Russian Imperial Stout and Bru'n Water Profile

[Nick Z]

I'm thinking of brewing a Russian imperial stout. I got the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles. I am using Bru'n Water and the Black Balanced profile.

But I'm having a hard time hitting the pH and mineral numbers. The grist is so acidic that it requires a lot of adjustment. I tried raising the pH with baking soda but that put in way too much sodium. So I moved to pickling lime. And it's requiring a lot of pickling like (to my eyes, at least) to push up the pH. The target bicarbonate amount is 61 but my adjusted water is 165. Target calcium is 29 and my adjusted amount is 92. The other numbers look good. And even with all that my pH is only 5.16. I think I need to get it to around 5.4.

My concern is creating a beer that is too mineral tasting. That seems unwise. When I see levels way above what should be there it makes it me nervous.

I have chalk on hand as well but my understanding is that chalk is to be avoided when possible.

Since this is a small batch (one gallon) I am only treating six liters of mash water.

Thoughts?

Thank you.

 

[BrewMan13]

Just going to chime in with my preferences as I do a fair amount of stouts. I use black - full since it doesn't get any fuller than an imperial, but I don't see that as too big a deal. I also can't speak to pickling lime, but just using baking soda and it puts me at ~74ppm Na, and the beer comes out great (I target pH of 5.5-5.6 on my stouts and porters). Also, I don't believe the bicarbonate level is critical to anything it's just "there". Never used chalk either, but it's not as simple as just throwing it in if you do end up using it.

 

[thehaze]

You are not going to make your beer taste minerally. Far from it. Baking soda is the easiest, fastest and surest way of raising pH when dealing with dark malts. It dissolves easy and you don't need much to raise the pH back in range. I prefer something like 150-200 ppm Cl / 50-100 ppm SO4, whatever Ca, in the mash for stouts.

 

[SundayBrewer]

My last stout was only 5.2 and taste fine. If you want just add the dark grains later in the mash.