Heady Topper Results From Ward Labs

[Braufessor]

Are you using the "750" as a number you are shooting for in regard to mash water, or a number that would be found in the finished beer? The 750 is the total hardness in the finished beer (as sent to ward labs) not necessarily the water profile of the mash water. Those spread sheets are looking at mash water.

 

[carvetop]

For those assuming that the sheet is accurate, I would reason that the treatment is for the full liquor volume, not just the mash water. They brew 15bbl batches (~465G) so it's reasonable to assume that 776G would be the total liquor volume to begin with. Dividing the grams of CaSO4 added by the total volume, we get 2775g/776G = 3.6 g of CaSO4 per gallon. Extrapolating this number to a 5-6G homebrew batch and assuming that the total liquor volume is approximately 7.75G - 9.25G, we get between 28-33g of CaSO4.
Please correct me if my logic seems flawed. I've never come close to using that amount of CaSO4 in my hoppy brews. If anyone has experimented with this amount of gypsum, I'd like to hear about the results.

 

[mtnagel]

I used 15.5 g gypsum (2.11 g/gal) in my batch. I was targeting 400 ppm sulfate (my water has 54 ppm). I also added some epsom salt also. It was great and got a 3rd place out of 37 beers. That that for what it's worth.

 

[dyqik]

For those assuming that the sheet is accurate, I would reason that the treatment is for the full liquor volume, not just the mash water. They brew 15bbl batches (~465G) so it's reasonable to assume that 776G would be the total liquor volume to begin with. Dividing the grams of CaSO4 added by the total volume, we get 2775g/776G = 3.6 g of CaSO4 per gallon. Extrapolating this number to a 5-6G homebrew batch and assuming that the total liquor volume is approximately 7.75G - 9.25G, we get between 28-33g of CaSO4.
Please correct me if my logic seems flawed. I've never come close to using that amount of CaSO4 in my hoppy brews. If anyone has experimented with this amount of gypsum, I'd like to hear about the results.

I also worked this out over in either the Brew Science version of this thread or the Recipes Clone thread. It pretty much worked out when I ran it in Bru'n'Water with Boston water as the base (not too far from the base water profile listed on the sheet). This gives water pretty similar to the Burton-on-Trent deep aquifer profile that's commonly listed in various places (including in Bru'n'Water), although I make it 4.1g/gal to get Boston water to Burton levels of sulfates (610 mg/l), and a total hardness of 750 mg/l).

Martin Brungard did say that Burton water wouldn't historically be used undiluted, but my feeling is that plenty of brewers have just taken that profile on faith, and so it is plausible that Heady Topper does use that profile.

 

[carvetop]

Another question for Martin if you're still tuned in... Plugging the grain bill for a 5.5G batch into Bru'n Water and dialing the Calcium Sulfate up to the amounts previously mentioned (3.6g/G), pushes the mash pH to undesirably low levels. Even if one were to add a lesser amount to the mash to reach the desired pH and then add the remainder to the kettle, wouldn't this amount of calcium have a detrimental effect on the boil pH and resulting wort pH? I'm trying to make sense out of adding that much calcium at any point in the process.

 

[ianmatth]

My mash pH was fine. I actually had to add 1% acidulated malt on top of that to get it down to 5.3. Your water must be a really low pH or maybe Bru'n water is calculating incorrectly. Try http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/ and see if you get the same result. I personally found it much easier to work with as well. Even if your pH is as low as 5.1, that is probably fine. Of course a properly calibrated pH will tell you what your pH really is.

 

[carvetop]

My mash pH was fine. I actually had to add 1% acidulated malt on top of that to get it down to 5.3. Your water must be a really low pH or maybe Bru'n water is calculating incorrectly. Try http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/ and see if you get the same result. I personally found it much easier to work with as well. Even if your pH is as low as 5.1, that is probably fine. Of course a properly calibrated pH will tell you what your pH really is.

Using the exact same input parameters for both programs gives me completely different outputs. Clearly user error. Just not sure where I'm going wrong. Brewer's Friend is predicting a much higher mash pH than Bru'n Water.

 

[ianmatth]

Get a pH meter and see what the pH actually is.

 

[carvetop]

The next logical step. The difference is bothering me though.

