Help Me With Water Chemistry

[jrsdws]

Brewed a pale ale modeled after Boulevard pale ale yesterday using distilled and the additions in the previous post. Everything seemed to go well for the brew. I did not have to add any acid for mash pH adjustment, but landed right at 5.2.
Ward labs test kit ordered.
We'll see how his brew turns out in about 3-4 weeks.
I appreciate all of the help. More to come when I get that water report back I'm quite sure.

 

[Basspaleale]

I hope this isn't too far off topic but I'm hoping someone can help with a water question. I'm planning a German Pilsner Brew and would like to know if my water profile should be balanced or geared towards dryer/bitter chemistry?

 

[VikeMan]

I hope this isn't too far off topic but I'm hoping someone can help with a water question. I'm planning a German Pilsner Brew and would like to know if my water profile should be balanced or geared towards dryer/bitter chemistry?

For a German Pilsner, I recommend leaning toward sulfates and away from chlorides. Might be called "bitter" depending on your software.

Here's an old recommended profile from Kai Troester:

Ca	Mg	Cl	SO4
59​	8​	63​	89​

For a german pils, I would not be afraid to take the Cl down a little and the SO4 up a little from Kai's numbers. And personally, I wouldn't be building any Mg in.

 

[Basspaleale]

For a German Pilsner, I recommend leaning toward sulfates and away from chlorides. Might be called "bitter" depending on your software.

Here's an old recommended profile from Kai Troester:

Ca	Mg	Cl	SO4
59​	8​	63​	89​

For a german pils, I would not be afraid to take the Cl down a little and the SO4 up a little from Kai's numbers. And personally, I wouldn't be building any Mg in.

Thank you, that helps alot!

 

[Stanley Thomas]

As I mentioned earlier: personal tastes vary.

Relax don't worry Have a Homebrew !!

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Relax don't worry Have a Homebrew !!

"The best beer possible with the least effort possible while having the most fun possible.​

​

Be a HOMEbrewer!"​

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

It usually doesn't make sense to add Chalk and/or Baking Soda unless you need to increase alkalinity. Based on the SRM, I'm assuming this isn't for a stout or anything with a lot of caramel/roasted grains. So chalk/baking soda are probably not needed/useful.

Slide 9 of this presentation shows one approach to building from distilled water.

Thanks for posting that! Slide #3 jumped out at me -- I've got high hc03 water (259 ppm), and brewer's friend software predicts that my mash pH for a seriously dark stout is going to be 5.7, and to get it down to 5.55, I need to add roughly 7 grams of Phosphoric 10% per gallon of tap water, and frankly, it's getting expensive!

But like I said, slide #3 of that presentation you linked, makes me wonder if I really need to worry about that slight difference in mash pH because:
1 Better mash efficiency? I'm already regularly beating my 70% eff targets by a couple of gravity points (3 to 5 pts, usually)
2 Avoid overly dark beer? LOL, this sucker's already at 40 srm!
3 Reduce tannin extraction? Long as I'm under pH of 6.0, this shouldn't be an issue, is what I got from that...

So to recap: what I get from that slide (#3) is that as long as the mash pH isn't going to exceed 5.9 , I can probably stop bothering with the acid. Can anyone confirm? I suppose the real answer is to brew a small 1 gallon test batch...