Can I get a sanity check on this hefeweizen water plan?

[Horseflesh]

I've been scouring the forums for advice on building a hefeweizen water profile. Fortunately my water is low-mineral, so I can build what I like. Everything is < 8 PPM except bicarb which is 24 PPM.

@mabrungard's advice in another thread was to keep the water as low mineral as possible while getting Ca to ~ 50 PPM via CaCl2 only, and to "live with" the amount of Cl this added.

In my case this plan yields ~50 PPM Ca and ~80 PPM Cl in the finished product. (see below)

Does this look reasonable? I've never made a hefeweizen with ~80 PPM chloride in the glass. I could try to use some gypsum as another Ca source, and suffer some sulfate as the price of lowering chloride. In that scenario, Ca, Cl, and SO4 are all ~50 PPM in the finished product. (details also below)

Anyone have an opinion on which approach will taste better?

Other details that might be useful: I am using 6.7% CaCl2 solution, and a single-vessel eBIAB system with a starting water volume of 8.9 gal. I'm targeting a mash pH of 5.25 via use of phosphoric acid. Grain bill is ~70% red wheat and ~30% pilsen.

Thanks for the input!

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I would select the lower sulfate choice. Particularly if you are using noble hops. The chloride level is not excessive.

https://mashmadeeasy.yolasite.com/

 

[Horseflesh]

Thanks for the reassurance!

 

[mabrungard]

The advice about sulfate and noble hops is a MYTH. There is no truth in it at all. Millions of barrels of German Pilsner prove that with no doubt. The water in Jever is known to have quite a bit of sulfate in it (~75 ppm) and Jever Pils is a very pleasant German Pils. Even the water in Munich has a modest sulfate content (~20ppm) and the water in Vienna is even higher (~60ppm). Sulfate does not make beer bitter, it makes the beer finish drier. Dryness can be a valuable attribute in beers with either high bittering or high malt flavor. Just don't overdo it! A little sulfate in almost any beer is an asset.

Please don't use the personal preference of one person as guidance against using sulfate in any beer!

Now, back to the OP's original question. Using CaCl2 to reach a Ca content of 50 ppm was written quite a while ago. Attaining that Ca level is useful when brewing most ales in order to improve the beer's ability to clear. However, Hefeweizen is not really a typical ale and we actually want the yeast to stay in suspension to some degree. So, 50 ppm Ca may not really be desirable for that reason. A technique that can be valuable when brewing with low mineralization water, is to add all your calcium salts to the mashing water to boost the likelihood of precipitating oxalate from the mash. The sparging water dilution will bring that Ca content back down. To illustrate that low mineralization water is OK for Hefe brewing, I can tell you that the water quality across much of southern Bavaria (including Munich) has low calcium and other ions, when the water is pre-boiled. Look to the Munich (boiled) water profile in Bru'n Water to see how low that water mineralization can be. I don't necessarily recommend trying to achieve that profile, but it gives you an idea of what Bavarian brewers start with.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Martin, the following advice appears on your 'Water Knowledge' web page:

Sulfate should be kept relatively low when brewing continental lagers using noble hops since the sulfate&#8217;s characteristic of drying out the bittering perception may not be desirable with those hops or the maltier beers that are typically brewed with them.

This and several comments by A.J. deLange touching upon this subject have been inspirational in molding my opinion. I do grant however that Hefeweizen is different from continental lagers, and perhaps I have merely read too much into your above quoted guidance. There isn't much hop presence in most Hefeweizen's to begin with, but the style generally calls for a slight malty sweetness.

https://mashmadeeasy.yolasite.com/

 

[stpug]

Brewing water across the region varies quite a bit in sulfate and chloride levels. Given your low mineral water source, I would probably aim for modest level of both, and even use some table salt to bring up your sodium levels a smidge (~20-25ppm). Whatever water profile you choose should be fine.

More important, IMO, is the use of lactic acid instead of phosphoric. Lactic acid is the quintessential acid used in German beer brewing (typically via sauergut or acid malt) and is quite "flavor appropriate" for german ales and lagers - as long as it's not drastically over the taste threshold, which yours would not be.