 

[mabrungard]

Another question for Martin if you're still tuned in... Plugging the grain bill for a 5.5G batch into Bru'n Water and dialing the Calcium Sulfate up to the amounts previously mentioned (3.6g/G), pushes the mash pH to undesirably low levels. Even if one were to add a lesser amount to the mash to reach the desired pH and then add the remainder to the kettle, wouldn't this amount of calcium have a detrimental effect on the boil pH and resulting wort pH? I'm trying to make sense out of adding that much calcium at any point in the process.

Yes, you can't avoid the pH lowering effect of adding calcium to wort, whether its in the mash or in the kettle. Sure, you can reserve some calcium from the mash and produce a decent pH in the tun, but when you add the rest of the calcium to boost the sulfate level, the kettle wort pH will be reduced. In a hoppy beer, that can take the edge off the bittering and hop expression.

If you are adding a bunch of gypsum to reach a high sulfate target and your starting water doesn't have much alkalinity, it can depress the mash or kettle pH below the desirable hoppy beer target of about 5.4. Adding a bit of lime or baking soda can correct that.

 

[carvetop]

Yes, you can't avoid the pH lowering effect of adding calcium to wort, whether its in the mash or in the kettle. Sure, you can reserve some calcium from the mash and produce a decent pH in the tun, but when you add the rest of the calcium to boost the sulfate level, the kettle wort pH will be reduced. In a hoppy beer, that can take the edge off the bittering and hop expression.

If you are adding a bunch of gypsum to reach a high sulfate target and your starting water doesn't have much alkalinity, it can depress the mash or kettle pH below the desirable hoppy beer target of about 5.4. Adding a bit of lime or baking soda can correct that.

Thanks for the reply, Martin. Any insight as to why I'm getting wildly different results when inputting the exact same parameters into both Bru'n Water and Brewer's Friend? I do have a pH meter on order but the difference in predicted mash pH between the two has me completely stumped. I generally use Bru'n Water as my go-to but was double checking results with Brewer's Friend and was caught off guard. I'll spare the input details as I assume they're arbitrary given that they are consistent between programs?

 

[g-star]

Reviving an old topic, but thought some might be interested to see lab results obtained for a clone attempt using a recipe put together from the most current information in this thread. All things considered, I'd say it's pretty close...my results are in red.

pH - 4.3, 4.35
TDS - 1584, 1444
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm - 2.64, 2.20
Cations/Anions, me/L - 36.6/20.6**, 31.5/19.3

ppm
Sodium, Na - 25, 35
Potassium, K - 802, 740
Calcium, Ca - 110, 87
Magnesium, Mg - 113, 82
Total Hardness, CaCO3 - 746, 553
Nitrate, NO3-N - 17.6, 14
Sulfate, SO4-S - 156, 181
Chloride, Cl - 339, 282
Carbonate, CO3 - <1.0, < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 - <1, < 1
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 - <1, <1
Total Phosphorus, P - 278.10, 374
Total Iron, Fe - 0.37, < 0.1

 

[The_Glue]

Reviving an old topic, but thought some might be interested to see lab results obtained for a clone attempt using a recipe put together from the most current information in this thread. All things considered, I'd say it's pretty close...my results are in red.

pH - 4.3, 4.35
TDS - 1584, 1444
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm - 2.64, 2.20
Cations/Anions, me/L - 36.6/20.6**, 31.5/19.3

ppm
Sodium, Na - 25, 35
Potassium, K - 802, 740
Calcium, Ca - 110, 87
Magnesium, Mg - 113, 82
Total Hardness, CaCO3 - 746, 553
Nitrate, NO3-N - 17.6, 14
Sulfate, SO4-S - 156, 181
Chloride, Cl - 339, 282
Carbonate, CO3 - <1.0, < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 - <1, < 1
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 - <1, <1
Total Phosphorus, P - 278.10, 374
Total Iron, Fe - 0.37, < 0.1

Awesome! There are some interesting numbers there like the huge Mg amounts and having both the SO4 and Cl2 quite high. Also the Potassium and the Phosporus. Are those came from the malt?
What was your base water like?

 

[g-star]

Yes, there is a big contribution of ions from the malt, see Martin's post earlier in this thread.

My starting water is given below; I used 22g of CaSO4 in 4.77 gal of strike water. I did not adjust the sparge water at all. My mash pH was 5.2 and my pre-boil kettle pH was 5.1.

