New Home, New Water

[troglodytes]

So I finally got around to submitting a sample to Ward Labs to finally have my home water profile. I feel like we got very lucky as the results are appear to be a good base for most all beers as much as I can tell. The highlights are:

pH - 7.8
Ca - 18
Mg - 2
Na - 46
Bicarbonate - 29
Carbonate - .5
Sulfate - 15
Cl - 68
K - 2
Nitrate - 1.3
Total Alkalinity - 24

I know there are some experts here, so I'd just like to verify that this is indeed a great base to start with, and there really should be no reason to dilute with RO, correct?

Also, I am about to brew a Westy 12 clone and when comparing my profile to one's like Chimay I see that my Sodium & Chloride are a little high and my Calcium & Bicarbonate are low . I was going to ignore those differences as they are not stark contrasts (other than Bicarbonate). I should focus on mash pH and trust that my water profile is decent for a Belgian as is, correct?

 

[stpug]

If that sulfate is SO4-S then it needs 3x value (i.e. 15x3=45mg/l) in a spreadsheet like Bru'N Water.

Great water (from my novice perspective) - you are correct! No need to dilute with RO for nearly any style.

 

[troglodytes]

Nope, I've already done the conversion for the Sulfate. Direct Ward results were 5ppm which I multiplied by 3 already.

Thanks for the confirmation. I'm going to be taking the RO filter off my Amazon shopping list after getting these results.

Edit: BTW pug, I love how you consider yourself a "novice."

 

[stpug]

I AM a novice. Jack of all trades, master of none .

Even better about the sulfate only being 15mg/l since it gives you some room to up your calcium with gypsum without pushing sulfate levels too high. A calcium level of 40 or above is ideal for yeast flocculation/sedimentation which might mean you're adding small amounts of gypsum to most beer styles. Calcium carbonate might be another option if you aim to not increase your sulfate level.

 

[troglodytes]

That's exactly what I need to play around with. I was looking into increasing the calcium with gypsum since my sulfates are lower than my chloride. But sulfate increases at a faster rate than calcium does, so 2g of gypsum into my mash water would bring calcium to 40ppm and my sulfate would be up in the 65ppm range. The result would be a 1:1 sulfate to chloride ratio and 40ppm of calcium. Hopefully that's good for a belgian quad.

I'm excited for my first pale ale or IPA where I can really experiment with sulfate and chloride levels to see what I can get out of a hoppy beer.

 

[stpug]

Yes, you appear to be at a good starting point in regards to water. Plenty of leeway to go this way or that.

I would caution against using a sulfate:chloride ratio to be meaningful in any way (I never think the word 'ratio' when developing my water profiles for beers). Rather, I would recommend thinking about the water from a "How mineralized is it?" aspect, and "In what way is it mineralized?" and "What beers styles is that good for?". This kind of thinking will have you paying more attention to various magnesium, sulfate, chloride, alkalinity, pH levels of various beer styles, and less about some arbitrary ratio of sulfate to chloride. Just my opinion though.

 

[troglodytes]

Agreed, but one thing I've noticed about the famous belgian water profiles is that they all have low levels of both sulfate and chloride (with a ratio of about 1 to 1). I'm not entirely sure how to get calcium into a beer without raising one or the other to the mid 60s (ppm) due to the effect of gypsum and/or CaCl. I could use chalk but with a very light grain bill I would be using either lactic or acid malt to lower pH which I thought was something you aren't supposed to do when using chalk.

 

[stpug]

My understanding is that you need to use famous beer brewing regions water profiles very carefully (read: mostly ignore them) because we have very little to no data on how a brewery in that region might treat that water. They may perform any number of treatments on the water that they want to, and are obligated to tell no one. A person starting off with water adjustments would be wise to use Bru'N Water's color-fullness water profiles (e.g. Yellow-full, Yellow-balanced, Amber-dry, etc) over any brewing cities water values - they are much more robust for numerous beer styles and leave plenty of room for tweaking without putting you too far down one road.

As for belgian beers, I would personally start with modest mineralization of equal levels chloride and sulfate (as you already said), and adjust future batches as I felt fit after tasting the results. If it's a malt-oriented, full body style then perhaps a little higher on chloride would be good; if it's a balanced, not bitter, not sweet, not dry then maybe equal levels; if it's a dry, maybe lightly bitter style then a little more sulfate to chloride. I think I would aim to have my chloride levels in the 60-90 range and sulfate in the 60-120 range for most styles; and in your case you'll want to think about magnesium as well (probably in the 10-20 range).

Chalk, I've never used, but have read a bit about. Everything I've read is that it is VERY hard to get dissolved into the brewing water AND requires the use of co2 for dissolving. I might be wrong about the next bit, but I think calcium carbonate can be used to increase hardness and add additional calcium without pushing sulfate or chloride any higher; and is easier to dissolve than chalk. Again, these are adjustments I don't have to make to my water so something I've not invested a whole lot of time understanding the intricacies of.

 

[ajdelange]

Agreed, but one thing I've noticed about the famous belgian water profiles is that they all have low levels of both sulfate and chloride (with a ratio of about 1 to 1). I'm not entirely sure how to get calcium into a beer without raising one or the other to the mid 60s (ppm) due to the effect of gypsum and/or CaCl. I could use chalk but with a very light grain bill I would be using either lactic or acid malt to lower pH which I thought was something you aren't supposed to do when using chalk.

