StYak
Member
Hello friends. I am brand new to posting to the forum, but have read through it for some time now. Quick intro. I have been extract brewing for about 3 years and feel confident with all stages involved, so I just leveled up to a nice all grain system and am diving in head first.
To start learning the principles and techniques of mashing and sparging I bought a double ipa kit from my favorite online home brew shop. I have read through several home brewing books, several times and I avidly listen to old podcasts of Brew Strong from the BN, especially their waterganza series of shows. That said, I still have a hard time understanding the science behind it all and still have a ton to learn. From everything I have learned I know using my water from my home water softening system is undesirable so I have chosen to start with distilled water and build a profile to suit the IIPA style. I have supported Bru'n Water and run through the spreadsheet several times trying different inputs and keep running into the following problem. Please let me know how to focus my thinking for best results.
In one episode of the waterganza, John Palmer says to prioritize, first, residual alkalinity to be in the range of the style being made, and second, the sulfate to chloride ratio to get to the right mash pH range. With this in mind I have been raising and lowering mainly gypsum, calcium chloride and epsom salt additions trying to land in the right ballpark for style and color. The Water book give ranges of the mineral concentrations for the different beers colors/styles. For double ipa I can easily hit all the recommended ranges except for the Kolbach RA which is -30-30. I have tried many different quantities and ratios of salt additions, I have tried adding minimal amounts of acids and pickling lime and can't seem raise the RA to the range in the book. Also, the hardness seems to be rather high (300+). Now the calculations do bring the mash pH right at 5.4, but I am curious what effects will not hitting the RA and hardness ranges will have on the final wort produced and the taste of the final beer given the rest of my process is above standard?
Also, in Mitch Steele's IPA book, he gives several recipes at the end of the book where there are a several water recipes to study. Because of the recipe kit I bought, the first one I studied was Blind Pig IPA. It is stated that Cilurzo uses Santa Rosa water and adds gypsum. So I pulled up the Santa Rosa water report, added it to Bru'n Water, added the kit's grain bill and started fidgeting with gypsum additions. I got all minerals into style/color range with 4 g/gal gypsum, but the spreadsheet has me adding an acid (I tried both lactic and phosphoric) which seemed to add lots of bicarbonate, which I thought was undesirable. This brought the RA close (36) to recommended range, but the hardness at near 700. Other recipes in IPA turn out other very wide and varied ranges.
So please advise what I should focus on when working on water profiles for this and future brewings. I want to learn the theory behind it all and back it up with experimenting, but I have not tested how much experimenting my wife and family will allow. Thanks for any and all advise. It will be greatly appreciated.
To start learning the principles and techniques of mashing and sparging I bought a double ipa kit from my favorite online home brew shop. I have read through several home brewing books, several times and I avidly listen to old podcasts of Brew Strong from the BN, especially their waterganza series of shows. That said, I still have a hard time understanding the science behind it all and still have a ton to learn. From everything I have learned I know using my water from my home water softening system is undesirable so I have chosen to start with distilled water and build a profile to suit the IIPA style. I have supported Bru'n Water and run through the spreadsheet several times trying different inputs and keep running into the following problem. Please let me know how to focus my thinking for best results.
In one episode of the waterganza, John Palmer says to prioritize, first, residual alkalinity to be in the range of the style being made, and second, the sulfate to chloride ratio to get to the right mash pH range. With this in mind I have been raising and lowering mainly gypsum, calcium chloride and epsom salt additions trying to land in the right ballpark for style and color. The Water book give ranges of the mineral concentrations for the different beers colors/styles. For double ipa I can easily hit all the recommended ranges except for the Kolbach RA which is -30-30. I have tried many different quantities and ratios of salt additions, I have tried adding minimal amounts of acids and pickling lime and can't seem raise the RA to the range in the book. Also, the hardness seems to be rather high (300+). Now the calculations do bring the mash pH right at 5.4, but I am curious what effects will not hitting the RA and hardness ranges will have on the final wort produced and the taste of the final beer given the rest of my process is above standard?
Also, in Mitch Steele's IPA book, he gives several recipes at the end of the book where there are a several water recipes to study. Because of the recipe kit I bought, the first one I studied was Blind Pig IPA. It is stated that Cilurzo uses Santa Rosa water and adds gypsum. So I pulled up the Santa Rosa water report, added it to Bru'n Water, added the kit's grain bill and started fidgeting with gypsum additions. I got all minerals into style/color range with 4 g/gal gypsum, but the spreadsheet has me adding an acid (I tried both lactic and phosphoric) which seemed to add lots of bicarbonate, which I thought was undesirable. This brought the RA close (36) to recommended range, but the hardness at near 700. Other recipes in IPA turn out other very wide and varied ranges.
So please advise what I should focus on when working on water profiles for this and future brewings. I want to learn the theory behind it all and back it up with experimenting, but I have not tested how much experimenting my wife and family will allow. Thanks for any and all advise. It will be greatly appreciated.
