Help with water adjustment for 14 SRM IPA (furious clone)

So I had been reading about water and how to adjust your water for a couple weeks awhile back.

I watched Bobby_M's water primer video. I messed around with the old spreadsheet and had come up with what I thought I needed to adjust my water.

Then the game changed with EZ water calculator 2.0. A lot of the stuff emphasized on the spreadsheet was taken out all together and the focus looks to have shifted to mash PH. ......... I guess maybe I really didn't understand this water thing as much as I thought.

Below is my info as entered into the calculator for the furious clone recipe.



A couple of facts ......

I just used the standard chicago water profile in beer smith.
I haven't gotten a water report for my actual water. I am from Aurora Illinois. I don't know if anyone on here has gotten a report and would care to share it?

Also, I have made some very good (award winning) pale ales and pale IPA's but every time I try to brew something above 8 SRM (rough estimate) I end up with some astringency and less than stellar beer.

I'm not sure if this could be due to a water issue or if it might have been procedural.

Anyways if anyone could take a look and make recommendations on how to adjust to build some water for a solid IPA it would be appreciated.

Thanks!

If you want to clone a beer cloning water is a big part. Ask surly about the ionic content of their water, any treatment prior to dough in and any salts or acid used.

If you don't want to do that, what you are showing looks fine.

Your calcium is a bit low. I'd suggest adding a bit of gypsum and CaCl to bring it up to 50ppm. Other then that I think your good to go.

yeast_infection said:

I just used the standard chicago water profile in beer smith.
I haven't gotten a water report for my actual water.

Click to expand...

I don't know how anything could be recommended, when you don't have your water profile? It's really not possible.

What's up A-TOWN! I grew up in Aurora, went to West. Are you using city water? The annual water report is here. Doesn't have too much useful information. your "hardness" is 120-140, pH is about 9, and if you look a little further, your sodium is 55. That's everything they give you. Hardness usually means HCO3, which is great for the IPAs. It also explains your bummer dark beers. If you want more information (I know I would) you should give the number at the top of that page a call and ask for the director or assistant, and tell 'em what you're doing. If you can get them on the phone they'll probably have the information you need. If you can't get anyone who knows what they're talking about I'd give the Roundhouse a visit. I'm sure on any given afternoon the brewers are there and they can definitely tell you what you need to know.

Go Blackhawks!

Thanks to everyone who posted. I emailed the lady in charge of the city water here in Aurora and she is going to send me a detailed water report that should have all the mineral concentrations. I'll post an update once I get the actual report.

As for what wildwest said, I guess you're right that it's hard to diagnose a problem or recommend a solution if you don't know exactly what you're looking at.

As far as what Remilard said about cloning, I'm not really looking to clone the Surly beer. I just used the recipe as a guide and I'm hoping it turns out similar (in the same ballpark) but am not set on cloning it by any means.

I just posted the beer color and Chicago water profile assuming mine was at lease close (best info I had at the time) and thought maybe someone would see something that just screamed "problem" for darker beers. Especially since I have had problems in the past.

I'll post actual water profile here once I get it back.