Vital specs:

OG - 1.074
FG - 1.014
IBU - 120
Yeast - ECY29
Batch size - 5.25gal. All carbon-filtered water

Ca - 22
Mg - 6
K - 2
Na - 20
Cl - 35
SO4 - 13
HCO3 - 68

 

[Jeffh97]

Yes, there is a big contribution of ions from the malt, see Martin's post earlier in this thread.

My starting water is given below; I used 22g of CaSO4 in 4.77 gal of strike water. I did not adjust the sparge water at all. My mash pH was 5.2 and my pre-boil kettle pH was 5.1.

Vital specs:

OG - 1.074
FG - 1.014
IBU - 120
Yeast - ECY29
Batch size - 5.25gal. All carbon-filtered water

Ca - 22
Mg - 6
K - 2
Na - 20
Cl - 35
SO4 - 13
HCO3 - 68

So the Chloride levels increased with no Calcium Chloride addition?

 

[The_Glue]

Yes, there is a big contribution of ions from the malt, see Martin's post earlier in this thread.

My starting water is given below; I used 22g of CaSO4 in 4.77 gal of strike water. I did not adjust the sparge water at all. My mash pH was 5.2 and my pre-boil kettle pH was 5.1.

Vital specs:

OG - 1.074
FG - 1.014
IBU - 120
Yeast - ECY29
Batch size - 5.25gal. All carbon-filtered water

Ca - 22
Mg - 6
K - 2
Na - 20
Cl - 35
SO4 - 13
HCO3 - 68

I plugged your numbers into Bru'n Water and 22g CaSO4 into ~5gal seems high. The water ended up with ~200 Ca and ~500 SO4, are you sure you added that much CaSO4?

 

[g-star]

So the Chloride levels increased with no Calcium Chloride addition?

Yes, the malt is a big contributor of chloride. See post #18 in this thread.

 

[g-star]

I plugged your numbers into Bru'n Water and 22g CaSO4 into ~5gal seems high. The water ended up with ~200 Ca and ~500 SO4, are you sure you added that much CaSO4?

Yes, I'm positive. 22g CaSO4-2H2O in 4.77gal of strike water is equivalent to 299ppm Ca or 748ppm as CaCO3. I was shooting for 750ppm calcium hardness in the mash, per the screen shot of the brew sheet.

Keep in mind my sparge water (~ 4.5gal) was untreated, so the final ion concentrations in the boil were ultimately about half of what was in the mash. However, it is clear from the results that malt adds back some anions and cations, namely K+, Mg+, Cl-, and SO42-

 

[The_Glue]

Keep in mind my sparge water (~ 4.5gal) was untreated, so the final ion concentrations in the boil were ultimately about half of what was in the mash.

Yeah but if you boiled away most of your sparge water (if it as a 5gal batch) then your final water profile was even harder than your mash water cause the water evaporates but it leaves the salts behind like when you distill stuff.
So if your brewing water was around 500ppm SO4 i don't know how it could go down to 180ppm in the final beer.

 

[carvetop]

Yeah but if you boiled away most of your sparge water (if it as a 5gal batch) then your final water profile was even harder than your mash water cause the water evaporates but it leaves the salts behind like when you distill stuff.
So if your brewing water was around 500ppm SO4 i don't know how it could go down to 180ppm in the final beer.

Again, keep in mind that in the format that Ward Labs reports SO4-S, the number is multiplied by 3 to get the resulting concentration in ppm.

 

[carvetop]

Reviving an old topic, but thought some might be interested to see lab results obtained for a clone attempt using a recipe put together from the most current information in this thread. All things considered, I'd say it's pretty close...my results are in red.

pH - 4.3, 4.35
TDS - 1584, 1444
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm - 2.64, 2.20
Cations/Anions, me/L - 36.6/20.6**, 31.5/19.3

ppm
Sodium, Na - 25, 35
Potassium, K - 802, 740
Calcium, Ca - 110, 87
Magnesium, Mg - 113, 82
Total Hardness, CaCO3 - 746, 553
Nitrate, NO3-N - 17.6, 14
Sulfate, SO4-S - 156, 181
Chloride, Cl - 339, 282
Carbonate, CO3 - <1.0, < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 - <1, < 1
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 - <1, <1
Total Phosphorus, P - 278.10, 374
Total Iron, Fe - 0.37, < 0.1

Thanks for the post. Looks like you were indeed pretty darn close. Speculating here but perhaps of bit of CaCl2 would've gotten you right on the money.

