RO Water and Adjusting Alkalinity

[Epos7]

I'm admittedly poorly educated on the subject of water chemistry, but I've been getting along pretty well with my RO filter and the Brewer's Friend water calculator.

My municipality has fairly low alkalinity to begin with - about 20-25ppm HCO3. After that passes through my RO filter, I estimate the HCO3 levels are reduced to 1-2ppm which is almost nothing.

I'm trying to use the standard balanced profile on Brewer's Friend, which calls for a ballpark of 100ppm HCO. In 8.2 gallons of water, it looks like I need to add 4g baking soda to approach 100ppm HCO, but this pushes the sodium level too high. Given than baking soda seems to be the only source of HCO3, is it just not possible to hit this profile with RO water?

I think I'll be fine just splitting the difference - 3.5g baking soda gives me 31ppm sodium and 82ppm HCO. That's a little high on the sodium and a little low on the HCO, but I'm sure it's just fine.

How do other users of RO water approach this profile?

Thanks!

 

[whovous]

I ignore bicarbonate. You've noted the downside of having it too high. There are few styles where there is any downside to having it too low.

 

[Epos7]

OK, that's easy enough, thanks. It looks like my lactic acid addition is going to cancel out any alkalinity I add through baking soda anyway. For 8.2 gallons, I've come up with:

3.5g gypsum
1.5g epsom salt
5g calcium chloride
3g baking soda
4mL 88% lactic acid

That gives me 70ppm Ca, 5ppm Mg, 27ppm Na, 78ppm Cl, 82ppm SO4, and no HCO with a mash pH of 5.34. Think I'm all set.

 

[whovous]

What happens if you leave the baking soda out and either eliminate or adjust the acid?

Lately, I've been trying to use only gypsum and calcium chloride, with lactic added only if Bru'n Water calls for it.

 

[Epos7]

Eliminating both the baking soda and the acid gives a mash pH of 5.44, but leaves me with no sodium.

 

[Yooper]

OK, that's easy enough, thanks. It looks like my lactic acid addition is going to cancel out any alkalinity I add through baking soda anyway. For 8.2 gallons, I've come up with:

3.5g gypsum
1.5g epsom salt
5g calcium chloride
3g baking soda
4mL 88% lactic acid

That gives me 70ppm Ca, 5ppm Mg, 27ppm Na, 78ppm Cl, 82ppm SO4, and no HCO with a mash pH of 5.34. Think I'm all set.

Eliminating both the baking soda and the acid gives a mash pH of 5.44, but leaves me with no sodium.

I'd leave out the baking soda, the lactic acid, and the epsom salt. But depends on what you're making. You may want more or less sulfate, or chloride.

You don't need the epsom salt, except in certain cases. And sodium can bring some things to the table, but not in the amounts you're talking about anyway.

You're pretty high in both sulfate and chloride. Not a problem, if you want that amount of calcium and leaving out the epsom salt (which is doing nothing for you there) would reduce the sulfate a bit.

What are you making? That's really the important question.

 

[Epos7]

What are you making? That's really the important question.

This is the water profile I'm working on for this Centennial Blonde Ale.

It sounds like what you guys are saying is that trying to match one of the target water profiles (balanced profile in Brewer's Friend in this case) isn't the best strategy? This profile has fairly low levels of sulfate and chloride in relation to some of the other profiles. The other profile I was considering matching is called 'light colored and hoppy' and it calls for almost twice as much sulfate, albeit a little less chloride.

 

[Yooper]

This is the water profile I'm working on for this Centennial Blonde Ale.

It sounds like what you guys are saying is that trying to match one of the target water profiles (balanced profile in Brewer's Friend in this case) isn't the best strategy? This profile has fairly low levels of sulfate and chloride in relation to some of the other profiles. The other profile I was considering matching is called 'light colored and hoppy' and it calls for almost twice as much sulfate, albeit a little less chloride.

Yes, that's what I'm saying, exactly.

