Side by side water modification test

[Brew-Happy]

OK, I have been following this dialogue and I am befuddles by RA. What does this acronym represent.

And yes I googled it and was tired of finding only the RA but not the definition

Thanks.

Good discussion BTW.

 

[flyangler18]

RA

Residual Alkalinity

 

[Scimmia]

Yes, I do recall that Palmer said not to exceed an RA of 200 ppm.

I've been doing a lot of reading/listening lately trying to understand water in preparation for a RIS this weekend. On Brew Strong's "Waterganza", he recommended topping out at 250 ppm RA, except for the blackest imperial stouts, maxing out at 300 ppm there.

I don't mean to nit-pick or anything, the numbers were just fresh in my head.

 

[Kaiser]

I've been doing a lot of reading/listening lately trying to understand water in preparation for a RIS this weekend. On Brew Strong's "Waterganza", he recommended topping out at 250 ppm RA, except for the blackest imperial stouts, maxing out at 300 ppm there.

I don't mean to nit-pick or anything, the numbers were just fresh in my head.

Stone brews their RIS with about 70 ppm RA I guess.

The problem with 200+ ppm RA is getting there. Unless your water is that hard you only have chalk and baking soda. If not dissolved chalk's ability to raise the pH is limited to an increase of about 0.2. I don't know why, but that's what I have observed.

The RA you'll need for that RIS will largely depend on how much color is coming from crystal malts. But I don't think you need to go any higher than 200 ppm. The whole water chemistry thing is sparking my interest to brew one of my own.

Kai

 

[boredatwork]

From my experience water chemistry has two functions in brewing:

1. Mash pH
2. Beer Flavor

Obviously in AG you care about both, but even in extract you still care about flavor.

I had a hefeweizen extract beer that came out horribly bitter with filtered tap water because of very soft water and a high sulfate:chloride. When I fixed my water to a desirable profile, I was able to achieve a beautiful hefeweizen (although this one was AG).

But here is the interesting thing, and this has been discussed in other threads, the bad flavor didn't come across until after carbonation. And I found this to be true in two other beers as well (both extract and AG).

So it would be worthwhile to test flavor at different stages.

 

[Brew-Happy]

Residual Alkalinity

Thank you. Now I can comprehend the conversation.

 

[adx]

I'm also interested to see the results since I have pretty water with basically no Ca or Mg in it. The one thing that is missing is what are you doing for fermentation (yeast, vessels, time,etc. )?

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

Stone brews their RIS with about 70 ppm RA I guess.

The problem with 200+ ppm RA is getting there. Unless your water is that hard you only have chalk and baking soda. If not dissolved chalk's ability to raise the pH is limited to an increase of about 0.2. I don't know why, but that's what I have observed.

The RA you'll need for that RIS will largely depend on how much color is coming from crystal malts. But I don't think you need to go any higher than 200 ppm. The whole water chemistry thing is sparking my interest to brew one of my own.

Kai

If you don't have alkaline enough water for dark brews, would there be a benefit to adding the dark roasted grains in Stouts/Porters toward the end of the mash? I recently did this on a Porter. I just used bottled water which has an RA suitable for ~12-ish SRM (which is what the beer sans roasted malts would yield), then added the Chocolate/Roasted Barley after I had infused up to 160 F (Hochkurz mash schedule). But I forgot to measure pH after adding the dark grains.

 

[conpewter]

If you don't have alkaline enough water for dark brews, would there be a benefit to adding the dark roasted grains in Stouts/Porters toward the end of the mash? I recently did this on a Porter. I just used bottled water which has an RA suitable for ~12-ish SRM (which is what the beer sans roasted malts would yield), then added the Chocolate/Roasted Barley after I had infused up to 160 F (Hochkurz mash schedule). But I forgot to measure pH after adding the dark grains.

Interesting idea! From what I'm reading your RA doesn't make a big difference to PH unless it is way out of range for the beer, so you might be fine anyway. On the other hand you may want to add brewing salts for flavor anyway which could change your RA and help you out.

 

[Kaiser]

We seem to be getting to off-topic with respect to Bobby's initial thread. I created a new thread to continue the discussion: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/srm-ra-analysis-150185/#post1718273

Is it possible to move selected posts to that new thread?

Kai

 

[Scimmia]

Stone brews their RIS with about 70 ppm RA I guess.

The problem with 200+ ppm RA is getting there. Unless your water is that hard you only have chalk and baking soda. If not dissolved chalk's ability to raise the pH is limited to an increase of about 0.2. I don't know why, but that's what I have observed.

The RA you'll need for that RIS will largely depend on how much color is coming from crystal malts. But I don't think you need to go any higher than 200 ppm. The whole water chemistry thing is sparking my interest to brew one of my own.

Kai

While I wasn't soliciting advice (don't want to muddy up this thread too much), I do appreciate it. I think I have a basic, high level understanding at this point, which should be enough to get me through. My water seems to have decent RA, around 100 ppm, so I figure 3g of chalk and 5g of baking soda in 8gal mash water to get me around 225 ppm RA and I should be in good shape. I'm using 2 lb crystal (60 to 155) and 2.5 dark roasted (350 to 500), so there's quite a bit to take the PH lower.

