Help with water similar to Munich (dunkel)

[rhys333]

Hey everyone,

I'm trying to figure out why the water calculators tell me I need to add acid to my water for a dunkelweizen. Compared with the Munich profile, my water is not all that far off: slightly softer, similar in Na and Cl, higher in sulphate, and, importantly, lower in alkalinity.

I brewed my dunkel, adding the prescribed amount of lactic acid as well as some calcium chloride to up the hardness and balance the sulphate. Its a very nice beer and i'm happy with it, though I do detect the slightest tartness that may be due to the acid addition.

I guess I'm puzzled why acid is needed for a dunkel with my water. I included appropriate amounts of dark malt for the style, so in theory I should be on target without any acid. I appreciate if you folks can help me understand why EZ Water might be telling me to add acid. I'm posting my water profile below, as well as Munich's for quick reference. Thanks in advance.

Ca, Mg, Na, Cl, S, HCO3
45, 13, 10, 5, 63, 146 My water
75, 20, 10, 2, 10, 200 Munich

 

[Hermit]

Check out the water primer. They guys in Munich may well be using acid malt to get the desired results. They may not be brewing with the published water profile. The mash profile needs a certain pH range. Period. If you don't measure that you are only guessing. Also, try other calculators for comparison.

 

[GotPushrods]

The problem here is assuming that matching a profile is somehow related to getting correct mash pH.

Just because we know a water profile doesn't mean we know what those brewers actually do to their water. Most brewers around the world STILL have to add acid for most beers. It might be fun to research and match a historical profile, but brewers are finally starting to realize why this is unnecessary and counterproductive in many cases.

If a brewer in Munich starts with moderate alkalinity water, then adds acid... why would you go to the work of adding alkalinity, and then erasing that work with acid? Don't add the alkalinity to begin with.

In most cases, starting with low hardness and alkalinity, adjusting mash pH with acid, and getting the flavor ions close-ish (chloride, sulfate, sodium) will be a great starting point.

 

[ajdelange]

A lot depends on what you mean by 'appropriate' amounts of dark malt and the nature of that malt. As a simple example if you used 10% Weyermanns 600L chocolate with 90% Weyermanns pneumatic Pils with your water at 1.2 qts/lb then the expected mash pH would be 5.54. If OTOH, you used 15% of the black malt the expected pH would be 5.47. Use different amounts of different malts with different characteristics and you will get different answers. Note that in either of the two examples here one might want to use some acid if a pH below 5.4, for example, were desired. Note that even were the water decarbonated to to the typical level of 50 ppm as CaCO3 (it is widely assumed that the Munich breweries did this at least for their Helles) the pH in the 15% case would only drop to 5.41. It is this apparent that even for dark beers some acid is sometimes necessary.

Now none of the spreadsheets (that I am aware of) use the techniques I have used in these examples which I am able to do only because I have detailed models of the performance of those two example malts. Nonetheless they derive the information which I took from detailed measurements from cruder measurements or sometimes even from just color. IOW they are models (as is the case with the detailed stuff - it's a more sophisticated model but a model nevertheless). As such the answer you get depends on the model. The reason EZ wants you to add acid and Bru'n might well want you to add base is because they use different models.

 

[rhys333]

Thank you for the detailed replies everyone. For whatever reason I hadn't considered acid malt, which brewers must have been using for centuries to control the mash. In my confusion, I was assuming they were limited to starting water profile + dark malts as a way of controlling pH.

Curious now though... historically, would they make use of acids/vinegars as well to help bring mash in line? I'm assuming purified lactic acid wasn't available 300+ years ago.

 

[Hermit]

Brewmakers used to throw all kinds of crap into their beers. This is the reason for the German purity laws. It is postulated that the introduction of glassware, especially when it became available to the masses, drove the demand for clear beers partly in response to the widespread adulteration. Acid malt was a way to stay within the purity laws.

 

[rhys333]

Brewmakers used to throw all kinds of crap into their beers. This is the reason for the German purity laws. It is postulated that the introduction of glassware, especially when it became available to the masses, drove the demand for clear beers partly in response to the widespread adulteration. Acid malt was a way to stay within the purity laws.

What about the Brits, Irish and others though? Historically, were they relying on a form of acid malt as well, something different, or did the grain bills alone balance the mash pH?

