Target Water Profile for Pliny the Elder Clone

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

stevenryals

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
238
Reaction score
3
think RRB is in Santa Rosa, CA, anyone have a good water profile to clone this beer?
 
I'm no authority on pliny or anything of that nature but I got a spreadsheet from saq tonight that had a profile for it. No idea as to it's accuracy.
CA MG NA HCO3 SO4 CL
76 13 9 26 133 56
 
I got the numbers for the PTE water profile from an article Mike McDole wrote somewhere regarding his development of his award winning IIPA, and he said he got it directly from Vinnie Cilruzo @ RRB who he's friends with. So supposedly that is the water profile of PTE in the HLT.

My water profile spreadsheet can be obtained here. Its not as comprehensive around the concept of 'is your water profile good for this SRM of wort' but its more towards making your custom water profile just how you want it.
www.thesaq.net - /beer/waterprofile/
On page 2 with all my collected water profiles I have a custom developed water profile for pale colored beers as I felt PTE was thin in malt and bitterness, and that some more SO4 would improve that. I used this water profile in Hopinator batch 1 and 2, which took first in class IPA in western longshot regionals 2009. I really think its perfect for pale-ish slightly bitter/hoppy to very bitter/hoppy ales.
 
great, our water here in Birmingham is quite soft.. and great for low SRM beers... so shouldn't be really that much tweaking to get to this pliney.. but I want this to be as perfet as possible!!! ($35 worth of hops, it better!! lol)
 
That is some nice water stevenryals. As long as its low in chloride and other gunk you should be able to use my water profile tool to build up the necessary salts to get close. IMO my custom water profile would be a better choice for a low SRM bitter hop focused beer than the original PTE ;) Have you ever had the authentic PTE off draft?
 
I got this from the water department In Santa Rosa web site

Maybe its changed a bit, or their water is from a different well, but I see

SO4 @ 8.6 ppm
Cl @8.08 ppm
Fe @ 16.7 ppb
Mn @ 9 ppb
Na @ 13.8 ppm
CaCO3 Total Hardness @ 90.1ppm
CaCO3 Total Alkalinity @ 102 ppm
Ca @ 18.3 ppm

Snapshot 2009-07-31 10-41-55.jpg

Snapshot 2009-07-31 11-08-07.jpg
 
I'm brewing this this Sunday , and with a $53 hop bill, I want to get it spot on!

I got this from Mike McDole's posting at Maltose Falcons

It looks like he does a significant adjustment with his SO4:Cl ratio bringing it up to 7:1

"Notes

Mike McDole's joins a proud few, a fraternity that includes brewers like Jamil Zainasheff and John Maier. Winning last year for his Eisbock, Mike goes in a different direction with a full on hop blast with his DIPA.

From Mike's notes:

As anyone who tasted my Double IPA would tell you, it's based on Vinnie's Pliny The Elder recipe (2004). I've modified his recipe by adding a Northern Brewer addition at 15 minutes and a cascade hopback treatment. I also reduced the amount of corn sugar by two thirds. Mine’s a bit maltier but the additional hops seem to balance that out. Once you get over the bitterness and alcohol, the most impressive thing about this beer is the great mouthfeel from the dexitrins and layered hops.

Notes:

The water was R/O to which was added gypsum, Epsom Salt, and salt to bring it to Ca-110ppm, Mg-118ppm, Na-17ppm, SO4-350ppm, Cl-50ppm. "
 
Any notes on how the brew came out fellows? Thank you so much for the water, makes the work a lot easier.
 
That's his water for every beer

There were two water profiles given with McDole as the source. The first for how RRBC brews PtE (sulfate around 130 ppm), the second is McDole's personal water profile that he uses for everything.
 
I'm brewing this this Sunday , and with a $53 hop bill, I want to get it spot on!

I got this from Mike McDole's posting at Maltose Falcons

It looks like he does a significant adjustment with his SO4:Cl ratio bringing it up to 7:1

"Notes

Mike McDole's joins a proud few, a fraternity that includes brewers like Jamil Zainasheff and John Maier. Winning last year for his Eisbock, Mike goes in a different direction with a full on hop blast with his DIPA.