Think of it this way. When you cook, you may add salt and pepper to many dishes. Some dishes you may want to add sage, but sage would be terrible in chocolate sauce. When you brew, you see a "target" profile, but maybe it's not really a target as much as it's to someone else's idea of what they had in their water and used and the beer was fine.

What matters the most is the recipe. With water, following a less is more philosophy is generally best. Same with the cooking analogy again- your food won't suffer if you don't add enough salt, although it may be a little bit bland to your taste but not to mine. Add too much salt, and we'll all find it inedible. The same is true with brewing. The WORST thing that can happen if you leave out half of the stuff (or use none of it) is that you may find the beer a little bland in flavor. However, using too much in such a light colored beer may be too minerally. That profile is not going to be too minerally in those amounts, but then there is no benefit either to using that epsom salt.

Having the calcium above 50 ppm enhances yeast flocculation, so 70 ppm is just fine. Chloride enhances the perception of fullness, giving a "roundness" to the beer and that's nice in a moderate amount. Sulfate enhances dryness, especially in the finish. So that's nice in a moderate amount. I guess that's why the "balanced" profile has those numbers- but it's not necessary.

You want to have a mash pH of 5.3-5.5 ideally. A calcium of 50 ppm or more is nice to enhance yeast flocculation. The rest are "seasonings", for flavor. A little calcium chloride is nice. I've not used gypsum in my cream ale or blonde, but I would guess than many people do. I really do go with the "less is more" philosophy unless I know that I like something different in certain recipes.

 

[Epos7]

Thanks for that explanation. I think I'll try your and whovous' suggestions and leave out the epsom salt and baking soda. I think I'll dial back the CaCl to 3g. I'm all for simplifying things if I can I've found Brewer's Friend tends to estimate a little low for pH, so I think I'll keep 1ml of the lactic acid just to make sure I stay in that ideal range.

That gives me:
3.5g gypsum
3g CaCl
1mL lactic acid

53ppm Ca, 47ppm Cl, 63ppm SO4, mash pH of 5.37.

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for that explanation. I think I'll try your and whovous' suggestions and leave out the epsom salt and baking soda. I think I'll dial back the CaCl to 3g. I'm all for simplifying things if I can I've found Brewer's Friend tends to estimate a little low for pH, so I think I'll keep 1ml of the lactic acid just to make sure I stay in that ideal range.

That gives me:
3.5g gypsum
3g CaCl
1mL lactic acid

53ppm Ca, 47ppm Cl, 63ppm SO4, mash pH of 5.37.

If it was my beer, and it's not, but if...............I'd reduce the gypsum to under 40 ppm or so (or leave it out entirely), and keep the chloride at 50-70 ppm.

In other words, reduce the gypsum to 0-2 grams or so, and keep the calcium chloride up a bit. I guess, reverse those numbers. I think your mash pH will be right in the ballpark if the prediction is 5.37.

 

[whovous]

EDIT - Yooper posted again while I was writing, and caused me to change my mind from what I wrote below. I agree with her suggested numbers. If you can hit 5.37 without the lactic, all the better.

Let me qualify all of this by noting that Yooper's advice is infinitely more valuable (and detailed) than mine. That said, I completely agree with what you've decided on. A tiny amount of lactic can do no harm at all to your brew, but it just might be what you need for optimal pH. Also, if you start with RO, like I do, I think you need a little bit of sulfate. I am not sure if Yooper uses RO in the UP or not, but her "less is more" advice is the right advice in almost every case.

Water profiles always seem to list a half-dozen different chemicals. I've spent way too much time juggling different ingredients in Bru'n Water in obsessive attempts to match them all. Once I learned that most of those chemicals don't matter most of the time, I was a much happier camper. I add a few ingredients to my RO, and I am done.

Things are very different with tap water, since they can have endlessly different levels of the six main chemicals, plus various forms of chlorine to boot. Plus, a city water supply can change seasonally as well. That uncertainty was what led me to get my RO setup in the first place.

 

[Epos7]

In other words, reduce the gypsum to 0-2 grams or so, and keep the calcium chloride up a bit. I guess, reverse those numbers. I think your mash pH will be right in the ballpark if the prediction is 5.37.

