Additions to Distilled Water

Im trying to dabble with water chemistry and I need some help. Im trying to use the EZ water calc spreadsheet to get a London Profile (as defined by Palmer in how to brew).

I recently bought 2 water plastic carboys that happened to be PET full of distilled water for $5 bucks each.

I want to use that water to brew a brown ale and then use the empty carboy to ferment in, however I want to match that london profile and I cant seem to get it with the EZ calculator. I can get close to the ion concentration but the RA is way too low. (my target is roughly 25 SRM, and a Malt balance.)

I have NaCl, Gypsum, CaCl, Baking Soda, pH strips and I think the only salts im missing (MgS04, and CaCO3) im gonna try to get at the LHBS tomorrow.

So can anyone help me with this? I want to brew New Years Morning.

THANKS!!

This is the water profile I am thinking of using for my American Brown Ale.
This is using 15 gallons of distilled water with the below additions.

what do you think?

Mash / Sparge Vol (gal): 5 / 10
Dilution Rate: 100%

Adjustments (grams) Mash / Boil Kettle:
CaCO3: 4 / 8
CaSO4: 0 / 0
CaCl2: 0 / 0
MgSO4: 3 / 6
NaHCO3: 3 / 0
NaCl: 3 / 6
HCL Acid: 0 / 0
Lactic Acid: 0 / 0

Mash Water / Total water (ppm):
Ca: 85 / 85
Mg: 15 / 15
Na: 106 / 77
Cl: 96 / 96
SO4: 62 / 62
CaCO3: 198 / 135

RA (mash only): 129 (16 to 21 SRM)
Cl to SO4 (total water): 1.55 (Malty)

It looks pretty close but uncheck the box in the NaHCO3 as it's not going to do any good in the boil kettle and the sodium is a bit high anyway.

Updated and thanks for the input. You should see my source water:

(this is according to the water guy i talked to). I cant believe the sodium level. Im gonna have to get my new filter and run water through it and send it off for testing. I think the only thing here it will do is get rid of the 2.5 Cl lvl.

Starting Water (ppm):
Ca: 164
Mg: 56
Na: 315
Cl: 2.5
SO4: 84
HCO3: 106

I am not sure why there isn't a simple chart that lists grams of chemicals to add to distilled water to make 5 gallons of brewing water for particular regions. Seems a lot easier than reinventing the wheel each time someone wants to recreate a water profile.

JVD_X said:

I am not sure why there isn't a simple chart that lists grams of chemicals to add to distilled water to make 5 gallons of brewing water for particular regions. Seems a lot easier than reinventing the wheel each time someone wants to recreate a water profile.

Click to expand...

yeah, that would be sweet.

It would be nice to have a small database with required additions to get 100% distilled water to target water profiles. It would be nice if you wanted to send a beer to compete and you were able to completely build the water profile from scratch without having to do all the math.

http://ajdel.wetnewf.org:81/Brewing_articles/Recipes.pdf ?

chefchris said:

http://ajdel.wetnewf.org:81/Brewing_articles/Recipes.pdf ?

Click to expand...

Sweet!

What the heck is:

Calcium Sulfate Dihydrate
Calcium Chloride Dihydrate

and

Magnesium Sulfate Heptahydrate

I agree that a table would be nice for people that only build up from RO but it's also a decent learning experience to build it yourself a few times.

JVD_X said:

Sweet!

What the heck is:

Calcium Sulfate Dihydrate
Calcium Chloride Dihydrate

and

Magnesium Sulfate Heptahydrate

Click to expand...

The Dihydrate and Heptahydrate just tell you how much water is in it. Gypsum is CaSO4•2(H2O), making it Calcium Sulfate Dihydrate.

There is another spreadsheet available as well that helps to identify and correct for RA.

http://howtobrew.com/section3/Palmers_Mash_RA_ver2e.xls

I am still trying to figure out how best to adjust my water.

so using 100% distilled water, the starting water profile is basically just zeros across the board?

yeah, with your pH @ 7