First Time w/ Bru'n'Water: Check Please?

[oljimmy]

Hi All,

I'm doing a BIAB dry stout, standard bill: 62.5% Maris Otter, 25% flaked barley, 12.5% roasted barley. 4.3 gals of spring water with 1 gal of distilled, no sparge. This is my water addition plan so far, with questions below:

Projected room temp pH is 5.5.

1. Basically, I'm wondering what my priorities should be. I've seen people on here saying that chalk is really hard to dissolve properly, but if I use either calcium chloride or gypsum to up my calcium content, then my sulfate and chloride levels go even higher, and they're already significantly above the style.

2. People have also mentioned that I shouldn't be adding bicarbonate AND acid, but given what I have available (no lime or canning salt) I have a hard time seeing how I can get the minerals I want and not raise my pH to 5.8-5.9. Hence the lactic acid. Should I just suck it up and find some pickling lime and canning salt?

3. Generally, if you had to prioritize minerals, which are most important and which are least important for a dry stout?

Thanks, and sorry for the probably confused questions.

 

[ajdelange]

All you need to do to your existing water to make a fine dry stout is add some calcium chloride - about 1/2 gram/gal or a little less. Or you could divide the salts between calcium chloride and gypsum if you are sure you want sulfate but I always recommend starting without sulfate and experimenting to see if you like it. Your mash pH should fall between 5.5 and 5.6 depending on whose Maris Otter you use. This is highish but acceptable and many think dry stout is improved if mashed in this range and so don't bother to add any acid. You definitely don't need alkali (chalk, baking soda, lime...).

Don't get too hung up on these 'balanced dark for eastern slope of the Wicklow mountains in summertime, left handed drinker' profiles. You can make this a hell of a lot more complicated than it needs to be.

 

[mabrungard]

Wait. Where is that spring water report from? Was that published by the bottler? If so, there is no need to dilute the distilled water in the first place. The spring water is already somewhat similar to the Wicklow Mountain water used by Guinness.

I also see that you are adding both chalk and lactic acid. They will counteract each other. It may actually be better to remove one or both of those additions since you could end up overdosing one or both. Of course, the other problem is that chalk does not dissolve appreciably in water or the mash and it will likely end up at the bottom of the HLT or tun.

Now as to whether you need alkalinity or not, depends on whether you are mashing the roast barley with the main mash. If you are mashing it all together, then there is a decent chance that you will need some more alkalinity than is reported for that spring water. However, if you are reserving all or a portion of the roast barley, then its possible that the main mash won't need alkalinity and may actually need some acid. Reserving the roast barley is actually similar to the way Guinness brews their dry stout and how they produce that dry acidic finish that is so pleasant in that beer. While other stout styles benefit from targeting a mash pH in the 5.5 to 5.6 range, dry stout needs a pH more in the range of 5 to 5.2 to produce that acidic note. The problem with targeting a low pH for the entire mash is that the beer's body can be reduced. That is probably not a problem in this beer since there is a nice charge of flaked barley. But it could be a problem in others.

Some brewers do recommend minimal brewing water mineralization and I find that this recommendation is appropriate for light lagers. However, I have found that many styles DO benefit from 'complicated' water profiles. Fortunately, there happen to be tools available that make formulating complicated profiles just as simple as the minimal profiles. If you want to waste those extra seconds of your life that will be spent measuring out those additions, go for it!

 

[Malt]

'balanced dark for eastern slope of the Wicklow mountains in summertime, left handed drinker'

Can you give me the details of this one, so that I can reproduce it for my Cream Ale?!?!

 

[ajdelange]

Can you give me the details of this one, so that I can reproduce it for my Cream Ale?!?!

Uhhm, seem to have lost my notes on that one. There was a left handed guy in my brewing club but he moved to Muskogee.

 

[ajdelange]

Now as to whether you need alkalinity or not, depends on whether you are mashing the roast barley with the main mash. If you are mashing it all together, then there is a decent chance that you will need some more alkalinity than is reported for that spring water.

Probably not. As noted in my earlier post he'll probably have a pH between 5.5 and 5.6 with the roast barley depending on whether his MO is more like Crisp's (5.5) or Munton's (5.6). Roast barley at 12.5% just doesn't kick out that many protons. In this case, using Briess's as the model and assuming that he's got about 1 - 3/4 lbs (12.5% with enough overall for a water to grist ratio of 1.5 qts/lb) the roast barley would deliver 40 mEq which not quite enough (at pH 5.5) to cover the MO (crisp) requirement of 35.5 and flaked barley requirement of 8 and the wee amount (3.6) necessary to neutralize the small alkalinity. The remaining deficit is assumed made up by the 3 mVal calcium from the calcium addition I recommended in the earlier post.

If the roast barley is with held there is, obviously, a 40 mEq deficit which, ceteris paribus, would lead to a mash pH of 5.66. This is not too terrible, of course, but its not too great either and there is no reason to with hold the roast barley in fact there is reason not to (this borderline high mash pH).

Running the numbers with Muntons MO, conversely, would lead to a mash pH of around 5.78 which I think we'd all agree is too high. Clearly, no extra alkalinity is needed or desired unless the particular roast barley, base malts or flaked barley he is using are very different from the ones I have measured and that possibility does exist.

However, if you are reserving all or a portion of the roast barley, then its possible that the main mash won't need alkalinity and may actually need some acid.

Acid would definitely be needed with an malt like Muntons and probably with a malt like Crisps.

Reserving the roast barley is actually similar to the way Guinness brews their dry stout and how they produce that dry acidic finish that is so pleasant in that beer.

I can't speak to how Guiness brews their stouts but I can say that I get that nice tartness from dry stout brewed, with roast malt included in the mash, that has mash pH of around 5.5.

