Water n00b am I on the right track?

Got my water profile it is

Calcium 10ppm
Magnesium 3ppm
Alkalinity CaCO3 41ppm
Chloride 9ppm
Sulfate 24ppm
Sodium 19ppm

so it is very soft and a bit high on sulfate:chloride

I am brewing a IPA soon and want to adjust my water

SRM is 7.6

I used EZ water to get to this: I a going to add 2 grams of gypsum, 3 grams Calcium Chloride ,and 1.5 grams Epsom salt to the mash

then to the boil add 1.4 grams of gypsum, 2 grams Calcium Chloride, and 1 grams Epsom salt

This will is give me

Calcium 75ppm
Magnesium 10ppm
Alkalinity CaCO3 41ppm
Chloride 83ppm
Sulfate 111ppm
Sodium 19ppm

residual Alkalinity -19

chloride to sulfate .75

This look good to you guys?

The mineral content looks really good. Are those your final numbers? The mash RA (and pH) are more important than the final RA. What is the RA of your mash?

Also, were you using the EZ 2.0 calculator? That gives you a pH output rather than RA since the RA is only loosely connected to pH.

Edit: I guess I should add that the mineral content looks good based on my tastes. Some people may prefer a higher sulfate content, but I like to keep it around 100ppm for my pale ales and IPAs.

For an American IPA, Terry Foster (Pale Ale) recommends approximately
Ca 100 ppm, SO4 200 ppm, Cl 30 ppm.

For English and American pale ales, I have found his recommendations to be very good.

I wouldn't bother with epsom salts unless you want to increase the SO4 without adding any Ca. From what I've read, malts contain adequate Mg levels.

-a.

Using John palmer spreadsheet I got a effective hardness of 60 RA of -19

Jcmccoy said:

Using John palmer spreadsheet I got a effective hardness of 60 RA of -19

Click to expand...

Something wrong here. You don't say whether you calcium and magnesium numbers are ppm as CaCO3 or ppm as the ion but it is clear that they are the latter. Thus your calcium hardness is 50*10/20 = 25 and your magnesium hardness 50*3/12.15 = 12.3. The effective hardness is half the latter plus the former = 31.12. RA = (alkalinity - effective_hardness/3.5) = 41 - 31.12/3.5 = 32.1

So what does that mean? This is the first time I am trying to messing with this stuff.

I just went through the calculation effective hardness and RA to illustrate that either there is a problem with the spreadsheet or the way you are using it.

If I enter the numbers you gave into the EZ spreadsheet it tells me that the RA is 30 and the alkalinity 34 even though I have entered an alkalinity of 41 per your first post. Clicking the Alkalinity button has no effect so I calculated the equivalent bicarbonate assuming the alkalinity titration was done to 4.3 (it isn't always) and that the original water pH was 7. If water, under those conditions, has alkalinity of 41 it contains 47.3 mg/L bicarbonate. Using that with the bicarbonate button activated the spreadsheet tells me the alkalinity is 39 and the RA 30. I don't see effective hardness mentioned anywhere but the 39 value is close enough for government work.

So I think you mean you got that RA and effective hardness after you added the amount of salts you specified. The amount of water treated isn't specified but it's a pretty simple matter to determine that those salt additions in 5.4 gallons will cause the EZ sheeet to calculate an RA of -19. The actual RA for those additions to 5.4 gallons is -17.4. I think -19 is close enough. The alkalinity after the additions is pretty much the same as it was before at 40.6.

So what it means overall is that I misinterpreted the -19 value as the RA for the untreated water.

I am going to use 5.17 gal of water to mash with

Do you think these adjustments would be good for an american IPA? What do you think?

From my tastes of my beer I have made IPAs, wheat, and stout beer. IPAs and wheat beers have a bit of a harsh lingering bitterness. And my stouts seem to be dull and not that complex the roast is not where I want it.