 

[Bobby_M]

It's ok to muddy this thread up because the taste test was inconclusive. I let the mash cool too much so the FG was like 1.007 and neither tasted balanced enough. I didn't let my whole club taste them but the few that did said they noticed a slight flavor difference but neither was better. They couldn't even describe what the difference was but both were too dry and too bitter. I knew that.

 

[Kaiser]

It's ok to muddy this thread up because the taste test was inconclusive.

I didn't check if you were done with the topic, but I wanted to start a new thread anyway.

Back to your topic. I wonder if it would be sufficienct to make a soft water mash, spilt the wort between fermenters and add different amounts of salts to the fermenters. That way you do the split much later which makes brewing easier but if there is some reaction in the mash or boil that causes the SO4/Cl effect on taste you would not be able to show that. If it is just the mere presence of them you may even be able to do that by adding various, yet realistic, amounts of salt to finished beer. Now that would be an experiment that allows quick evaliation of a wide range of Cl and SO4 levels.

Kai

 

[Bobby_M]

That's a reasonable option for sure. I'd probably want to try to dissolve the gypsum in some water first so I don't completely decarbonate the sample with all the nucleation points.

One thing I can say is that I generally need to address my final gravities in my pales/IPAs going forward. In the past I found my hop character to be lacking so one way I got it to pop was to mash cooler and let the beer dry out. It wasn't perfect, but it kept things from being cloyingly sweet. Now that I have my sulfates at a realistic level, hops are quite forward against the dry beer. Now I need to compensate with higher mash temps. I now understand how Lagunitias can get away with a 160F mash.

 

[z987k]

I could probably pretty easily do a final product blind taste test with some people with effects of Cl:SO4 ratio. I have an IPA on tap, Epsom salt and CaCl2, and handful of judges in the area who like to drink beer.
Maybe compare results.

Very interested if you do multiple fermentations and the differences in when you add the ions as to the difference it makes.

I think we also have to remember that they yeast use these ions, and they are not only for a direct taste difference or pH/RA.
I just posted a link to a JIB article that dealt with some of these ions in multiple fermentations with the same biomass, but the ions concentrations effected things like growth rate, attenuation and speed of fermentation. All things that end up effecting the final product.

 

[Kaiser]

Where did you post that link?

Kai

 

[z987k]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/effect-calcium-zinc-magnesium-ions-multiple-fermentations-150767/

 

[Kaiser]

thanks,

Kai

 

[denimglen]

...I wonder if it would be sufficienct to make a soft water mash, spilt the wort between fermenters and add different amounts of salts to the fermenters...

I've done this in the glass before and I thought I could taste a difference in each beer.

My water is neutral on the CL:SO4 ratio, and to one glass I added CaCl2 and CaSO4 to the other, pre-dissolved in a bit of warm water first.

It wasn't a controlled experiment or anything, I just used an un-measured amount of each salt and dumped a bit of the solution into each glass. I also knew which glass was which so possible a little placebo affect.

 

[Bobby_M]

My original intent was to have my brew club try both samples completely blind and fill out a small survey. Which one is "better"? Describe the difference between the two in a couple words.
I didn't want to lead the feedback by asking anything about hops, bitter, or anything. Unfortunately, even after having my wife taste blindly and having her mark and pour a blind tasting for me, we both agreed they were both too bitter and dry. I still brought the samples to the club meeting but only let a few people confirm my findings (still blind mind you) but the overall comments were similar. Too dry and bitter.

 

[adx]

I just got done trying the same brew. Man was that a rough brew day. It's hard to try to get two brews to be exactly the same. I did my mashes separate in a 2 gallon cooler instead of together. But the weird thing is I got two different OG as well. One was right on at 1.052. The other was high at 1.058. For some reason one was darker than the other. The grist was the same in both, 88% 2-row and 12% Crystal 60L.

We'll see how they turn out next year!

 

[EvilBrewer]

Hey, Bobby...just read through this thread. I'm on the verge of getting into water chemistry myself and so your experiment was of interest to me. Looks like the results were inconclusive but I also noticed that this was a few months ago...did you ever end up trying it again?

In general, do you feel like manipulating the water chemistry has made a difference for you?

 

[Bobby_M]

I haven't done the same type of experiment again but my beers have been noticeably better in general. I would attribute it mostly to fixing the major Sulfate deficiency in my stock water. I also made a really good Pilsner on 90% distilled which I wouldn't have known about without the water discovery.

 

[EvilBrewer]

I haven't done the same type of experiment again but my beers have been noticeably better in general. I would attribute it mostly to fixing the major Sulfate deficiency in my stock water. I also made a really good Pilsner on 90% distilled which I wouldn't have known about without the water discovery.

Great to hear. I'm looking forward to trying it out myself!