 

[ajdelange]

What they didn't have for certain 300 yrs ago is pH meters.

As we noted in #4 you don't necessarily need acid to make either light or dark beers from Munich like water but some acid might very well improve things. Without knowing the history of brewing in Munich we can surmise a few things. In the early days there was no such thing as pale malt. That didn't come till later. So there were no pale beers. The big push for them came after the development of the Czech glass factories such that beer could actually be seen as well as tasted. It was a combination of the pale malts and the clear glassware that made the Plzen beer so popular throughout Europe. I do recall enough history to remember that Helles was developed to compete with Pils. Decarbonated water and acid in the beer would both nudge the beer in the direction of better. I'll guess that the discovery of the latter was by accident i.e. the processing of some beer got interrupted and not resumed until that mash had the opportunity to sour to some extent and the economical brewer used it anyway to discover that this batch was better than his average batch - or something of that sort.

Remember that Rheinheitsgebot dates from 1516 and that pH meters didn't come along until well into the 20th century so any acid that the old German or Bohemian brewers used would have had to have been natural. Bouth sauermalz and sauergut (wort that has been innoculated with lactobacilli) would qualify.

As for vinegars? English brewers would mix old, stale, vinegary ales in with their new production (the three threads) but I've never heard of German brewers doing this.

 

[rhys333]

Remember that Rheinheitsgebot dates from 1516 and that pH meters didn't come along until well into the 20th century so any acid that the old German or Bohemian brewers used would have had to have been natural. Bouth sauermalz and sauergut (wort that has been innoculated with lactobacilli) would qualify.

As for vinegars? English brewers would mix old, stale, vinegary ales in with their new production (the three threads) but I've never heard of German brewers doing this.

Okay, I think I have it. So sometimes mash pH can be controlled by malts alone, but when an acid was needed to prevent tannin extraction (i.e.: historically), they used acid malt or lactobacilli (central Europe) and stale beer (England)?

I've heard of English brewers mixing stale beer with new, but assumed it was for flavor modification. Would they have added the vinegary ale directly to the mash then? I'm trying to wrap my head around when/if/why pH modificafion was needed when beer styles, and the malts used, were carefully tailored to a regions water supply (Burton pale/bitter, London brown/porter). Sorry for all the questions. As I'm sure you can tell, I only know enough to be dangerous at this point.

 

[ajdelange]

Okay, I think I have it. So sometimes mash pH can be controlled by malts alone, but when an acid was needed to prevent tannin extraction (i.e.: historically), they used acid malt or lactobacilli (central Europe) and stale beer (England)?

Sour mash or sauegut was also used for mash pH control but I'm not sure to what extent that was done before modern instrumentation made it possible to measure pH. Rumor has it that Pilsner Urquel has used an overnight "acid rest" mash for years but that is just (to me at least) rumor. I wouldn't think that acidification of sparge water would have come along until brewing science became more robust, especially in German brewing where the ills of high sparge pH (phenol extraction) are cured by lagering. I don't think British brewers ever controlled mash pH by mixing in stale beer.

I've heard of English brewers mixing stale beer with new, but assumed it was for flavor modification. Would they have added the vinegary ale directly to the mash then?

No, I don't think so.

I'm trying to wrap my head around when/if/why pH modificafion was needed when beer styles, and the malts used, were carefully tailored to a regions water supply (Burton pale/bitter, London brown/porter).

The idea that London ales need dark malt to overcome the alkalinity of the water whereas the pale ales of the north do not because most of the hardness is permanent and that in Munich Helles is brewed with decarbonated water while Dunkles is an excellent pedagogical tool but I expect that it may not accurately reflect the historical truth. High kilned malts do supply acid and that acid does offset the alkalinity of the water and/or of the base malt certainly but proper beer results from a balancing act. The total acid, be it from dark malts, added acid, sauergut... must be enough to overcome the alkalinity of the water and the alkalinity of the base malt. Given that we don't have laboratory analyses for the malts the original brewers of these beers used (and that modern laboratory analyses don't provide the relevant information anyway) it is hard to give accurate answers to these questions.

Sorry for all the questions.

But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't ask them.

 

[rhys333]

Thanks ajdelange and others