Randy Mosher's Water Profiles by style

[ajdelange]

ajdelange
This all seems to make sense to me. Take a clean base, mineral free water, and adjust it to maximize the sweetness of the residual unfermentable malt sugars and then use hops to balance? Do you ever adjust the calcium chloride levels or do you stick with 1 tsp per 5 gallons regardless of doing an American Light Lager or a Barley Wine?

I do all kinds of bizarre things but I've been studying brewing water chemistry for over 20 years and have a pretty good feel for it. The recommendations I am making are my attempt to distill the whole 20 years down into something that a beginner or intermediate brewer could use that doesn't involve much if any calculation and which should get him a starting point from which he can step off to move towards something better than a baseline beer. If you have a decent beer to start with you should, by making small adjustments, eventually arrive at something that meets you individual requirements better.

BTW the adjustments I am advocating do not consider hopping or extract or hopping to extract ratios. They are designed to keep sulfate out of the equation where noble hops are used, put some in for styles where it is appropriate and, most importantly, control mash pH. The details of how you want the sulfate/hop interaction to go and where you want TE/IBU to fall is part of the tweaking you must do to get that perfect beer.

 

[Reelale]

I think people would find that more helpful than the back and forth we’ve been having.

Actually, taken as a whole, this discussion has proven very enlightening. Dialogue is good.

Sorry for at least I was trying to help and spur discussion.

But you did.

Here is the disconnect.

First, water is a secondary factor at best, maybe tertiary.

I think that is your opinion. My opinion is that water is very important, probably the most important consideration in a liquid beverage. You do make some very good points on authenticity.

Yeah, let's not reinvent anything, maybe just create a single repository on the HBT to find them and all cull out the ones that are inaccurate..

Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing this morning. Wouldn't it be nice to have one definitive, accurate (at least an accurate approximation), reliable source for information on water chemistry for homebrewers. I know it is a complicated subject and that I tend to oversimplify things that are not simple, but there should be a baseline such as Ajdelange offered on my water profile, and I thank him for that. I learned early on in my career that all models are wrong, some are useful.

I'm sure the first poster has moved on to another topic/forum for answers by now.

No still here, and learning.

Those that have less experience blindly follow along and put tablespoonsfulls of chalk in their stout.

I may have been blindly following, but I did use a gram scale.

This thread has been a real bargain.....I originally asked for Mosher's profiles for input into an apparently innaccurate model, and this dialogue was spawned. Sometimes a little off-topic, and sometimes a little ego, but very informative nonetheless. The truth is out there......

 

[Hermit]

Actually, taken as a whole, this discussion has proven very enlightening. Dialogue is good.

This thread has been a real bargain.....I originally asked for Mosher's profiles for input into an apparently innaccurate model, and this dialogue was spawned. Sometimes a little off-topic, and sometimes a little ego, but very informative nonetheless. The truth is out there......

AJ's method might seem overly simplistic, but I've been struggling with the various/competing/wrong models out there. Start with 'clean' water and one additive and go on from there.... Might not be a bad 'sticky' in the beginners forum. I think it would save folks a lot of false starts and let them start out with a basic understanding and probably improve their beer and therefore enjoyment of the hobby. It gives a base to build on in terms of understanding what the other components will do when it comes time for 'expansion'.

 

[slickfish]

Hi AJ,
I have been through a brief discussion with you before concerning my water. I believe the ion balance is slightly off. I was wondering if you would mind giving me some general addition amounts for general styles as you did earlier in this thread. Thanks
Report
Ca 7
Mg 1
Na 33
K 1
SO4-S 4
Cl 18
Carbonate CO3 <1
Bicarbonate HCO3 52
Total Alkalinity 43
Total Hardness CaCO3 22
Nitrate NO3-N 2.8 safe
pH 7.5

 

[Reelale]

Sure, go ahead...hijack my thread. I don't mind.

 

[slickfish]

Very nice of you

 

[jdieter]

Slickfish I think AJ has done that several times in several different places in this thread all ready. With your water being close to RO his advice for starting with RO and a tsp of calcium chloride would be good starting point I'd think. Use a meter to check your mash and acidic malt to set your pH if needed. If you want more hop presence add Ca and stay away from chalk.

 

[ajdelange]

Hi AJ,
I have been through a brief discussion with you before concerning my water. I believe the ion balance is slightly off. I was wondering if you would mind giving me some general addition amounts for general styles as you did earlier in this thread. Thanks
Report
Ca 7
Mg 1
Na 33
K 1
SO4-S 4
Cl 18
Carbonate CO3 <1
Bicarbonate HCO3 52
Total Alkalinity 43
Total Hardness CaCO3 22
Nitrate NO3-N 2.8 safe
pH 7.5

This report is actually quite well balanced (anions 1.893 cations 1.801).