 

[mabrungard]

Martin, the following advice appears on your 'Water Knowledge' web page:



This and several comments by A.J. deLange touching upon this subject have been inspirational in molding my opinion. I do grant however that Hefeweizen is different from continental lagers, and perhaps I have merely read too much into your above quoted guidance. There isn't much hop presence in most Hefeweizen's to begin with, but the style generally calls for a slight malty sweetness.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I too once 'drank the kool-aid' and acquiesced to the contention that sulfate and noble hops didn't play well with each other. That myth is immortalized on the pages of Palmer and Kaminski's Water book, which both AJ and I provided the technical editing for. I apologize for perpetuating the myth, but I just didn't know any better at the time. I certainly am embarrassed to find that I haven't corrected that on my own site!!!

While the BJCP style guidelines for Weissbier do comment that: the perception of sweetness is more due to the absence of hop bitterness than actual residual sweetness, its important to note that you can't create sweetness via a chloride addition nor can you delete sweetness via a sulfate addition. However, those anions do affect the perceptions of sweetness and drinkability. Including modest levels of both of those anions is more likely to enhance the overall pleasure and drinkability of the finished beer.

 

[ajdelange]

Please don't use the personal preference of one person as guidance against using sulfate in any beer!

I certainly agree with that but at the same time note that Kunze suggests obtaining calcium from the chloride rather than the sulfate when noble hops are used and that Gordon Strong joins me and several others who think sulfate should be eliminated when using noble hops. With the noble hops one seeks what I call a 'fine' bitterness. Sulfate roughens it for me so I avoid sulfate when using those hops because I don't like that. People who like, for example Jever Pils (or at least Jever Pils the way it used to be) obviously don't respond the way I do and whether an individual is or isn't should influence his descision as to whether to mix noble hops and sulfate. I, therefore, caution people to start out with low or 0 sulfate and work up to the level they like. This, of course, also applies to beers that don't use noble hops. I once had a commercial brewer comment as to how good one of my ales was and asked if I had any tips. I'd seen the bags of terra alba lying around his brewery and suggested that he back off. BTW, I don't think my ales are particularly good but I prefer them with low sulfate.

As to wheat beers: they are brewed all over Germany and Austria with waters that vary quite a bit and some of them are very good and some pretty bad (IMO). I'm not suggesting that the water is the main driver (more probably the yeast strain and how it is operated) but it seems to me that in a wheat beer one wants lots of body (hence the use of viscous wheat) and some sweetness set off by tartness, not bitterness as in non wheat beers. These things suggest that one would want to keep chloride high and sulfate low but really in the last analysis it is up to the brewer to decide which he (and or his 'customers') prefer. Accordingly I give the same advice I always do: start low with the sulfate and increment to taste.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Come to think of it, my all-grain brewing history dates to the early 1990's (the Zap-Pap era), and back then pretty much all I knew was to throw roughly 1/2 to 1-1/2 TSP of gypsum (calcium sulfate) at everything. Yet somehow, many of my brews back then came out quite good. Being on chlorinated city water back then, I always used a (then local to me) commercial artesian spring water, the analyticals for which follow:

Ca 38 ppm
Mg 5.8 ppm
Cl 65 ppm
SO4 14 ppm
Na 18 ppm
Alkalinity (as CaCO3) 52
pH 6.8

I only asked for and received this spring waters analyticals a few months ago. I had no clue way back in the 90's that I had (by random luck) chosen and then stuck with a pretty decent brewing water. And to think that I often tossed gypsum into it. Back then I also knew nothing about beers mash pH requirements, so in some cases at least the gypsum was probably doing me some good.

https://mashmadeeasy.yolasite.com/

 

[Horseflesh]

Good discussion, thanks everyone.

I've made hef many times with ~25 PPM Ca and been happy, but thought I would approach the topic fresh and see if I found anything I missed. Martin, that advice about ~50 PPM Ca and "living with" the resultant Cl was definitely from an older thread.

Sounds like keeping sulfate low is the more conservative approach so I will stick with that for now.

Here are a couple more profiles, one shooting for 25 PPM Ca only, the other adding a little salt as @stpug suggested. (I'll get lactic acid too, been using phosphoric for everything.)

Of course these are such small amounts of minerals this may be splitting hairs anyway!

 

[stpug]

I agree that the mineralization differences are fairly small and likely insignificant to the resultant product, but it's always good to know what levels were used to brew a batch so you can adjust/recreate those levels in future batches if you strike GOLD! . I think any of your 4 posted water profiles are perfectly fine for a hefe.

I also use phosphoric 85% for most beer styles but not german or belgian; for those I prefer lactic 88%, or acid malt (I'm not a sauergut producer yet).

