don't add any Gypsum, then my Sulfate to Chloride ratio will be 0 thus giving me a malty beer. If I add .25 g/gal Calcium Chloride and .3 g/gal of Gypsum, then my Sulfate to Chloride ratio will be 1.4 which is balanced. It makes my Calcium 36.4ppm Sulfate 44.2ppm and Chloride 31.9ppm. Is that soft enough for a Bohemian Pils?

Bru'n Water-
PseudoBohPils Ca 40 Mg0 Na8 SO430 CL50 BiCarb16

joeg13 said:

Am I understanding correctly that if don't add any Gypsum, then my Sulfate to Chloride ratio will be 0 thus giving me a malty beer. If I add .25 g/gal Calcium Chloride and .3 g/gal of Gypsum, then my Sulfate to Chloride ratio will be 1.4 which is balanced. It makes my Calcium 36.4ppm Sulfate 44.2ppm and Chloride 31.9ppm. Is that soft enough for a Bohemian Pils?

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For water with really low mineral content, the Cl/S04 ratio is not meaningful. It's useful only when one or both of those is a big number.

Now here's the controversial part -- I'll submit that at the low end, it also doesn't even matter if you use CaCl or gypsum. I suspect we're below the perception threshold levels. Just my gut instinct based on experiments I've run dosing beer with lots of minerals.

You do not want any sulfate in a Bohemian Pilsner because you are going to use Saazer hops and they just don't mix well with sulfate. Forget that you ever read about chloride to sulfate ratio. It has lead many a home brewer astray. The proper ratio (SO4:Cl) for most (but not all) continental lagers is 0. Now a little sulfate isn't going to hurt you. I used to brew Boh Pils with 26 mg/L sulfate. When I got rid of that the beer was much better. I really should insert an IMO in here. I think half that (13 mg/L or less) and you should be OK. If using RO water don't add any sulfate (or at least don't until you have tried brewing the beer with none first).

^^ Thats how I would proceed as well. What kind of ph whould you shoot for in a Pils, AJ?

ajdelange said:

... Forget that you ever read about chloride to sulfate ratio. It has lead many a home brewer astray. The proper ratio for most (but not all) continental lagers is 0...

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I think instead of zero, you meant Infinity.

I'm leery of adding too much calcium in a lager brew. AJ's standard recommendation to add about 20 ppm Ca is pretty sound. He likes to use only CaCL2, but the word from Dr. Narziss is that the typical Pilsen brewery does also use gypsum. I still would try and moderate the total calcium addition to the brewing water. I have to dis-claim the Pseudo BoPils profile in Bru'n Water since I think the calcium level is excessive.

In lagers, less calcium is OK.

KIAKillerXJ said:

^^ Thats how I would proceed as well. What kind of ph whould you shoot for in a Pils, AJ?

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I generally shoot for 5.45 or lower but will live with 5.5 if I get it.

SpeedYellow said:

I think instead of zero, you meant Infinity.

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I meant 0 because I was thinking sulfate to chloride even though I had written chloride to sulfate earlier. I think that's because I remember seeing in Narziß book that 0 sulfate is desirable.

0 sulfate ==> 0 sulfate:chloride
0 sulfate ==> ∞ chloride:sulfate

This has been super helpful. I'm going with just CaCl2 as you guys have recommended. Bru'n Water says if I add .4 g/gal CaCl2, I get 29ppm Ca and 51ppm Cl2. I'm going to use 2ml of lactic acid to adjust the ph. I'll report back when it's done.

How did your Pils turn out? I just brewed a Pils with a similar water profile cutting out the SO4 completely, looking forward to see if it makes a difference.

Hey. Sorry for not reporting back. It turned out OK. Crystal clear. Need to up the hop bitterness next time I make it. There was a off flavor that neither I nor several members of my homebrew club could clearly describe. I felt it was like a white wine sort of fruity/estery thing but others didn't describe it the same way. Kinda sucked because it's hard to fix what you can't identify. I have temp control. Not sure if it was a fermentation thing. Let me know how yours turns out.

Will do. I went with enough calcium chloride to get about Ca 30 Cl 50 and no sulfate. I'm going to brew another Bo Pils on Sunday and knock down the calcium down to around 20.

An update for you Joe. Just tapped my Pils and its not too bad. Its still a little young, has a slight lingering bitterness and is still a little hazy. I think it needs another week. The last couple Pils I've brewed I used Sterling hops instead of Saaz and I'm going back to Saaz, it seems mellower with less aftertaste.

During the Saaz crisis of a few years back I used Sterling for most of that year. My impressions of it were very similar. Certainly none of the nose of Saaz but if you can't get Saaz I think Sterling will do.

Thanks for the update. I bottled the last gallon or two from my keg. I have to taste it again to see if mine has changed.

mabrungard said:

I'm leery of adding too much calcium in a lager brew. AJ's standard recommendation to add about 20 ppm Ca is pretty sound. He likes to use only CaCL2, but the word from Dr. Narziss is that the typical Pilsen brewery does also use gypsum. I still would try and moderate the total calcium addition to the brewing water. I have to dis-claim the Pseudo BoPils profile in Bru'n Water since I think the calcium level is excessive.

In lagers, less calcium is OK.

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Sorry to resurrect an old thread here, but I am trying to wrap my head around this. You are saying to only add 20 ppm calcium for a Bo Pils water profile. I thought that good yeast health and flocculation required a minimum of 40-50 ppm calcium. Why can you get away with so much less in the Bo Pils?

I think one of the reasons you can get away with less calcium is the malt naturally contains enough calcium and other minerals for yeast health. I've been using this approach and it has made my light lagers much better.

The malt provides all the calcium that yeast need for their health and metabolism. Ales require more calcium in order to flocculate reasonably quickly. However, lagers do not need to flocculate quickly since they are lagered for many weeks or months prior to consumption. The lagering process accommodates slow flocculation.

The other important factor about calcium is that it is actually a detractor to yeast health and performance when present in the water at higher concentrations. Calcium displaces magnesium and can ultimately create fermentation problems in yeast that are not acclimated to high Ca level. Lager yeast are often acclimated to low calcium conditions and should typically be fermented in that condition.

Another great thread.
Friend of mine just came back from Germany and is begging me to clone Krusovice.
This has been extremely helpful.