American Lager BIAB water profile from RO water?

[seven9st_surfer]

Wasn't sure whether to post this here or the BIAB forum. I've started looking into water chemistry recently, as it's something I've never messed with before. I've always just used gallons of spring water. But I want to try out water profiles. My tap water tastes kind of gross, and I can't find a detailed report on it (Milton, FL), so I was thinking of going with an all-RO water brew and adding whatever I needed. I've looked a lot of the excel spreadsheets like Brun and EZ water calculator, but they all are geared towards using your existing water profile and break it up between mash and sparge water.

I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction for a 7.5 gal starting volume BIAB brew for a premium american lager. Grain bill is:

8# American 2-row
1# Flaked rice
1# Flaked corn
0.5# CaraPils

Using the brewersfriend.com water chemistry calculator and the "light colored and malty" profile from the Brun spreadsheet, the best I can figure for this style, grain bill, and using all-RO water, I would need to add about 1/3# acidulated malt to the grain bill, and 3g gypsum and 3g calcium chloride to the water, giving me a mash pH of around 5.3. Any of that sound way out to lunch, or anyone have any recommendations for me? Thanks.

 

[BigRob]

Bru'n water works perfectly fine for BIAB, just reduce the sparge amount to zero and put the mash volume at your full volume. If you are using RO water, your water pH would be approx 7.0 and you might as well put zeros for all the minerals (it's in the single digits usually with RO water).

 

[seven9st_surfer]

After a lot more reading and messing with every water calculator I could find, I think I've got a starting point. Here are the links to my recipe and water calculations. I used the "American Lager" water profile from the Brun spreadsheet.

Recipe
Water calculator

My goal was to make somewhat soft water with a RA around -50. I know that the calcium is pretty low, but that's typical of standard water profiles for light lagers, right? Also, the mash pH is calculated at 5.49, is that too high? If so, should I adjust with salts or more aciduated malt (I'm already at 3%)?

This is all new to me, so please let me know if anything is way off, or I'm missing something. Thanks.

 

[mabrungard]

Low calcium in brewing water is OK, especially for lagers. Just get the mash pH into the right range and the rest of the beer will have a chance to fall in line. I would target about a 5.4 pH or maybe slightly lower.

 

[seven9st_surfer]

Alright, I think I've got a profile set. I found Kaiser's spreadsheet HERE, and I think it's my favorite so far. Only thing it doesn't have is an option to compare your calculated profile to an existing one, but I can do that manually easily enough. According to a combination of that, the Brun one, EZ water calculator and the Brewersfriend.com water calculator, I'm going to use 8 gal of RO or distilled water, treat with 1g each of gypsum, Epsom, calcium chloride and baking soda. Also, since I have no roast malts, I'm going to add 3% (about 5 oz) acidulated malt to help bring down the pH. After all of that, I should end up anywhere from -50 to -100 RA (depending on the calculator) and a mash pH of about 5.3-5.4. The only one that seemed way different than the rest was the Brun spreadsheet (5.6 calculated mash pH), but I'm betting I just fat-fingered something. And here's my updated recipe and water profile:

Recipe
Water profile


Does all that look pretty reasonable? If anyone who's better with these spreadsheets wants to double-check me, that would be awesome. Thanks for the help, guys!

 

[solbes]

...According to a combination of that, the Brun one, EZ water calculator and the Brewersfriend.com water calculator, I'm going to use 8 gal of RO or distilled water, treat with 1g each of gypsum, Epsom, calcium chloride and baking soda. ...

Looks pretty good to me, except for the baking soda. That is working against your acid malt and raises your mash pH (5.46 with it in, 5.40 without it according to your Brewers Friend calculator).

Is there some other reason for baking soda I'm not aware of?

 

[seven9st_surfer]

Looks pretty good to me, except for the baking soda. That is working against your acid malt and raises your mash pH (5.46 with it in, 5.40 without it according to your Brewers Friend calculator).

Is there some other reason for baking soda I'm not aware of?

Good call. I think I added it to get some sodium and HCO3 in the mix. Looking at it some more, how about 1g NaCl instead? It will still add some sodium, not increase the pH, and actually bring my SO4/Cl ratio closer to 1:1. How's that sound?

The only other thing that substitution seems to affect is that now there's no HCO3 anymore. Is that a problem?

 

[GotPushrods]

I've looked a lot of the excel spreadsheets like Brun and EZ water calculator, but they all are geared towards using your existing water profile and break it up between mash and sparge water.

Set your sparge volume to 0 and use 100% dilution with RO water.

I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction for a 7.5 gal starting volume BIAB brew for a premium american lager.

Here's a great starting profile for a light lager:

To 7.5 gallons of RO water, add 4 grams CaCl2.

There will be a few ppm coming through the RO, and the resulting profile with be (approx):

Ca: 40
Cl: 70

Add acid to achieve desired mash pH.