My ingredient contains sodium; did I calculate this correctly?

[SpeedYellow]

I'm considering using 2 boxes of graham crackers in a pumpkin ale (which a number of folks have done) and noticed the Sodium content on the label. Two boxes contains 4,200 mg sodium. Since this makes 5.5 gal (5 gal batch plus 0.5 lost to trub & hops), which is 21L, then is my PPM of sodium = 4,200mg / 21L = 200 ppm?

Seems to me that 200 ppm sodium would be a very bad idea, so I'm surprised people do it. I believe Palmer suggests no more than 150, so he presumably thinks it gets salty above that.

 

[mabrungard]

Well if that sodium is in an ionic form, then its possible that the sodium content could get that high.

When we were evaluating sodium levels for the Water book, the main concern with high sodium is its poor interaction with sulfate. High sodium and high sulfate can produce poor flavor. If your water won't have much sulfate, then the high sodium content might not make the beer taste too salty. The typical taste threshold for sodium in water is around 250 ppm.

So even though I suggest that your approach to this beer might be OK, I would reconsider using that much graham cracker.

 

[SpeedYellow]

Thank you Martin! I'll change the plan so I use 100% distilled water and no gypsum! CaCl only. . And it does seem prudent to scale back the graham cracker a bit, to be safe. No point ruining a batch for that.

 

[ajdelange]

Back during the book research I tasted sodium sulfate solutions and didn't find them particularly offensive - no more so than calcium sulfate.

I really think this is a case where you will have to experiment to see if the beer tastes funny in the mineral sense. Lots of foods (e.g graham crackers) contain lots of salt. How that would translate into beer is something I would have absolutely no feel for.

 

[Hermit]

As someone that is supposed to cut back on sodium it is alarming what now tastes salty to me. It is surprising how many prepared foods depend on sodium for flavor. That said people aren't expecting sodium in their beer so don't look for it as much.

 

[ajdelange]

Looking back over this I see your basic question never got answered. Yes, you calculated it correctly. The sodium was doubtless added as sodium chloride and most other sodium salts are highly soluble so all that sodium will be 'available' as the ion. Even insoluble Maddrell's salt is somewhat soluble in an acid environment but you are more likely to find that in your toothpaste than in your Graham Crackers.

 

[SpeedYellow]

Actually, it seems I screwed up the calculation, since I divided this sodium content by the final batch size. It should be divided by the total water used (approx 8.5 gal), which is the standard method for mineral additions.

For 8.5 gal total water, 2 boxes graham crackers would cause: 4,200 mg/(8.5*3.78) = 131ppm sodium, and 202ppm chloride.