While other stout styles benefit from targeting a mash pH in the 5.5 to 5.6 range, dry stout needs a pH more in the range of 5 to 5.2 to produce that acidic note.

Color me skeptical on that one. The yeast will put the pH of the finished product close to where they want it to be. As noted, I get the tartness, which is so important a part of Irish stout, mashing at pH 5.5.

Some brewers do recommend minimal brewing water mineralization and I find that this recommendation is appropriate for light lagers. However, I have found that many styles DO benefit from 'complicated' water profiles. Fortunately, there happen to be tools available that make formulating complicated profiles just as simple as the minimal profiles. If you want to waste those extra seconds of your life that will be spent measuring out those additions, go for it!

Wheter a beer benefits from a 'complicated' water profile or not depends entirely on the palate of the person drinking it. The fact that some brewers/drinkers prefer beers made with low mineral profiles and others prefer complex attests to this. I am all for experimenting with more complex mineral profiles but people need to understand that there are thresholds of perception below which it doesn't matter what you do and above which response is likely to be logarithmic based on the observation that everything else in the human sensory experience (sight, sound, smell) seems to be logarithmic.

 

[oljimmy]

Thanks to both Martin and Ajde for your very helpful comments and entertaining discussion/debate.

The water report is indeed from the bottler, and I guess I won't dilute at all. My Maris Otter is from Fawcett, not sure what that profile is like. I will be mashing all grains together to keep that part of the process simple, but the perfectionist in me wants a perfect water profile, so I might, as they say, "go for it". I will make sure not to add acid and chalk, in any case, and I'll prioritize calcium and chloride over the other minerals if I need to.

 

[ajdelange]

Thanks to both Martin and Ajde for your very helpful comments and entertaining discussion/debate.

In brewing, as in any art, there are different ways to approach things. It is important that you are exposed to as many of these as possible in order to inform your own decisions.

My Maris Otter is from Fawcett, not sure what that profile is like.

Me either. It could fall between Crisp and Muntons or it could be outside at either end.

I will be mashing all grains together to keep that part of the process simple, but the perfectionist in me wants a perfect water profile, so I might, as they say, "go for it".

The optimum water profile is the one that produces the beer you like best. You won't find that in a magazine article nor on a web site. It is something you will have to work out for yourself. I usually recommend starting with something simple like RO with a bit of calcium chloride and then experimenting with various levels of that and gypsum guided by taste testing of the beers you brew with incremental additions of those salts in the glass. Of course you can really start at any point you want to as long as you proceed in logical fashion. Also remember that there are several optimality criteria. Authenticity (mimicing the water of the region where the style originalted) is but one. It is often the case that one can produce a beer that he likes better than the authentic one by modification of the water (or other brewing parameters).

To really answer the question about mash pH (i.e. the one about what it is you are realizing - not the one about whether stout should be brewed with an unusually low pH) you will need a pH meter. To answer the one about target pH you will have to brew beers at those low pH's and at more normal pH's and see which you prefer.

I will make sure not to add acid and chalk, in any case, and I'll prioritize calcium and chloride over the other minerals if I need to.

Chalk became very popular for a time with the wide dissemination of nomographs which insisted that all dark beers require it (lots of it). This spread like wildfire (though the beers must have been pretty terrible), various spreadsheet and calculator authors incorporated the philosophy into their efforts and the notion persists to this day with the current discussion being a typical example. If you are making reasonable dark beers you won't need alkali in most cases. But as home brewers like to experiment beyond the realm of reasonable you may well encounter cases where you do. In those cases your best guidance is a pH meter and calcium carbonate should be your last choice as an alkali source unless you know how to use it (dissolve with acid, preferrably carbonic, until pH is around 7).

 

[oljimmy]

In brewing, as in any art, there are different ways to approach things. It is important that you are exposed to as many of these as possible in order to inform your own decisions.

Thanks, that helps. Last thing: your .4 gram/gal CaCl2 recommendation gives me 56.7 ppm chloride, almost 20 ppm over the water profile. Leaving aside the question of sulfate balance, is 56.7 a little high? Or is it negligible here?

Oh, and "ceteris paribus"? Do you happen to have a philosophy degree, perchance?

 

[ajdelange]

Thanks, that helps. Last thing: your .4 gram/gal CaCl2 recommendation gives me 56.7 ppm chloride, almost 20 ppm over the water profile. Leaving aside the question of sulfate balance, is 56.7 a little high? Or is it negligible here?

If I'm 20 ppm over that implies that the recommendation is 36.7 and I am 10*log(56.7/36.7)= 1.9 dB over. If we buy the geometric vs arithmetic theory that ought to be detectable but not blatantly so. Also keep in mind that chloride does things that most people like in their beer: enhanced fullness, sweetness, roundness.

Oh, and "ceteris paribus"? Do you happen to have a philosophy degree, perchance?

Oh, no. When I speak of Plato it is Leo Plato, head of the Kaiserliches Normaleichungskommission and after whom the Plato scale is named.

 

[Yooper]

Oh, no. When I speak of Plato it is Leo Plato, head of the Kaiserliches Normaleichungskommission and after whom the Plato scale is named.

Oh goodness, you make me laugh unexpectedly at times.

I just choked on my IPA, and snorted it. Which is not nearly as attractive as someone might suppose, by the way.

Anyway. Thank you for the laugh. You always manage to surprise me.:rockin:

 

[oljimmy]

Just cracked open the first of these stouts: WOW. Thanks for the help, all. Next time I might experiment with a tad more baking soda, but I'm fairly sure that the water adjustments contributed to this being my best batch yet.