Sanity check for Boston water adjustment for IPA?

[iancanderson]

Hello! I have a Grainfather on the way, so I figured I should step up my all-grain methods so I get the most out of my new system.

I live in the Boston area, and our water is 100% from the MWRA system, which is mostly a blank slate.

I have attached the most recent (monthly!!!) water report. I also have a Lamotte test kit on the way to compare.

I have also attached my Brunwater water treatment plan.

I want to brew a crisp, mostly dry beer, but don't want to ferment away all of the malt flavor since I'm only using a base malt (Maris Otter). I have also attached the recipe as a PDF.

Since I'm brewing a hoppy pale beer (5 gallon IPA with all Maris Otter - 11 lbs), my plan is to:

• Add 2g Gypsum/gallon of mash and sparge water
• Use (partial) Campden tablet to reduce Chloramine?
• Have some lactic acid at-hand in case the mash pH is still too high

Questions/concerns:

• Are there any side effects to using a campden tablet?
• Should I worry about a high (13:1) Sulfate:Chloride ratio?
• Should I also add lactic acid to the mash to get the pH down closer to 5.3? Are there side effects to adding acid?
• General sanity check on the plan to use mainly gypsum for this profile/style?

Related links:

• https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=253124&page=2
• https://twitter.com/trilliumbrewing/status/454602926208876544
• http://www.thefullboil.com/2014/08/04/water-chemistry-basics/

View attachment 042017_water_report.pdf

View attachment mosaic_mo.pdf

 

[Yooper]

That's too much sulfate for my taste, but others do like 300 ppm of sulfate. If you're not sure you love it, you could easily cut it in half and have a very nice beer. Most of my "not take the enamel off of my teeth" IPAs have a lower sulfate level, around 150 ppm. Not all- I have a couple of recipes that I love with more sulfate, but with no crystal malt or other specialty malts to counter than very drying finish, I'd definitely reduce the sulfate for the first go to 135-150 ppm.

I like my "bright" hoppy beers mashed at 5.2-5.3 so you're right in there!

You definitely want to get rid of any chloramine/chlorine before mashing, so campden tablets would be the way to go- 1/4 tab per 5 gallons of water.

 

[dyqik]

Yes, MWRA water is pretty much a blank slate, so you can just treat it like starting with RO. Use lactic acid to pull down the mash pH - there's not a huge amount of water alkalinity to work against, so you shouldn't need that much, certainly not enough to taste.

You might add more than 1/4 of a tablet of Campden per 5 gallons - the chloramine level can sometimes be higher than what 1/4 of a tablet per 5 gallons can treat in spring, and a bit extra metabisulfite doesn't hurt - particularly if you follow what the Low Dissolved Oxygen (LoDO) brewing people are suggesting, and use it at about 1-2 tablets per 5 gallons to keep dissolved oxygen at bay (after boiling the strike and sparge water to remove the initial DO), lowering the risk/effects of hot side aeration/oxidation. As an aside: there's some discussion in the monster 'New England' IPA thread about LoDO being useful for NEIPAs and maintaining the hop presence. I tried some of the techniques on my recent Heady clone, and it wasn't that much effort, tbh.

Personally, without getting into LoDO, I'd just throw half a crushed tablet into the strike water, and half into the sparge water, for a 5-6 gallon batch, so I don't have half a tablet lying around in the bottle and to make sure that I'm really getting rid of all the chloramine. I've had one affected batch, and it's enough, particularly with an expensive hop bill.

 

[iancanderson]

Thanks for the thoughts! I'll add some campden.

I attached the new plan, which brings the sulfate:chloride ratio down to a more sane 3:1, and uses lactic acid to reduce mash pH to 5.3.