Maybe 2g gypsum and 5g CaCl? That gives me 59ppm Ca, 78ppm Cl, 36ppm SO4. To the best of my understanding, the extra Cl will make for a 'rounder' beer, and the reduction in SO4 will make the beer taste a little less dry. It's already going to finish pretty low (1.008) which will make for a fairly dry beer to begin with, maybe it doesn't need the extra SO4 after all.

 

[Yooper]

Maybe 2g gypsum and 5g CaCl? That gives me 59ppm Ca, 78ppm Cl, 36ppm SO4. To the best of my understanding, the extra Cl will make for a 'rounder' beer, and the reduction in SO4 will make the beer taste a little less dry. It's already going to finish pretty low (1.008) which will make for a fairly dry beer to begin with, maybe it doesn't need the extra SO4 after all.

Yes, that would be my preference, but again, that's MY preference. I like a nice crisp light blonde, but I don't add sulfate to mine.

You may love sulfate in yours, and again it's not large amounts at all so there would not be a significant difference.

What is fun to do is brew it with the "less is more" approach, and then add some gypsum or calcium chloride to the glass and see what each do to the finished beer.

 

[Epos7]

OK, thanks guys, 2g gypsum and 5g CaCl it is!

I tend to add ~10% when I'm weighing out CaCl to account for the fact it absorbs moisture from the air, so I'll measure out 5.5g CaCl.

 

[whovous]

What is fun to do is brew it with the "less is more" approach, and then add some gypsum or calcium chloride to the glass and see what each do to the finished beer.

This idea intrigues me, but just how little do you add to a single glass?

 

[Epos7]

I've brewed a few 10 gallon batches now with ~12g CaCl and ~4g gypsum, just to keep things simple. The beers have turned out good, but they do have a sort of cloying sweetness to them I believe is probably due to too much chloride. That puts my sulfate to chloride ratio at 0.4 (106ppm & 41ppm, respectively), so I've brought that up to 1 for my most recent batch to see what happens. Hopefully that will make things taste a bit crisper.

The interesting thing is that brewing with that much chloride, of the three batches I made, I liked the pale ale the most and the blonde ale the least. I would have expected the opposite.

 

[ajdelange]

I've spent way too much time juggling different ingredients in Bru'n Water in obsessive attempts to match them all. Once I learned that most of those chemicals don't matter most of the time, I was a much happier camper.

I've experimented with some of the Brun'n water profiles amd found that they can't be matched except at pH 8.3. This is because when the profiles were formulated he looked at all the ions he thought should be in there and found that when he specified those ions in certain amounts the profiles did not balance electrically being deficient in anions. So he threw in bicarbonate in sufficient quantity to balance. That's easy to do (in terms of the calculations) if the pH is 8.3 amd so he proclaimed pH 8.3 for all the profiles (or at least the ones that contain bicarbonate). To get these profiles to balance at reasonable pH an external acid must be added. I expect I'd get the same result if I tried the profiles from some of the other programs.

The underlying problem here is that most of the published water profile data is for local bore or surface water profiles - not for those waters as treated for mashing. Interestingly enough adequate information about the carbonic acid system state is almost never furnished in the published profiles and making assumptions necessary to achieve electrical balance frequently results in inordinately high pH. It is possible that a brewery's water supply is hard and alkaline (lots of calcium and bicarbonate). Before any of that water reaches the mash tun much of the calcium and bicarbonate will have been removed by one of several means so that the brewing water is not very like the source water.

So take the profiles 'with a grain of salt'. Keep in mind that natural systems tend to respond to the log of concentration rather than concentration. This makes it clear that an error in ion concentration relative to a profile of up to 50% or more doesn't make much difference. In most cases following the recommendations of the Primer (but using half the quantities suggested in Post #1 in that thread) or just starting out with 1/2 tsp of CaCl2 per 5 gal RO water will get you started. The effects of more or less Cl and of SO4 are then assessed by tasting with incremental additions of the salts to the finished beer brewed with what Yooper calls the 'less is more' philosophy.

