Tap Water/Pale Ale Question

[oujens]

Alright, so taking in the primer and using the brewer's friend calculator, I think I am ready to give my tap water a shot brewing a Pale Ale. Instead of obsessing over my water profile, I thought I would see if I can get some feedback to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Here is my treated water profile (as of Dec 2012 since no Jan 2013 report is available):

Ca - 46 mg/l
Mg - 3.97
Na - 38.5
HCO3 - 86.7
SO4 - 86.5
Cl - 35.7

Total Alkalinity - 86.7 mg/l as CaCo3 (same as bicarbonate but it should be lower???)
Total Hardness - 135

Malt:
2-row 8lbs
Munich 2lbs
Crystal 40 .5lbs

Using brewer's friend calculator, it seems I should be able to hit my desired pH with acidulated malt and salt additions (and use filter and campden tablets of course). Calcium appears it could take a small bump. However, with my alkalinity am I in the area where I should consider diluting my tap water or will I be fine without dilution? I read a lot of people talking about RO or distill water for dilution and was curious if for a Pale Ale I should consider it or if I should be alright without it. I'm not worried about a certain profile but If I understand correctly, I would still have a good beer but it would improve if I lowered my starting alkalinity and replaced lost minerals. I'm leaning towards not diluting, but was curious what experienced brewers would do.

Thanks!

 

[Hermit]

You will get better advice than mine, but if you want to bump the calcium I'd just ad some gypsum. I was reading an old text on line where a brewer accused the pale ale makers of Burton of adulterating their brew because he could only duplicate their efforts by adding salts to the water, mainly gypsum.

They had softer river water available but the well water that ran through the gypsum deposits made the beer they wanted.

 

[oujens]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm thinking gypsum and acidulated malt is all I need, but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Trying to gauge the bicarbonate/alkalinity aspect of it.

 

[Hermit]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm thinking gypsum and acidulated malt is all I need, but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Trying to gauge the bicarbonate/alkalinity aspect of it.

If you have been using this water all along for your brewing and like your beer then making modest additions is the place to start in my opinion. Think of it this way. My spaghetti sauce is better if I add some salt to it. That doesn't mean I want to taste the salt.

 

[oujens]

I've been using spring water with no additions so this will be new territory, but I definitely don't want to over do it with unnecessary additions.

 

[Kaiser]

yes, some calcium salts and acidulated malt should do it. Unless this is Rahr 2-row in which case you will be fine w/o the acidulated malt.

The alkalinity of your water is 73 ppm as CaCO3. you can find this in the "more detail" section of the source water report.

This is good water to brew with. I remember having water like this in North Carolina and made great beers with it w/o even knowing about water chemistry. Then I moved to a house with a private well and much higher alkalinity water. That made me look into water chemistry.

Kai

 

[oujens]

Thanks, Kai. The brewer's friend calculator is great to work with. I appreciate the advice.

 

[Kaiser]

thanks for the feedback

 

[smakudwn]

Unless this is Rahr 2-row in which case you will be fine w/o the acidulated malt.



Kai

This is what I use as a base malt. Is there something I should be putting in the brewers friend water calc to compensate for this? Or should I just wait to add the acid malt until I get a reading from the mash PH?

Sorry for the thread hijack!

 

[Kaiser]

This is what I use as a base malt. Is there something I should be putting in the brewers friend water calc to compensate for this? Or should I just wait to add the acid malt until I get a reading from the mash PH?

Sorry for the thread hijack!

I don't mind the thread hijack.

Rahr 2-row has an unusually low distilled water pH for its color. Most malts of its color have a pH around 5.7-5.8 but I found that Rahr 2-row has a pH ~ 5.55. That means that the color based prediction is not working well for this malt.

For now you can just enter it as 6 Lovibond which will result in a DI water pH estimate of 5.5. Soon you'll be able to enter the 5.5 as the DI water pH and once we have it hooked up to the recipe editor I'll make a grain entry for Rahr 2-row that reflects this property.

When using this malt you may not need any acid malt.

Kai

 

[smakudwn]

Thank you. I was thinking that hooking the water calc up to the recipe editor would make things a whole lot easier!

 

[Kaiser]

Thank you. I was thinking that hooking the water calc up to the recipe editor would make things a whole lot easier!

yes it will. But having it released earlier allows us to flush out bugs and usability issues.

 

[kblankenship11]

Wow, I didnt know that about Rahr malt. Good info!!

 

[Kaiser]

check out figure 5 on page 4 of this paper: http://braukaiser.com/documents/effect_of_water_and_grist_on_mash_pH.pdf

that shows a few malt samples and their DI water pH.

Kai