Water Chemistry Questions RE Blichmann BrewEasy

Hey HBT-land!

I have been brewing on a 5 gallon BrewEasy system for not quite a year now, and due to the "uniqueness" of mashing with the entire liquor volume, I've started paying attention to water chemistry more than ever.

I've really delved into it, buying and reading (most of) Palmer and Cominski's "Water", and moving from my first water tool, EZWater to the "pro" version of Brun'Water. For the last 4 batches, I've begun using RO water exclusively from a local water machine--tested at 11 ppm with my TDS meter for the last brew), so its pretty clean--and then building up from there.

John Blichmann recommends at least 100ppm calcium in the water for best mash performance, so I've generally been adding enough gypsum and calcium chloride in an appropriate ratio by beer style in order to obtain that 100ppm minimum number for calcium. I have then been adding lactic acid as necessary to drop the mash pH appropriately.

The question is...is there a better way to get 100ppm calcium such that I don't exceed certain water "style" guidelines of sulfate and chloride? For instance, for a munich dunkel using the brun'water profile for "brown full" calls for sulfate of 50ppm and chloride of 60ppm, and adding enough gypsum and calcium chloride to get my calcium up to 100ppm results in sulfate of 98 and calcium chloride of 105, almost twice the recommended values.

Is this detrimental or am I taking the right approach?

Thank you!

You absolutely do NOT need 100 ppm Ca in your brewing liquor.

John makes some really nice bling. I'll leave it at that.

Echo that! Calcium is NOT necessary for successful brewing and fermentation. The malt supplies all the calcium that the yeast need for their health. However, there are reasons to have some calcium in the water. It is good to have at least 40 ppm Ca in the mashing water to help precipitate oxalate. It is good to have at least 50 ppm Ca in the overall wort when brewing ales in order to help the yeast flocculate.

I would only have 100 ppm Ca in my beers if I wanted the anions such as SO4 and Cl in my beer at higher levels. Otherwise, less ionic content in your beer tends to make better tasting beer.

mabrungard said:

Echo that! Calcium is NOT necessary for successful brewing and fermentation. The malt supplies all the calcium that the yeast need for their health. However, there are reasons to have some calcium in the water. It is good to have at least 40 ppm Ca in the mashing water to help precipitate oxalate. It is good to have at least 50 ppm Ca in the overall wort when brewing ales in order to help the yeast flocculate.

I would only have 100 ppm Ca in my beers if I wanted the anions such as SO4 and Cl in my beer at higher levels. Otherwise, less ionic content in your beer tends to make better tasting beer.

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Thanks Martin! I did go back and review the instructions from danam and John Blichmann and it seems their reasoning is to create buffering power to keep pH in line. I would assume if I'm using Brun'Water and it says I'm ok with less, then I'm ok with less!!?