Hey everyone, This next brew I am planning on using RO water for the first time to brew a NEIPA. I am trying to acheive 200 ppm chloride, 75 ppm sulfate, and 150 ppm calcium. Does anyone know a simple calculator that can explain what salts/ minerals I would have to add in in order to achieve this water profile? Thx everyone!
Getting Target NEIPA Water From RO
- Thread starter Benighted
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The best way to calculate is using a calculator like https://www.brewersfriend.com/stats/
Trying to dial in exact ppm numbers can be tricky. It's an iterative process since increasing one mineral ppm by adding more brewing salt can often impact another mineral. There are also many ways to achieve similar concentrations.
If you don't care about what your other mineral ppm numbers are, you can achieve those 3 ppms using 1.575g CaCl, 0.728g Epsom Salt, 0.256g Pickling Lime per gallon of water. That will get you your Cl, Ca and SO4 ppm plus 19ppm Mg.
Or you could do 1.575g CaCl and 0.509g Gypsum to get you 200 Cl, 145 Ca, 75 SO4 with no other minerals.
If you don't care about what your other mineral ppm numbers are, you can achieve those 3 ppms using 1.575g CaCl, 0.728g Epsom Salt, 0.256g Pickling Lime per gallon of water. That will get you your Cl, Ca and SO4 ppm plus 19ppm Mg.
Or you could do 1.575g CaCl and 0.509g Gypsum to get you 200 Cl, 145 Ca, 75 SO4 with no other minerals.
Silver_Is_Money
Larry Sayre, Developer of 'Mash Made Easy'
Getting the minerals into the styles ballpark should suffice. There is no magic to be gained by perfectly hitting contrived mystical target numbers.
Since this is the Brewing Science forum I'll point out that it is not an iterative process. Increasing one ion does, of course, increase the concentration of its partner ion too but this is accommodated by using a system of linear equations. Even though these equations may not be consistent (e.g. it may be impossible to get the desired ion profile from real salts) linear techniques can be used to find the best (closest in the rms sense) solution using real salts. The system of equations can, of course, be solved by iterative techniques but only one iteration should be required.
Things get more complicated when you want, for example, to use sulfuric acid as a source of sulfate and sodium bicarbonate as a source of sodium. These will result in a change in pH and that blows linearity out of the water. Now iterative techniques are indeed required.
Note that Excel's Solver does the iteration for you. You set up the problem and tell it to go. It chugs away and gives you the best solution.
