Bru'n Water Pale Ale profile

[mattnaik]

I plugged in my stats from a water report published a couple years ago (most recent I could find) and selected the pale ale profile in Bru'nWater. It appears I can get everything dialed in pretty good except for Sulfate which is 300ppm in this profile (closest I can get is 277.8ppm). Other than getting my hands on some sulfuric acid it doesn't appear I can bump that any higher without pushing the others up. Is that a problem?

Also, I have to put 1.4g/gal of gypsum and almost 0.5g/gal of epsom salt and another 0.3g/gal of CaCl2. These additions seem like quite a bit to me (too salty?) but, full disclosure: I haven't ever brewed all-grain before I'm just doing as much research as I can before I take the leap.

I'm hoping to start all-grain in the next few months and would like to start with a pale ale, hence why I'm looking at the pale ale profile.

 

[Jayhem]

You are fine! My sulfate on my pale ale recipe comes out at 150 ppm and it's the best beer I make! More sulfate just helps accentuate the hop sharpness.

 

[ajdelange]

It appears I can get everything dialed in pretty good except for Sulfate which is 300ppm in this profile (closest I can get is 277.8ppm). Other than getting my hands on some sulfuric acid it doesn't appear I can bump that any higher without pushing the others up. Is that a problem?

Not at all. the difference between 278 and 300 is 0.33 dB. It takes about 3 dB to make a clearly detectable difference and perhaps 1 to make a discernible difference. Those discernibility numbers are actually based on response to sound and light levels but as most things in nature (such as the chemical potential of the sulfate ion) tend to respond geometrically (logarithmically) rather than arithmetically (linearly) it seems as if it would apply here too.

Also, I have to put 1.4g/gal of gypsum and almost 0.5g/gal of epsom salt and another 0.3g/gal of CaCl2. These additions seem like quite a bit to me (too salty?) but, full disclosure: I haven't ever brewed all-grain before I'm just doing as much research as I can before I take the leap.

It won't leave things too salty but may well render the hops a lot harsher than you had hoped for. Someone has posted here that he likes the results with half of the proposed amount and that makes more sense but even that much would be way too much for me. OTOH you may find you prefer 600 mg/L. I usually recommend that people start low with the sulfate and work their way up to a level they like.

 

[mchrispen]

As AJ suggests, you are really asking about personal preferences. While it seems like a lot of salts, in some sense, you need to trust the recommendation. Martin's suggestion is fairly modest when you look at some profiles in Palmer's water book with over 500 ppm Sulfates. I brewed three weeks ago matching that same Pale Ale from RO, and very excited about the results, however the beer is still in primary, waiting dry hops. My APA's had been missing the clean bitterness I prefer, and the hydro samples are very good. I was quite nervous looking at the piles of salts, larger than any addition I had made before!

Other's here may prefer less salt overall or a lot more. Brew with a target, and make adjustments on your next brew based on your preferences. Take copious notes along the way! Make these additions as part of your recipe profile.

 

[mattnaik]

Thanks for the wisdom guys. Looks like this will take a whole lot of experimenting. Which is just fine by me

 

[Floridagator]

Resurrecting this thread, I'm also starting to use Bru'n Water and am building a water profile using the Pale Ale profile as a target.

I see that the Sulfate target is 300ppm and the Chloride target is 55ppm. If I get pretty close to these values, doesn't this result in a Sulfate-to-Chloride ratio of 5.5:1, which is on the very high end? I thought a Pale Ale should be closer to 2:1.

On a related note, I am struggling a bit to keep the Chloride level at or below 55pm with everything else in balance. Could my beer tolerate bumping this to ~100ppm without ill effect? This would also bring the aforementioned ratio to 3:1.

Attaching snip of my additions.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[mabrungard]

I see that you are using the newest free version of Bru'n Water. The SO4/Cl ratio was taken out of the output results of the new program for exactly the reason that you exhibit...brewers think that the ratio actually means something. It does not provide nearly the guidance that some brewers instill in the ratio and its important that that ratio fall from our lexicon. It is the total concentrations of those ions that matter most.

Trying to appease your perceptions of an appropriate ratio means that you are pushing the beer closer to a minerally condition that some drinkers might actually be able to taste. Boosting the chloride won't moderate the effect of the high sulfate, it will just produce more minerally beer. If you are concerned with the ratio being too extreme, I suggest that you back off the sulfate content. That will have a real and meaningful reduction in the drying effect of sulfate.

Remember, if the hop flavor and bittering levels for a beer have been optimized while using low sulfate water, boosting the sulfate level without moderating the hopping level is more likely to create an unbalanced beer. Beer recipes that seem underwhelming with respect to hop flavor and bittering are the ones that are likely to immediately benefit from increased sulfate content. If you find that high sulfate didn't work in a recipe, hopping adjustment might get you where you want that beer to be.