Help with water adjustments

[ColoradoJon]

Hello all -

Looking for a bit of guidance on water adjustments. I brew all grain, usually kits ordered from Austin Home Brew, in 5 gallon batches. I use well water (Colorado) that I have had tested, and adjust it using Bru'n Water spreadsheet. I do not adjust or test pH, but depend on calculations from the spreadsheet.

I am very precise in my brewing process and sanitization is not an issue.

My beers have always had a strange 'off' flavor, but some have been excellent. Since I tested my water and have been adjusting it they have really improved dramatically. But I still get a strange flavor that is very hard to describe. My wife describes it as 'flowery'.

I have spent several years working through this issue and have determined that my water is the culprit. If I use store bought water my beers rarely have the flavor. So... my water tested with the following:

Ca: 52
Mg: 6.4
Na: 7.9
K: 3.6 (potassium)
Fe: 0
HCO3: 146 (bicarbonate)
CO3: 2.2 (carbonate)
SO4: 16 (sulfate)
CL: 5.3 (chloride)
NO3: 17 (nitrate)
NO2: 0.1 (nitrite)
Alkalinity as CaCO3: 130
Estimated pH: 8.5

I can drastically change the flavor by adjusting the water but my problem is I do not know what a good 'baseline' is. I brew mainly pale or amber lagers, and have been using the same beer (a Harp clone) for adjustment tests. I am unsure which salts to modify and how they affect flavor, in relation to each other. I have adjusted my pale lager profile as follows, which has improved the flavor quite a bit:

Ca: 107
Mg: 6.4
Na: 7.9
SO4: 75
CL: 60
HCO3: 2.8
SO4/CL Ratio: 1.2
Estimated mash pH: 5.33
Residual Alkalinity: -78
Alkalinity: 2
Total hardness: 295

What I am trying to figure out is - are any of these numbers out of line? Is there something I need to pay more attention to, like RA and hardness?

Any help would be appreciated!

~CJ

 

[ajdelange]

There is no baseline. Beers have been brewed with the water available for years and water available has had a major influence on those styles. If you think about it for a minute your question is sort of akin to "What should I put on a pizza to make a good pizza?" People will give you lots of diverse answers to that question and they'll all be right because they like the pizzas but that doesn't mean you will or that you will like them all equally well.

Looking at your numbers the only thing that stands out is that the water is pretty hard and that's quite a bit of sulfate for many lagers but then many other lagers are made with water that minerally.

My usual suggestion is to start with very low mineral water (RO, DI) supplemented with enough calcium chloride to keep the beer from tasting thin and to work up from there. You will have to experiment just as you would with the pizzas.

Final note 'flowery' I'd translate to 'floral' and that would usually be associated with hops so I'd try using different cultivars.

 

[mabrungard]

I'm with AJ on this one. I would not target sulfate or chloride levels as high as shown above for a light lager like Harp. Less is More in that case. I would reduce each of those levels to about half that shown above.

 

[ColoradoJon]

Thank you for the responses, they are exactly what I was looking for. I was not sure if my sulfate/chloride levels should be that high. Those higher levels have been adjusted by me. The source water is 16ppm sulfate and 5.3 chloride. Incidentally the higher levels produced the best tasting Harp clone. I did a test batch with much lower levels (30 sulfate and 26 chloride) and the off flavor seemed really thin and seemed to accentuate the odd off flavor. I'm not sure why.

I do have to add acid to bring down alkalinity and to get the pH in the correct range. I'm not sure if that is a contributing factor.

The comment about the hops is helpful. I had a suspicion. And now I'm craving a pizza.

Again, thanks!

~CJ

EDIT - correction to acid addition