Still on the topic of hefe's, but aside from water, here's a great read that can help guide your hefe decision making:
http://braumagazin.de/article/brewing-bavarian-weissbier-all-you-ever-wanted-to-know/

 

[Horseflesh]

I decided to go ahead and take Cl up to ~20 PPM, why not!

I also got some 88% lactic acid since that's proper for the style. To hit mash pH of 5.27, Bru'n Water says I need 0.9 mL/gal, or 8 mL in 8.9 gal, which is 253 PPM. After the boil, the lactate concentration in the beer would be 334 PPM, just from the corrective acid.

Taste threshold is said to be ~400 PPM but you get 200-300 PPM lactate for free from the malt and yeast per this post where @mabrungard quotes an interesting paper.

So, if anyone is still awake, does this seem like a reasonable amount of lactic acid for the style? I can easily reduce the lactate concentration by combining lactic acid and phosphoric acid.

BEER: SERIOUS STUFF

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

We really don't have any specific knowledge of your grist bill, or your source waters analyticals, or your specific chosen mineralization, but If your grist bill is 50% Wheat Malt and 50% European Pilsner Malt, and if you consider that they are combining to DI mash at about pH 5.9, then 8 mL of 88% lactic acid appears to be within the realm of what should be expected, when also taking into consideration that you have set the mash pH target at 5.27..

https://mashmadeeasy.yolasite.com/

 

[Horseflesh]

A bunch of details were in the fine print--I am using 70/30 red wheat/pils and very low alkalinity water. I'm not worried about hitting pH, I have that down, more interested in the lactic acid flavor contribution as I've only used phosphoric before. But if 8 mL doesn't sound nuts, that is good to hear.

 

[stpug]

You may not need to aim for such a low mash pH as the yeast has potential to further reduce the final beer pH to a considerable level. In that link I posted above there is talk about the extra pH reduction during fermentation with certain hefe strains (see sections 4.2 and 4.4). Additionally, if you are conducting a ferulic acid rest to begin that you'll have some natural pH reduction in which case to hit a specific mash pH will require a bit of "playing by ear" or a deft hand - likely to the effect of less lactic acid than Brun Water indicates to achieve a specific pH. I'm brewing a hefe tomorrow and my mash pH target is 5.4pH fwiw - granted, I'm not hefe guru or aficionado, but it's due time I brew another one.

 

[Horseflesh]

That link is great, so much to digest... I'm using Imperial "Stefan" which I think is the same as 3068, so yeah, maybe a pH target of ~5.2 is too low. I mean, I've done it before and the beer was good, but it can't hurt to try something different in the pursuit of perfection.

I won't be doing a ferulic acid rest--I've done them before but preferred the taste without.

 

[stpug]

That link is great, so much to digest... I'm using Imperial "Stefan" which I think is the same as 3068, so yeah, maybe a pH target of ~5.2 is too low. I mean, I've done it before and the beer was good, but it can't hurt to try something different in the pursuit of perfection.

I won't be doing a ferulic acid rest--I've done them before but preferred the taste without.

You're absolutely right - it's a lot to digest. Luckily, it doesn't have to be all digested at once . Focus on the bits that matter to you and don't worry too much about the others - then bookmark the page for later perusal.

You should also check out Hommel's Homebrew log because he did a series of hefe batches (and was featured on Basic Brewing podcast) and reading through his attempts/successes/failures, I believe you are able to glean some useful homebrewing information on hefes. One item that sticks out to me is his lack of sulfur in his fermentations and his yeast nutrient addition. An additional item is, while he doesn't state his target mash pH for the last link below, he does state that the beer finished surprisingly low at 3.9pH, which may give some credit to the ability of some hefe strains to produce somewhat low pH beers.

http://www.hommelhomebrew.com/?cat=50
http://www.hommelhomebrew.com/?cat=60
http://www.hommelhomebrew.com/?cat=82
http://www.hommelhomebrew.com/?cat=92

 

[Horseflesh]

Good links, thanks!

Edit: Interesting that he is using a protein rest, I keep reading that you're not supposed to do those because they are bad for head retention. He's also not sweating the minerals or pushing mash pH too low. Food for thought.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

About 6.5 mL of 88% lactic acid should move it into the general 5.4 pH range.

https://mashmadeeasy.yolasite.com/

 

[Horseflesh]

Based on some things I read in the links from @stpug I think that I am going for 5.35-5.4.

I think I have a complete game plan now, thanks everyone!