As this water is pretty soft and not that alkaline I would think the approach I outlined in #18 should work for you using it as is. OTOH as the alkalinity is approaching 50 you might want to consider a 1:1 (or greater) dilution with RO water to cut it back to 26 (or less). This will give you better mash pH. 1:1 dilution will also drop the sodium down to 16 which, while it isn't as valuable as getting the alkalinity down, may be of some value.

 

[slickfish]

Thanks, I appreciate the advice. I brewed a stout once with my straight water and it had the most horrible flavor, really undrinkable. This was before I had a pH meter but I imagine the pH was very low. I don't think I can get away with this style without adding some alkalinity. On another note, what do you mean by using sauermalz to "set" mash pH. I would think that it would serve to lower mash pH but to me set means that it would somehow buffer or lock it in to a certain range within reason. Is this what happens? Thanks

 

[remilard]

Thanks, I appreciate the advice. I brewed a stout once with my straight water and it had the most horrible flavor, really undrinkable. This was before I had a pH meter but I imagine the pH was very low. I don't think I can get away with this style without adding some alkalinity. On another note, what do you mean by using sauermalz to "set" mash pH. I would think that it would serve to lower mash pH but to me set means that it would somehow buffer or lock it in to a certain range within reason. Is this what happens? Thanks

It's not likely that the pH of your stouts is too low. Mine never are and my water has RA = 12. I'll get 5.4-5.5 on stouts with no adjustments. I made my last imperial stout pre pH meter but I would bet my pH meter that I wouldn't drop below 5.3 on that one.

I think where is AJ is coming from is that you almost never need to raise mash pH (unless you got overzealous with acid or something) and you almost always want to lower it so 99.9% of the time acid is what you will use to set mash pH.

 

[ajdelange]

Thanks, I appreciate the advice. I brewed a stout once with my straight water and it had the most horrible flavor, really undrinkable.

It's hard to imagine the pH going so low as to lend a "horrible" flavor. That term sort of suggests infection. Can you describe it?

This was before I had a pH meter but I imagine the pH was very low. I don't think I can get away with this style without adding some alkalinity.

Now that you do have a meter you can check on mash pH. At least 2 of us here have similar experiences with stout made with modest to low RA and that is pH between 5.4 and 5.5 without the use of any alkalinity. I use 10% roast barley in my Irish stout and found that it would take 3 times that amount to get pH down to 5.2. If your pH is lower than 5.2 you must be using an awful lot of something as acidic as roast barley. But why speculate when you can do the measurement?

On another note, what do you mean by using sauermalz to "set" mash pH. I would think that it would serve to lower mash pH but to me set means that it would somehow buffer or lock it in to a certain range within reason. Is this what happens? Thanks

Guess "fix" was an unfortunate choice of words because it does imply buffering. That's not what I intended. Adding sauermalz is just adding acid in solid form. I should have said "control pH" or "adjust pH" or something of that sort.

 

[slickfish]

I think you are on the right track with the acidic malt amount. That batch was a long time ago before I had any idea about pH or balance in a recipe(it was 25% roasted barley and 10% c80). I think alot of the horrible flavor was from an excessive amout of dark malt in a relatively low gravity beer. I am going to brew a stout with a more reasonable recipe and not add any water adjustments and see where I'm at with pH. Thanks

 

[Reelale]

You mention that this amount of sulfate is way too much for noble hops, but what about IPAs using American hops? I was under the impression that sulfates accentuated hop bitterness and flavor.

And thanks for taking the time to explain this so well.

AJ. I was perusing this thread again and noticed I didn't get your opinion on sulfate use with American hops back in September. Any observations? Also noticed your strawman "baseline" adjustments are a sticky. That's great.

 

[ajdelange]

I really don't have much to contribute here because I don't think I have ever used an American hop cultivar and don't really like them. I'm always kidding my brewing buddies who do about "grapefruit beer" and "2 x 4 beer". That said I would think the way to approach them would be the same as with any other varieties: start with low sulfate and increment stopping when you think the improvement has stopped.

 

[Reelale]

I really don't have much to contribute here because I don't think I have ever used an American hop cultivar and don't really like them. I'm always kidding my brewing buddies who do about "grapefruit beer" and "2 x 4 beer". That said I would think the way to approach them would be the same as with any other varieties: start with low sulfate and increment stopping when you think the improvement has stopped.

Thank you. I've recently acquired a taste, maybe a tolerence, of the citrusy American hops.