 

[gifty74]

I've brewed a few 10 gallon batches now with ~12g CaCl and ~4g gypsum, just to keep things simple. The beers have turned out good, but they do have a sort of cloying sweetness to them I believe is probably due to too much chloride. That puts my sulfate to chloride ratio at 0.4 (106ppm & 41ppm, respectively), so I've brought that up to 1 for my most recent batch to see what happens. Hopefully that will make things taste a bit crisper.

The interesting thing is that brewing with that much chloride, of the three batches I made, I liked the pale ale the most and the blonde ale the least. I would have expected the opposite.

I have had pretty much the same experience Epos. I last brewed a DIPA, and I experimented with a "juicy IPA" target water profile in Beersmith with Cl at 125 and SO4 at 85, which is a 0.7 ratio. With my water as the source, it calculated that I should add 4.6g gypsum and 6.7g CaCl, which I did. I too think it has just the slightest bit of cloying sweetness. I'm not sure if it's more a function of the London Ale III yeast that only finished at 1.018, or this higher Cl ratio. Going to def keep the experiment going by altering this ratio to closer 1 like you mention. I'm thinking 4g gypsum and 4g CaCl should do the trick on this next batch. Starting to zero in on my 'ideal' DIPA finished product.

 

[ajdelange]

Remember that the ratio has little to do with it. If indeed it is the chloride responsible you will not solve the problem by adding more sulfate (which will increase the ratio) but rather by decreasing the chloride. This also increases he ratio but as noted it isn't the ratio that is important. It is the concentration of chloride.

 

[Epos7]

I have had pretty much the same experience Epos. I last brewed a DIPA, and I experimented with a "juicy IPA" target water profile in Beersmith with Cl at 125 and SO4 at 85, which is a 0.7 ratio. With my water as the source, it calculated that I should add 4.6g gypsum and 6.7g CaCl, which I did. I too think it has just the slightest bit of cloying sweetness. I'm not sure if it's more a function of the London Ale III yeast that only finished at 1.018, or this higher Cl ratio. Going to def keep the experiment going by altering this ratio to closer 1 like you mention. I'm thinking 4g gypsum and 4g CaCl should do the trick on this next batch. Starting to zero in on my 'ideal' DIPA finished product.

I'm glad it's not just me. I'm bottling my most recent batch today, and for its water profile I went with 81ppm of both chloride and sulfate. Hopefully that will produce a little bit crisper beer. I could see enjoying the round sweetness of the chloride more during the winter months, but during the summer I want something crisp and refreshing!

I do have a batch of pale ale I brewed with the high chloride level - it will be ready to drink in a couple weeks. I used WLP029 for that batch, which attenuates well and left me with a pretty dry beer (1.054 to 1.011). I'll be interested to see if that balances out some of the effect of the chloride.

In previous batches before I started experimenting, I just tried to match the balanced water profiles on Brewer's Friend, which left me with less chloride than I have been using. If I remember right, those beers didn't taste so sweet.

 

[Epos7]

Remember that the ratio has little to do with it. If indeed it is the chloride responsible you will not solve the problem by adding more sulfate (which will increase the ratio) but rather by decreasing the chloride. This also increases he ratio but as noted it isn't the ratio that is important. It is the concentration of chloride.

I did both - a little more sulfide and a little less chloride. Maybe I should have kept the sulfate constant to observe the effect of the chloride, but since I'm not brewing the same beer it would be a vague comparison. I think I've learned that 105ppm chloride in my RO water is too high for my tastes. I'll see what I think of the beer made at 81ppm chloride and continue to adjust accordingly

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

Mash temperature, hop bittering and yeast attenuation should be included with any comparison of a particular water profile. An under attenuated beer, mashed at 155F, is always going to be sweeter right? These points were not mentioned in prior posts, but were the water profiles evaluated using similarly attenuated beers?

 

[ajdelange]

In writing

If indeed it is the chloride responsible ....

I meant to imply that other factors, such as grist composition, starch conversion temperature, RDF... may be the causative factors and not the chloride content. I suppose I should have been clearer but in any case it is an important point.