Soft Water Additions for ESB

[hrigsby]

I brew in a location that has really soft water:

Ca=5
Mg=1
Na=13
Cl=8
SO4=12
Alkalinity=22 (CaCO3)
pH=7.4

I'm trying to get into water profile adjustments, but I'm finding it quite confusing. Just using some calculators, I came up with the following adjustments to hit a good profile for an ESB:

3 grams chalk
.5 grams baking soda
4 grams gypsum
1.2 grams calcium chloride

It looks like that gets me withing 20 ppm for all of the categories, but also keeps my mash pH at 5.65ish, which is within the desired range.

I'm in the process of reading a few posts about chalk and baking soda and why they're usually not a good addition, but I was hoping to get some more advice here. Should I not add chalk? Are my measurements bad? Does having such soft water change the general advice I'm seeing?

Thanks!

 

[Yooper]

The idea is to keep the mash pH at 5.3-5.5 or so- and you definitely don't need alkalinity (the chalk and baking soda) so take those out.

Sulfate enhances dryness in the finish, and chloride provides a fullness of flavor, and those are commonly added.

 

[hrigsby]

The idea is to keep the mash pH at 5.3-5.5 or so- and you definitely don't need alkalinity (the chalk and baking soda) so take those out.

Sulfate enhances dryness in the finish, and chloride provides a fullness of flavor, and those are commonly added.

Interesting. A lot of the profiles I see have a target CaCO3 in the 200+ range, which is why I was considering the chalk. If I don't need to compensate for that, then something like 5 grams of gypsum and 3 grams of calcium chloride should do the trick I think.

I'd always heard that "soft water is great for brewing because it's a blank canvas" which to me meant "soft water means I need to learn about manipulating the water profile" which I haven't yet gotten into. It seems like it can be simplified to a few ingredients, but the depths to which you can go (and the confusion that can create for a newbie) is immense.

 

[mabrungard]

What calculators are you consulting? For English Bitters, I've enjoyed the modest sulfate of the Yellow Dry and Amber Dry profiles in Bru'n Water. At around 100 ppm sulfate, they let the malt come through with a modestly drying finish. I prefer those profiles for these small English styles over the Pale Ale profile that is better suited for bigger pale ales and IPAs.

 

[hrigsby]

What calculators are you consulting? For English Bitters, I've enjoyed the modest sulfate of the Yellow Dry and Amber Dry profiles in Bru'n Water. At around 100 ppm sulfate, they let the malt come through with a modestly drying finish. I prefer those profiles for these small English styles over the Pale Ale profile that is better suited for bigger pale ales and IPAs.

I used this: https://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/

I've tried the London and Burton on Trent profiles, as well as a few custom profiles from google results on ESBs.

EDIT: I just downloaded Bru'n Water and this thing is overwhelming! Trying to figure out how to work the thing.

It looks like, using the "Brown Dry" profile, I need to drop the gypsum down to hit the calcium ppm. So then I'm low on Magnesium and Sulfate, which means I add epsom salt to counter.

So for 7 gallons of water I'm looking at 2.8 grams of gypsum, 2.1 grams of calcium chloride, and 2.8 grams of epsom salt. That gives me 53 calcium ppm and 100 sulfate ppm. pH is 5.38.

 

[Gameface]

I used this: https://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/

I've tried the London and Burton on Trent profiles, as well as a few custom profiles from google results on ESBs.

EDIT: I just downloaded Bru'n Water and this thing is overwhelming! Trying to figure out how to work the thing.

It looks like, using the "Brown Dry" profile, I need to drop the gypsum down to hit the calcium ppm. So then I'm low on Magnesium and Sulfate, which means I add epsom salt to counter.

So for 7 gallons of water I'm looking at 2.8 grams of gypsum, 2.1 grams of calcium chloride, and 2.8 grams of epsom salt. That gives me 53 calcium ppm and 100 sulfate ppm. pH is 5.38.

I'm absolutely no expert, but I just want to reiterate what Yooper posted.

Goal #1, get the amount of sulfate and chloride where you want it for the recipe to get the dry finish (from sulfate) and the fullness (from chloride) that works for your taste and/or beer style.

Goal #2, use an acid, like lactic acid, to get the pH in the right ballpark. Don't worry too much about imitating burton water or whatever else when it comes to all the other things, just make sure they aren't way out of whack, but with water as soft as yours you probably don't need to worry about that as long as you don't add stuff you don't need.

Alternate goal #2, if you're using a lot of dark malts you may need to use some baking soda (that's my preference for adding alkalinity) to bring the pH up into the proper range instead of an acid.

Water chemistry is a big subject and one I'm not even close to fully knowledgeable in, but by keeping it simple (I use RO water) and just adjusting for Sulfate, Chloride and pH I can achieve good results without loosing my mind.

 

[hrigsby]

Appreciate the response @Gameface ! It seems to be one of those topics where I keep trying to simplify it down and before I know it I'm into some deeper, more technical hole about a specific additive that I wasn't even planning on using!

I think I'm getting the basics figured out now though, slowly.