Water additions for amber ale - This seems excessive

[MockY]

I'm brewing an amber (5.5 gallon batch) featuring mostly 2-row with some CaraAroma and Melanoiden in the mix. This is a malt forward beer with only 0.5 oz Amarillo at 60 minutes and 1oz of Cascade at 30 minutes.

I always add the additions to the total amount of water, and then use it for both the mash and the sparge (using single infusion, batch sparging).

My initial profile looks like this:
Calcium: 12
Magnesium: 6
Sodium: 11
Chloride: 6
Sulfate: 2
Bicarbonate: 78
PH: 8.1

Brewer's Friend Water Calculator suggest that I add the following in order to obtain a proper profile for this amber:

Gypsum: 11 g
Table salt: 2 g
Calcium chloride: 9 g

And that would give me the following profile:

Ca+2 : 144.5
Mg+2: 6
Na+: 31.8
Cl-: 152.7
SO4-2: 164.1

While the resulting profile seems alright, it sure seem to me like a ALOT of additions. Furthermore, I've only added gypsum and Calcium chloride in the past, and adding table salt seems wrong to me.

What are your thoughts. This water addition thing is somewhat hard to grasp and any advice is welcome.

 

[chickypad]

If you're treating all your water that looks about right - probably be about a tsp each gypsum and calcium chloride in the mash water. I agree on leaving out the table salt though, if you wanted to play with the chloride/sulfate ratio seems like you would instead alter the other two. Most important though is if it gets you the right mash pH.

 

[FourSeasonAngler]

If I were you I would half those additions and make sure you're acidifying your mash &/or sparge water to get the proper pH.

I have found that with most simple beers, less is more when it comes to mineralization.

 

[motobrewer]

eliminate the salt and half the remaining additions (keep minimum 50ppm Ca). adjust from there.

 

[mabrungard]

The calcium and chloride levels are way out of line. Substantially reduce the calcium chloride addition. There is no problem at all with the proposed sodium level, but the chloride level that comes with the table salt may be a problem.

 

[MockY]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. With your help, I decided to just add
5g Gypsum
4g Calcium chloride

The resulting profile according to Brewer's Friend would look similar to this (I would use Bru'n Water if I could find a way to combine the mash and the sparge as I do all addition in all the water used prior to heating):

Ca+2: 71.6
Mg+2: 6
Na+: 11
Cl-: 57
SO4-2: 75.7
Alkalinity: 66.7
Residual Alkalinity: 12.1

@mabrungard
You say the calcium and chloride levels was way out of line. That pretty much means the predefined profiles in Brewer's Friend are substantially incorrect. Their Balanced II profile has the following (something I did get close to):

Ca+2: 150
Cl-: 150
SO4-2: 160

 

[MagicMatt]

Taking AJ deLange's advice, I would dilute your starting water by half with distilled or R/O water to get your bicarbonate level below 35ppm. The BF mash water tool has a nice option to add a second water source and ratio.

See this post for a nice intro to water chemistry: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=198460

It's what I do every brew, and then plug my number into the BF calculator and tweak the salt additions of the mash to reach the right pH. If my balance is still off once I've hit my target pH, I'll add extra salts to the boil to achieve the proper chloride/sulfate ratio of the final beer.

 

[mabrungard]

That pretty much means the predefined profiles in Brewer's Friend are substantially incorrect. Their Balanced II profile has the following (something I did get close to):

Ca+2: 150
Cl-: 150
SO4-2: 160

If you like minerally flavor in your beer, there is nothing wrong with the recommendations above. If you prefer your beer to not have the water playing a major role in flavor, then you would find that a much lower chloride content would provide that effect.

I'm not saying no. I'm just alerting you to this potential problem. Everyone has their own taste preferences and that is the beauty of homebrewing, we get to produce and test what we like.

Enjoy!

 

[MockY]

I can't imagine liking a minerally flavor in my beer, nor anyone else for that matter. I find it bizarre that a brewing water calculator would suggest such minerally flavor profile being balanced and good for amber ales.

 

[mabrungard]

I know of some brewers on the British homebrewing forums that bristle when I talk of targeting relatively modest ionic content for brewing. They contend that their English beers are better when the water is well mineralized...including chloride. To each his own opinion!

 

[motobrewer]

https://youtu.be/c8Fi08u8bh8