 

[The_Glue]

Again, keep in mind that in the format that Ward Labs reports SO4-S, the number is multiplied by 3 to get the resulting concentration in ppm.

Thanks, mistery solved!

 

[GotPushrods]

So from my limited water knowledge, that is a high level of magnesium and chloride. In Bru'n water, the Mg limit is 30 ppm and the chloride limit is 100 and he's tripling those. Also surprised the sulfate is so low. Who wants to brew it with this profile?

This is the analysis of FINISHED beer. Malt adds a lot of minerals. They are trying to reverse engineer the profile of the brewing water.

Also, 350+ ppm sulfate is not a small number. Ward reports the mass of the sulfur atom only, multiply by 3 to get sulfate.

 

[g-star]

Yes, it should be stressed that the analysis is on the BEER, not the starting water.

Malt adds a ton of minerals - I started with 5ppm Mg and ended up with 82ppm with no Mg salt additions. K went from 2 to 740.

The take-away here is that the Alchemist is adding a relatively large amount of gypsum to their mash water, which is initially low in mineral content. This has the dual effect of aggressively driving down RA so that the mash, boil, and final beer pH are on the low end of normal ranges, and ending with high finishing SO4 values, which as we all know compliments hoppy beers well.

 

[Hujo]

I think it's worth to mention that in that long q&a with kimmich he says that their final runnings are of quite high gravity, which translates to less sparging and therefor higher mineral concentration from the malt, which would affect your mineral additions.

 

[kchomebrew]

Surprised nobody has gone and purchased an iDip and done some testing on all of this. As much as everyone keeps tweaking and trying different methods, it would be great to see the impact of water treatment profiles on final readings vs. what the known final readings from the HT ward labs read out is. Hmm good idea. I'll go buy one.

 

[agrazela]

Interesting thread necro here. Surprised I haven't seen this thread before.

If you look at the conversation in posts ~42-50, it looks like g-star is adding enough gypsum to get calcium levels around 300-350ppm, and sulfate levels around 700-750ppm. Yet in his finished beer the calcium level is 87ppm and the sulfate level is ~540ppm (~180*3). And if we are to believe the evidence, the Alchemist is doing something similar with Heady Topper and getting similar final results. So where did the missing calcium and sulfate go? Did the yeast take it up? Did it precipitate out at some point, perhaps some sort of complex with phosphates or proteins from the grains?

If g-star had added "normal" hoppy IPA gypsum levels, like to get to ~150ppm Ca++ / ~300ppm SO4--, then would the final calcium and sulfate levels be proportionately lower? Or would they not because of the aforementioned possibility that excess levels simply precipitate/complex out?

Also it seems clear throughout this thread that the grains are adding large loads of potassium (>700ppm added), chloride (>200ppm added) and magnesium (>70ppm added). Now I don't know what potassium is or isn't supposed to do in brewing (anyone?), but according to the water chemistry lore we're supposed to keep chloride in check in our hoppy brews to keep the sulfate:chloride ratio up, and we're always supposed to keep our magnesium in check for reasons that are not fully clear to me (laxation?). So how have we been doing that? By cutting (or totally replacing) our tap water with RO or DI water. But if the grains are adding these kind of ion loads, then why bother? These chloride and magnesium levels are dwarfing anything anybody's tap water is going to add. And if we are in fact adding that much chloride from grains, then maybe we MUST add that huge load of gypsum to keep the sulfate level up where it needs to be?

Or again, does a lot of the excess calcium and sulfate eventually precipitate out, and its only real purpose is to get mash pH where we want it?

Is all this stuff already well-known and in some book(s) somewhere? Or is this some super-secret that only world-class IPA makers know about?

I think it may answer one lingering question I've always had...how did San Diego become such an IPA capitol, when our water is so hard and high in minerals, and apparently terrible for IPA's? Maybe because it doesn't really matter as much as we thought?

I do know my next hoppy brew is gonna be all-crappy San Diego tap water (instead of my normal 80-90% dilution with RO) with the chloramines taken out with metabite, with a big, big load of gypsum (2-3x what I normally add) to get calcium and sulfate levels like HT or g-star's and to put mash pH where I want it (~5.2-5.3). Be interesting to see what that does for me.

