NE IPA Water Chemistry

[mrodrigues9]

Using Bru'n Water and adjusting my water for the first time ever

shooting for
116ppm Calcium
75ppm Sulfate
150ppm Chloride

My additions are as follow
Gypsum 3.2g to mash and 1.2 to sparge
Calcium Chloride 5.5g to mash and 2.1 to sparge
Baking Soda .7g to mash only (this is only if needed to bring Mash PH up to 5.4

Does anything look out of line here?

 

[thehaze]

No need to add Baking Soda. What's your starting water profile and alkalinity?

The water additions and mash water look OK. You'll know what and which adjustments suit your taste after a few batches. I for one, don't like high Ca in combination with high Cl.

 

[mrodrigues9]

I am starting with distilled water as I haven't done a water report, only reason I was thinking of using the baking soda was to increase the PH to 5.4 as I read somewhere that this is optimal. Is there anything else I can add to increase PH but not effect the other numbers I guess I could use pickling salt as well but was trying to save $ and use something I have lying around already. What about the High Ca and high Cl did you not like?

 

[thehaze]

I know what Baking soda does, but without measuring the pH, you will not know if you really need to add it or not. Do you know your starting water pH? I wouldn't just add stuff if I didn't know the pH and put all additions through a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are not accurate, but they are better than nothing.

High Ca and high Cl levels lead to chalkiness, which I've encountered in commercial and homebrewed examples of NEIPAs.

 

[mrodrigues9]

I am using the Bru'n Water spreadsheet, and will use bottles of distilled water so it should pretty much have nothing in it and a starting PH around 7

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

In my opinion most NEIPA recipes require mash water acidification to achieve a mash pH of 5.4, and not baking soda.

Grains like base malt, flaked oats, and wheat malt are all "effectively" basic with respect to pH 5.4. Of the ingredients typically found in an NEIPA grist, only Caramel/Crystal malt is acidic with respect to a mash pH 5.4, and very little of this malt is added to an NEIPA.

It is my opinion BW has serious problem issues with the mashes water to grist ratio, and for lower water to grist ratios it (in my opinion) gives grossly false low mash pH output advice. Try varying the water to grist ratio upward and downward for the case of distilled water to see this for yourself.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

Here is the treated RO water profile I use when brewing a NEIPA recipe. It's taken from an article Martin Brungard published in Zymurgy magazine a year or so ago. After getting positive feedback from those I shared the beer with I've been using this profile all the time now. The properties below are for a (10-gallon/37.854-liter) batch I've brewed at least five or six times.

(ezRecipe v2.01)

 

[ajdelange]

Without knowing what grains you are using and what your source water looks like it is impossible to say what additions you may need to make. Don't take targets too seriously but yours is not unreasonable.

If using Bru'n water be sure to check it against at least one and preferably a couple of other spreadsheets as it sometimes comes in with wild pH predictions which it then has you correct with unneeded acid or bicarbonate.