You can't have just calcium. It has to be calcium something_ate or _ide or _ite. In natural water it comes to you as the bicarbonate which carries alkalinity with it. Neutralizing the alkalinity with acid replaces the bicarbonate with the _ate or _ide of the acid used. The usual replacements are sulfate, chloride, lactate, or biphosphate. Other possibilities are citrate and tartrate.

 

[troglodytes]

That makes sense, I was hoping you and/or Martin would weight in as the experts.

I think I was getting hung up on specific water profiles and seeing the low sulfate or chloride levels of Achouffe or Chimay, and becoming unnecessarily worried that a sulfate level of 60 ppm would create a poor version of the style. I think I'm getting that that number by itself at these low levels are a little meaningless and I shouldn't be attempting to create an exact clone of that local water profile.

I think its time for me to pick up and read Water

EDIT: Since there's already a conversation going, I don't want to start a new topic. Just one question about beers that get their color from other means that dark grains. The Westy clone I'm going to do is the old world version with only Pale malt and Pilsen. The color comes from a dark reduction and D180 candi sugar which all takes place in the boil not the mash. Ultimately you want your additions to be based on the finished product, not the color in the mash, correct? Because this would go from 10 SRM post mash to 30 SRM post boil.

 

[ajdelange]

Prediction of color from malt specs is difficult for the reasons you mention. Thus control of color by varying the ingredients is done after the fact i.e. by adding a bit more or less of a highly colored ingredient according as to whether more or less color is wanted in a subsequent batch of beer. Trimming of color by blending batches or by adding farbebier (e.g. Sinamar) are also ways to adjust color. I discuss this at some length in the Color chapter in Bamforth's "Brewing Materials and Processes" but you will doubtless find the cost of a copy more than you want to spend. You could see how much they'll show you in the Amazon "Look Inside" feature.

 

[troglodytes]

I see that there is a hefty price tag on that book, maybe a little more than I can do, although I love reading up on this stuff.

The fact of the matter is, though, that if I'm making a beer that will finish at 30SRM and I want it to be more on the full side and geared more towards accentuating the malt over hops, I want my water profile to match that flavor/color profile regardless of what the wort looks like pre-boil. This would be the same for IPAs where gypsum can be added even post fermentation to give a boost to the apparent hoppiness. Am I understanding that correctly?

 

[troglodytes]

Instead of posting a new topic, I'll piggyback off of this one to ask a question about water additions and how they flow through my brewing equipment and process.

I've been using Brun water for my last 10 batches and really haven't had an issue until I tried high sulfate in an APA. the resulting beer was astringently dry, so I'm pretty sure I over did the additions.

In order to minimize water additions to the bare minimum to meet style/color optimization would it be reasonable to mash and sparge with just my tap water (see OP: Very Low Ca, Mg, & So4. Medium: Na, Cl) adjusting only pH with acid malt or lactic; and then adding my water additions to the pre-boil based on expected post-boil volume. Because of my tap profile, I only add Gypsum and Epsom salt as calcium chloride will push me Cl higher than I'm going to want it for nearly all styles I make.

Or, are the additions an absolutely necessary component for proper flavor, conversion, pH of the mash itself? I know Ca is said to improve conversion, but then again I also know I will be wasting about 3 gallons of my total water that never make it to the fermenter through grain absorption and losses. I just wasn't sure if treating that "lost water" is necessary.

 

[Yooper]

Think of those salts as just that- "salt", for seasoning.

It's true that 40ppm of calcium or more helps prevent beerstone, but it's not crucial to the conversion or any other part of the mash.

Using some calcium sulfate (gypsum) and/or calcium chloride can help lower pH a tad, so I use it in the mash and don't usually need any acid in the mash to hit my desired mash pH, but it won't bring it down a lot.

I never use epsom salt, because I use calcium sulfate for my sulfate additions but you can if your calcium is high enough and you want to add it.

 

[ajdelange]

pH - 7.8
Bicarbonate - 29
Carbonate - .5
Total Alkalinity - 24

There is something fishy here. Ward Labs does not calculate bicarbonate and carbonate correctly (the correct valued for pH 7.9 and alkalinity of 24 are bicarbonate 26.8, carbonate 0.08. By but even by their procedure they should be reporting carbonate as 0.

 

[dyqik]

By the way, if you are in Boston itself on MWRA water, you can get complete water reports for the MWRA system monthly from the MWRA website at http://www.mwra.com/monthly/wqupdate/qual3wq.htm Page 9 of each of the monthly reports. Mineral analysis is run quarterly, but some measurements are monthly (blue in the reports that aren't on the quarter months). Some towns use a mix of MWRA water and local water though.

That gives somewhat lower mineral content than your report above (about 2/3rds for most minerals) at the output of the Carroll water treatment plant that feeds most of Boston, but about the same proportions.

Oh yeah, and if you didn't already know, the MWRA system does use chloramine, at about 2.5 mg/L free chlorine. Use Campden appropriately.

 

[troglodytes]

We actually moved up to ipswich so we have our own water supply. That's why I really wanted to see what was in the water. According to the report I got from ward it looks great for everything I like to make with only gypsum really needed for those hoppy beers.

AJ, the suspicious carb/bicarbonate number; are the expected results vs the report I got from ward within a margin of error code pretty close. I have all of the numbers in my original post entered into bru'n water, should they be adjusted or is the difference between a bicarbonate number of 26.8 vs 29 close enough?

Edit:I just realized my ward lab report for carbonate read 0 essentially. I was the one who mistakenly entered .5

 

[ajdelange]

That sounds better but even were it not the case no compensation would be required for a couple mg/L one way or the other.