Which water profile in Bru'n Water should I pick for Bavarian Helles

I'm going to brew a Bavarian Helles (all grain kit from Northern Brewer). My water out of the tap is horrible, so I'm going to use distilled or RO water and add salts. I'm going to use the Bru'n Water spreadsheet and was wondering what desired water profile I should use. Thanks for any help.

Recipe's malts:
9 lbs German Pilsner Malt
0.5 Briess Carapils

Also, is Carapils is considered a base malt or a crystal malt?

Thanks.

I'd use the one that says add about 2.5 grams of calcium chloride to 5 gal RO.

The last time I made this beer it turned out great. I used 3/4 distilled and 1/4 store bought spring water. I'd like to be a little more exact.

I thought about using the water primer suggestions from the sticky, as they have worked well for me for lighter colored beers recently.

But I'm playing around with Bru'n Water and under the tab "Water Adjustment" there is pull down menu titled "Desired Water Profile."

I was wondering if "yellow malty" or "Pilsin" or some other profile would be best for a Bavarian Helles.

Thanks.

ajdelange said:

I'd use the one that says add about 2.5 grams of calcium chloride to 5 gal RO.

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Taking this advice and preparing your mash and sparge water using RO water and the 0.5g CaCl2/1 gal ratio above, you'll roughly get the following concentrations:

Ca: 36 ppm
Mg: 0 ppm
Na: 0 ppm
Cl: 64 ppm
SO4: 0 ppm

You've got Nobel hops and the advice above was probably given with the basis that no sulfate is best for those hop flavor and the Ca is added in the form of CaCl2 for yeast health, Cl comes along with it. The Pilsen profile is very low Ca and the Yellow Malty profile has sulfate. Neither probably are better than what's listed above.

You'll want 4 oz of Weyermann 2% acidulated malt to get the room temperature pH to about 5.4 and can probably brew pretty confidently without checking pH because it's almost all base malt.

Carapils is a pale crystal malt but doesn't affect the pH much at the quantity you're using.

DSmith said:

...and the Ca is added in the form of CaCl2 for yeast health, Cl comes along with it.

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I'm convinced it is the other way around. You really want the chloride for the sweetness, mellowness and mouth feel. The calcium comes with it and is good for the yeast.

I've used nothing but the color profiles from Bru'n Water for the past few months and been extremely pleased with the results.

So yeah, if I were doing a Helles, I'd use the yellow malty profile.

I think some of the historical site profiles are there just for historical reasons, they don't necessarily make tasty beer.