 

[carvetop]

Interesting thread necro here. Surprised I haven't seen this thread before.

If you look at the conversation in posts ~42-50, it looks like g-star is adding enough gypsum to get calcium levels around 300-350ppm, and sulfate levels around 700-750ppm. Yet in his finished beer the calcium level is 87ppm and the sulfate level is ~540ppm (~180*3). And if we are to believe the evidence, the Alchemist is doing something similar with Heady Topper and getting similar final results. So where did the missing calcium and sulfate go? Did the yeast take it up? Did it precipitate out at some point, perhaps some sort of complex with phosphates or proteins from the grains?

If g-star had added "normal" hoppy IPA gypsum levels, like to get to ~150ppm Ca++ / ~300ppm SO4--, then would the final calcium and sulfate levels be proportionately lower? Or would they not because of the aforementioned possibility that excess levels simply precipitate/complex out?

Also it seems clear throughout this thread that the grains are adding large loads of potassium (>700ppm added), chloride (>200ppm added) and magnesium (>70ppm added). Now I don't know what potassium is or isn't supposed to do in brewing (anyone?), but according to the water chemistry lore we're supposed to keep chloride in check in our hoppy brews to keep the sulfate:chloride ratio up, and we're always supposed to keep our magnesium in check for reasons that are not fully clear to me (laxation?). So how have we been doing that? By cutting (or totally replacing) our tap water with RO or DI water. But if the grains are adding these kind of ion loads, then why bother? These chloride and magnesium levels are dwarfing anything anybody's tap water is going to add. And if we are in fact adding that much chloride from grains, then maybe we MUST add that huge load of gypsum to keep the sulfate level up where it needs to be?

Or again, does a lot of the excess calcium and sulfate eventually precipitate out, and its only real purpose is to get mash pH where we want it?

Is all this stuff already well-known and in some book(s) somewhere? Or is this some super-secret that only world-class IPA makers know about?

I think it may answer one lingering question I've always had...how did San Diego become such an IPA capitol, when our water is so hard and high in minerals, and apparently terrible for IPA's? Maybe because it doesn't really matter as much as we thought?

I do know my next hoppy brew is gonna be all-crappy San Diego tap water (instead of my normal 80-90% dilution with RO) with the chloramines taken out with metabite, with a big, big load of gypsum (2-3x what I normally add) to get calcium and sulfate levels like HT or g-star's and to put mash pH where I want it (~5.2-5.3). Be interesting to see what that does for me.

Some good questions being asked here. Perhaps the resident water experts will weigh in on these concerns because I have nothing of value to offer. Martin? AJ?

 

[agrazela]

Another thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=585320

Got me to thinking that the "missing sulfate" (i.e., ~700-750ppm before, ~540ppm after, ~25% reduction) could largely have simply been lost to water not extracted from the grains. But the majority of the calcium loss (i.e., ~300-350ppm before, 87ppm after, ~73% loss) must have another explanation, I am guessing precipitation with phosphates from the grain (maybe the calcium phosphates actually stay in the grains once complexed?)--maybe also something going on with yeast flocculation.

Does have me thinking, if we need to have high sulfate:chloride ratio, not just at the start but also in the finished beer, to get that good hoppiness...I guess then we do have to use obscenely high levels of gypsum. Maybe this is what my IPA's have been missing?

And I'm still thinking that with all the magnesium and chloride being apparently leached out of the grains...to heck with wasting quarters at the RO machine! Especially with all that gypsum now helping reduce pH in my high-bicarbonate tap water.

I also would certainly appreciate the perspective of the water gurus.

 

[g-star]

The mash Ca level is eventually diluted approximately 1/2 after sparging with untreated water. I believe it is further reduced by precipitation with malt phosphates (desired reaction to drive down RA) and possibly with oxalate (beer stone).

The amount of SO42- found in the finished beer is higher than can be accounted for by the gypsum addition alone, thus the malt must be contributing a few hundred ppm.

Finally, it is clear that malt adds a lot of chloride. It drives me nuts when I see the hand-wringing of some people expecting to find taste/mouthfeel differences changing chloride from 100 to 150ppm in their brewing liquor (see the myriad NE IPA threads).