I need a strategy for water adjustment

I've started using BrunWater to adjust 100% RO water in BIAB batches. I've played around with additions, trying to match target profiles and get my pH in a good range. I can make this work, but I don't really don't understand the chemistry involved. I'd appreciate some pointers regarding how to approach this. Are there certain targets that you folks begin with? Is there a strategy you use? I almost feel like I need to see someone step through the process, explaining what they do when and why.

When I actually brew my strategy is KISS. I dissolve 14 grams of CaCl2 in 30 cc of water and add I cc of that solution to each inch of RO water in my HLT. This works out to 67 mg/L CaCl2 and gives me 24 mg/L Ca++ and 43 mg/L Cl which is good for the majority of the lager beers I brew. Note that this is the strategy for the water. You must still consider a strategy for the grist and mine is to add as much sauermalz as is needed to overcome the base malt's alkalinity. The KISS approach says 3% of the grist should be sauermalz.

If you are like most homebrewers you are after IPAs which means you would want sulfate so you would add some gypsum to that CaCl2. This is the basis for the Primer and the strategy will get you a good beer. But clearly you would do better if you knew more about the beer being brewed. See #28 at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=570601&page=3

My method is to try to use 100% RO water to keep the calculations simple. I do this for two reasons, actually. One is because our water is highly alkaline, and I brew a lot of pale beers, and I don't want to hope the water in my town hasn't changed for some reason since the last time I had it analyzed

And it makes it really easy to re-use those calculations in the future, since I know the RO water shouldn't change.

Also, because the RO water is from the town supply, which has Chloramines, I add a 1/4 campden tab to the mash, and a 1/4 tab to the sparge. I can't be sure the town filters the water slow enough for the carbon to remove the chloramines. Cheap insurance I guess.

From there I adjust the Calcium Sulfate and Calcium Chloride to hit near my desired levels for the beer style, and use Phos. acid to balance the pH. Since I'm using RO water, the amount of Phos needed to get the pH is generally pretty minimal. Sometimes I brew a stout, which I might cut 50/50 with Tap Water. And I usually add a pinch of Epsom Salt and Table Salt for yeast health, but it's a very small amount.

I use Bru'nwater to calculate the pH, and also the ppm of the few minerals I'm really interested in.

Strategy? Here goes:

I use the Brewer's Friend advanced water calculator.

I brew with spring water from a large company that posts its report online. While the report may vary over time, I ignore that due to the very low levels of all minerals that make small variations irrelevant.

I BIAB and add all my salts to the entire full volume mash.

I plug my grain bill into the calculator, then add gypsum and CaCl such that:

Calcium is between 50-100
Chloride is between 50-100, higher end for round/malty profile
Sulfate is between 50-100, higher end for crisp/dry/bitter profile

Then I look at mash pH, which I'm trying to get into the 5.4-5.5 range.

If mash pH is lower than about 5.37 in the calculator, I add baking soda to get it up to 5.4. If it's higher than 5.5, I tweak the salts to dip it below, usually in line with my desired Chloride (CaCl) or Sulfate (gypsum) balance. If I really don't want to add more of those salts, I can use Epsom, or a small amount of lactic acid solution.

In short, I go for the least amount of tweakage necessary to produce the basic parameters above. Usually just 2 salts, sometimes 3, very occasionally 4 salts/acid.

I've been pleased with every beer I've made using this technique, which includes everything from Lovibond 4-40.

I don't have a process beyond trying to select a profile that fits what I am brewing, and then reading discussions of same in these forums. I have just a couple of minor points.

I trust my RO filters to remove the chloramines, plus I cannot smell my water, so while a Campden tablet probably does not hurt, I don't think it is necessary with RO water, either.

The Bru'n Water spreadsheet sometimes produces negative numbers. There is no such thing as negative Calcium , or Sulfate, or anything else. It is a quirk in the program and it can be ignored if it is the only red number on the screen.

I use BNW also, and find it dead on. I use 100% RO, then add adjuncts according to the beer profile I pick. I add all salts to the mash or mash and kettle, as sparging with RO is OK without acidifying it. Always need some Ca, try to get above 50ppm, with proportion of Calcium Chloride / Calcium Sulfate as needed for beer type (per AJ's comments). Light beers will typically need acid in the mash and can be done via liquid acid or saurmalz. Beers with roast/crystal malts don't and may need some pH elevators (alkalinity). I don't use chalk and recommend against it, but I will use baking soda and/or lime (especially if more calcium is needed) to raise pH. Don't add acid and alkalinity at the same time.

I use the same spreadsheet but I try and match a water profile I'm aiming for even if it is their generic profiles. I don't know if it makes a huge difference but I've started getting back into water modifications. I recently used their pale ale with 300 ppm sulfur and I'm curious to see if it changes the beer that much. I don't use RO but I obtained a lab sample for my water through the city and input that as my base water. I know my water changes with seasons but I am not about to sample my water quarterly. I have considered using RO from the store to build water up but it seems to be working for MY intended purpose of mash pH being the focus.

I use 100% RO due to quite hard well water with high iron content. To keep it simple I have 2 addition levels, adding all at the start of the mash:

Hoppy beer: 0.2g Gypsum and 0.1g Calcium Chloride per 1L of total water used

Malty or balanced beer: 0.1g Gypsum and 0.1g Calcium Chloride per 1L of total water used.

Most of my recipes for a 26.5L (7gallon) pre-boil require roughly 33L water with 20L give or take used for 4L/kg (about 2qts/lb mash thickness).

I use acidulated malt to lower pH. My simple guidelines is 2% of grain bill if no crystal or roasted malts and scale inversely with 0% if 20% or greater Crystal or roasted malts.

These have worked for me, kept it simple, and are easy to remember. I came up with them by playing with the Bru'n Water spreadsheet (thanks, Martin). I'm sure it's not ideal in many ways, but I'm ok with it. This weekend I strayed for the first time, because I was brewing a Czech Polotmavy lager and wanted to soften it up a bit. I used only 0.05 Gypsum and 0.15 Calcium Chloride. But that was a rarity.

The information you guys shared helps a lot! Based on what you wrote, I may have been overcomplicating things. I think I'll concentrate on trying to go with just a couple additions (or a few) and also focus on pH rather than pH plus an exact match with a selected profile. What's the old Charlie Papazian quote.."relax, have a homebrew". Many thanks for your help!

Homercidal said:

My method is to try to use 100% RO water to keep the calculations simple. I do this for two reasons, actually. One is because our water is highly alkaline, and I brew a lot of pale beers, and I don't want to hope the water in my town hasn't changed for some reason since the last time I had it analyzed

And it makes it really easy to re-use those calculations in the future, since I know the RO water shouldn't change.

Also, because the RO water is from the town supply, which has Chloramines, I add a 1/4 campden tab to the mash, and a 1/4 tab to the sparge. I can't be sure the town filters the water slow enough for the carbon to remove the chloramines. Cheap insurance I guess.

From there I adjust the Calcium Sulfate and Calcium Chloride to hit near my desired levels for the beer style, and use Phos. acid to balance the pH. Since I'm using RO water, the amount of Phos needed to get the pH is generally pretty minimal. Sometimes I brew a stout, which I might cut 50/50 with Tap Water. And I usually add a pinch of Epsom Salt and Table Salt for yeast health, but it's a very small amount.

I use Bru'nwater to calculate the pH, and also the ppm of the few minerals I'm really interested in.

Click to expand...

My RO system has a carbon filter both before and after the RO membrane. Based on the slow pace water runs through the system, I would think that these filters remove all the chlorine.chloramines.