Portland brewing and water treatment

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For what it is worth..... When i first started adjusting the salts in my water to make a better IPA I used gypsum and the Buffer 5.2. THe 5.2 was to address effiency issues ... I corrected this through better fly sparge and grain crush. I found that the beer had a salty after taste. I mentioned this to a brew wizard at Stienbarts (LHBS) and he said that the salty tast was coming from the 5.2. He called the folks that make it and disovered that the directions given where for regions of the country that have a much higher ph level than we do here in the NW. They advised that given our water profile you add much less than the directions indicated.

Given that our water resides in the 7.5 - 7.8 bandwidth ..
Campden will drop the PH level by ~0.5 and by the time that you add the grist and salts you are going to be right in the range necessary for conversion.
 
I had a long conversation with the Steinbart's guy (assume it is the same guy) about water additions in Portland. Among the great advice he gave me, he told me that right off the bat ad 1 to 1.5 TBSP gypsum to nearly every batch. He gave me a mini mashing class for about 30 mins during a super busy day in the store. Talk about good service!
 
dude. get to the coast and pick up some spring water on hwy 26. that water is delicious. haven't test it, but i will soon. heading to the coast in a couple days and plan on sending in for a report.
 
BierreNoix said:
For what it is worth..... When i first started adjusting the salts in my water to make a better IPA I used gypsum and the Buffer 5.2. THe 5.2 was to address effiency issues ... I corrected this through better fly sparge and grain crush. I found that the beer had a salty after taste. I mentioned this to a brew wizard at Stienbarts (LHBS) and he said that the salty tast was coming from the 5.2. He called the folks that make it and disovered that the directions given where for regions of the country that have a much higher ph level than we do here in the NW. They advised that given our water profile you add much less than the directions indicated.

Given that our water resides in the 7.5 - 7.8 bandwidth ..
Campden will drop the PH level by ~0.5 and by the time that you add the grist and salts you are going to be right in the range necessary for conversion.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the headsup. I ended up not using 5.2 in my recent batch, just the minerals (for the first time). We'll see how it turns out. Next up is a porter that I have done before, this time with minerals. For this one, I will have a baseline to compare to.
 
Doing another batch today - a Robust Porter. The SRM is 36... This is what I worked out with the EZ Spreadsheet after watching Bobby's videos. 10 grams of Baking Soda sure seems like a lot!

Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 1.1
Mg: 0.6
Na: 2.6
Cl: 1.9
SO4: 3.7
CaCO3: 8.5

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 6.375 / 4
Dilution Rate: 0%

Adjustments (grams) Mash / Boil Kettle:
CaCO3: 4 / 2.509803922
CaSO4: 0 / 0
CaCl2: 2.5 / 1.568627451
MgSO4: 3 / 1.882352941
NaHCO3: 10 / 0
NaCl: 0 / 0
HCL Acid: 0 / 0
Lactic Acid: 0 / 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 96 / 96
Mg: 12 / 12
Na: 116 / 72
Cl: 52 / 52
SO4: 52 / 52
CaCO3: 409 / 293

RA (mash only): 333 (33 to 37 SRM)
Cl to SO4 (total water): 0.99 (Balanced)
 
By the way, one thing I am lacking is a good resource that provides water profiles for beer styles. The only resource I have is for cities, and that seems more historical than "best case".
 
I did an English Best Bitter today and added 2 tbsp gypsum for 10 gallon batch. I also tried the campden tablet thing as well. Also did my first recirculating mash..... That is changing a few variables.
 
Bottling my first water modded beer today, a scottish 70/. The hydro sample tasted great, no need for chilling and carb! Unfortunately, I don't have a baseline for this beer without water mods, so I can't really compare. The porter will be getting bottled or kegged in a week and soon after I'll be able to compare it to the non-modded version.
 
I've got an English Pale Ale and a Racer 5 clone that will be done in 1 and 2 wks respectively - both I added gypsum. I'm curious to see if I can tell any difference.
 
I took the English Pale out for a "test ride." Eitehr I'm getting better at this beer making thing or the gypsum REALLY helped.
 
Ended up bottling both the porter and the scottish on saturday. They tasted pretty good, but I need to do a proper side by side with the porter to know the truth! Will be doing that soon here, maybe the weekend.
 
Thanks everyone for posting such great information about water modification, filtering, etc. I found this thread to be one of the most important I've read on this site. I also live in PDX and considering I love IPAs like everyone else in the PacNW, I think I need to step up my game with water additions. Thanks for the information. BeerSmith 2 also has a cool water profile tool but I read somewhere that customizing the preset numbers is required for good results. I haven't tried it or compared the numbers from the software to a water report(changes over time..). Does anyone know where to get the PDX water report online? My friend Google isn't helping me this time.

Thanks to everybody who has contributed to this great thread. I learned a lot.
 

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