From Mike's notes:

As anyone who tasted my Double IPA would tell you, it's based on Vinnie's Pliny The Elder recipe (2004). I've modified his recipe by adding a Northern Brewer addition at 15 minutes and a cascade hopback treatment. I also reduced the amount of corn sugar by two thirds. Mine’s a bit maltier but the additional hops seem to balance that out. Once you get over the bitterness and alcohol, the most impressive thing about this beer is the great mouthfeel from the dexitrins and layered hops.

Notes:

The water was R/O to which was added gypsum, Epsom Salt, and salt to bring it to Ca-110ppm, Mg-118ppm, Na-17ppm, SO4-350ppm, Cl-50ppm. "

http://archive.maltosefalcons.com/recipes/20060504.php

1st off that should take you right to the archive of the recipes.
2nd: Is the Mg really that high?? That would be approx 50 grams of Epsom salt. Isn't that way out of the range for Mg? or am I doing something wrong in Kai's updated spreadsheet? I would think that there was a typo.

i read through the BN link and indeed the Mg is 18ppm. Makes more sense.
What say you, the Brain Trust??

:mug:

Reason I am asking is I am brewing an APA and I want to build the water similar to his profile but bring down the So4:Cl.
 
I used Tastys water profile for his Janet Brown and it's not a over powering hop bite but rather a smoothness that pop's them out a little more to notice them. Well done Tasty.
 
I live two blocks from RRBC, and let me tell you that Santa Rosa water is bad news bears. There's nothing left to add. It has ruined many a batches. Sore subject, if you know what I mean.
 
The water was R/O to which was added gypsum, Epsom Salt, and salt to bring it to Ca-110ppm, Mg-118ppm, Na-17ppm, SO4-350ppm, Cl-50ppm. "[/I]

I've played with this in Beersmith, and there's just no way to get to that profile and still maintain zero HCO3 with reverse osmosis water. Does anyone know if and baking soda or chalk (calcium carbonate) is used in this recipe? If so, how much? I'd like to figure out how to actually achieve that water profile.
 
The water was R/O to which was added gypsum, Epsom Salt, and salt to bring it to Ca-110ppm, Mg-118ppm, Na-17ppm, SO4-350ppm, Cl-50ppm.

I've played with this in Beersmith, and there's just no way to get to that profile and still maintain zero HCO3 with reverse osmosis water. Does anyone know if and baking soda or chalk (calcium carbonate) is used in this recipe? If so, how much? I'd like to figure out how to actually achieve that water profile.

No, there isn't because the sulfate and chloride are insufficient to balance the calcium, magnesium and sodium

Allowing enough bicarbonate to render the water neutral an exact (theoretically) synthesis at pH 7 can be had by adding to each liter of deionized water:
CaCl2 76.92 mg (Note - no water of hydration. This is the amount of CaCl2 you want and the amount of salt you weigh out depends on the amount of CaCl2 in the product you have.
NaCl ............... 1.41 mg
MgCl .............. 116.85 mg
CaSO4.2H2O.... 2.67 mg
MgSO4.7H2O....894.1 mg
CaCO3.............203.6 mg
NaHCO3............11.9 mg
Na2CO2........... 71.1 mg
CO2...............164.1 mg

You would have to weigh out the salts, suspend in the water and bubble CO2 through the water until the pH reaches 7. This synthesis will contain exactly the amounts of all the ions listed plus 329.5 mg/L bicarbonate. As soon as this water is heated calcium carbonate will precipitate. Seems like a lot of trouble to go to to get the chalk to dissolve only to have it fall right back out. Speaks to the folly of trying to match profiles.

The magnesium chloride is necessary because if you don't use it your only source of magnesium is Epsom salts and to get enough mangesium you have to overshoot sulfate. A solution in which sulfate is high by 12% while magnesium is low by 16% is possible without MgCl2.

A solution without CO2 is possible in which calcium is 10% low, magnesium is 31% low, sulfate is 23% high and chloride is 3% high is also possible. This requires food grade sulfuric acid.
 
The water was R/O to which was added gypsum, Epsom Salt, and salt to bring it to Ca-110ppm, Mg-118ppm, Na-17ppm, SO4-350ppm, Cl-50ppm. "
This water profile is wrong. See magnesium. Off-flavour.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top