WiscBrewer
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I enjoy using Bru'nWater, but am sometimes uncertain about target water profiles. Any suggestions about the profile to select for an an ESB? Thanks.
Water Profile for ESB
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The Yellow Dry or Amber Dry profiles include a modest amount of sulfate (around 100 ppm) that would not be overbearing for an ESB. The Pale Ale profile with 300 ppm might be a bit too dry for many ESBs.
After many iterations, I've found that sulfate at about 280 ppm and a Cl/SO4 ratio of about .23 fits my taste for an ESB. For my water, it brings Calcium above the recommended limit (>150 ppm), but I've not noticed any issues, and the beer is consistently a hit. (I do a periodic acid rinse for beer stone, however.)
To me, an ESB with a "balanced" water profile, or even a moderate sulfate content, seems to be a bit lacking. Those seem to be what's reflected in American microbrewed examples, and they never taste like the genuine article.
To me, an ESB with a "balanced" water profile, or even a moderate sulfate content, seems to be a bit lacking. Those seem to be what's reflected in American microbrewed examples, and they never taste like the genuine article.
If a ratio of 0.23 is what's required then sulfate at 140 and chloride at 32 should be just as good.
I agree. I'd have to dilute with RO/DI water to achieve that, which isn't out of the question; I just find it unnecessary. Unless I'm doing some undue harm to my beer by having sulfate in excess of 280ppm and calcium around 170ppm...
Huh? I fail to see any contradiction.
I say that the water profile I've ended up with that I like best has..
and share my distaste for "balanced" (i.e. Cl/SO4 closer to 1.00) or even moderate (i.e. 0.5 - 0.75 or so) sulfate, which seems to be all I can find from the American market so far.
Then you propose that I might like the results equally if the Cl/SO4 ratio was kept the same, but overall ppm of each was reduced...
To which I agree that you might be right, considering the Cl/SO4 ratio is kept the same, however I said I that I had not tried that since it would require dilution...
I fail to see how your proposed 140ppm sulfate at a Cl/SO4 ratio of 0.23 is "balanced" or "moderate" sulfate.
Is this a semantic misunderstanding? Am I not correct in my understanding of a balanced or moderate ratio?That's what I'm trying to figure out. If you say on the one hand that you consider 140 less than a moderate level and that you find that even a moderate level is lacking but then on the other that 140 should work that seems to be a contradiction to me.
Ah, but I never said "140ppm is less than a moderate level." You proposed that 140ppm might work given the same Cl/SO4 ratio, and I agreed that it might, but I've never tried that. Perhaps instead of saying "I agree," I should have said, "you might be right." ?
To be clear, to get the ratio I want (0.23) using my water without diluting it, I end up with 280ppm sulfate, and that is what I've found to make the best ESB at home to my taste. ESBs brewed with evidently low sulfate ratios (read: "balanced") seem lacking to me. I'm thinking of two specific examples from two breweries that pride themselves on using RO to brew all their beers with a "very balanced profile" or similar marketing claim. I'm also basing this on my own iterative process of tinkering with the sulfate ratio, and the apparent effect it has on the overall beer.
Edit: again, this might be a semantic misunderstanding. I stand by the idea that I'm trying to convey, however incorrectly I may be doing so.
I think the misunderstanding turns on this sentence. Without the parentheses the sentence speaks of balanced or moderate sulfate but I think you mean balanced or moderate ratio.
In any case, the ratio has little to do with it. Clearly beers made with 560 mg/L sulfate and 128 mg/L chloride; 280 and 64; 140 and 32 or 70 and 16 will be dramatically different beers even though the ratio is the same. When you say you like 280 mg/L sulfate with 0.23 ratio you are expressing 2 degrees of freedom: the sulfate content you like and the chloride concentration that works for you. These are independent and have independent effects. They do not offset or balance each other in any meaningful sense. If you slip and put in 560 mg/L sulfate instead of 280 you can't fix it by doubling the chloride as the ratio concept suggests.
There's a sticky on this above.
Ok, makes sense. So why, then, did you suggest that I would like the lower sulfate ppm at the same ratio?
It was an attempt to get you to come to the same conclusions yourself. When that happens people tend to remember stuff better.
Which conclusions would that be?
The stuff in #10 and the Sticky i.e. that chloride to sulfate ratio is something that is best forgotten.
This is your message...
...so you drop in a thread with this:
AJ, you have a curious method of spreading knowledge.
Also, since when is this true? I've read and heard plenty about the emphasis on Cl/SO4 ratio (of course, that's not the only takeaway from the literature). Now this isn't meant to be significant anymore? I'll go take a look at the sticky, since it appears that I've missed out on some new developments in water chem.
...so you drop in a thread with this:
?
AJ, you have a curious method of spreading knowledge.
Also, since when is this true? I've read and heard plenty about the emphasis on Cl/SO4 ratio (of course, that's not the only takeaway from the literature). Now this isn't meant to be significant anymore? I'll go take a look at the sticky, since it appears that I've missed out on some new developments in water chem.
It's a common pedagogical technique. You are supposed to look at that statement and say to yourself "Gee that doesn't make much sense, does it?" This technique clearly doesn't always work but as I said in an earlier post when it does people tend to remember what 'they' have discovered better than if the teacher just tells them what's what.
It's always been true. Some home brewer misinterpreted one line in a brewing text (it is cited in the Sticky) and started publishing the ratio thing far and wide. Once these things get established it is really hard to get rid of them but we try.
I don't doubt that. But other than those few words in Handbook of Brewing I'll bet most of them have been on the internet.
This is not a new development by any means. The misinterpretation of the significance of the ratio is a relatively new thing dating from the second edition of Handbook of Brewing. The Sticky explains all this.
First let me say that I get what you're trying to do, and I appreciate you offering help.
In Palmer and Kaminski's book (which your name is on) they say that the ratio definitely works, but is not magic - which is how I understood it. In a series of podcasts from about four or five years ago, Jamil explained (among other things) how the ratio works and how it's used, etc. Here, however, you're telling me that it's "best forgotten." Your advice to forget about the ratio is more recent information since seemingly credible sources (not just on the internet) have led us to believe that that's not entirely true. Anyway, more to the point, the takeaway from the sticky isn't that the ratio aught to be "forgotten;" it's more of a plea to reduce emphasis on ratio only, and that overall concentration matters. Which is why I find it odd that when I responded to OP giving both my concentration and ratio, you deemed it necessary to swoop in for a convoluted lesson on how the ratio is over emphasized.
So my original post still stands, then. Sulfate at 280ppm and the chloride ratio at .23 (therefore ~64ppm chloride) makes a damn fine ESB for my taste.
The_Bishop
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The point he's trying to make is that there is no 'magic' to the ratio that determines hoppy to malty. In fact it doesn't emphasize hops *or* malt.
Sulfates give a 'dryness' to the beer. Chloride provides a fullness/softness.
For instance, to show how the 'ratio' falls apart...
You'd say that a beer with a 10:1 ratio of sulfate to chloride would be really dry and bitter, and one with a 1:10 ratio of sulfate to chloride would be very full/malty, right? Well, what if it's 10ppm Sulfate to 1ppm chloride, or 1ppm sulfate to 10ppm chloride? In reality you wouldn't even taste/notice the mineralization.
You've found a balance of minerals that works for that particular style of beer. The ratio is irrelevant.
Sulfates give a 'dryness' to the beer. Chloride provides a fullness/softness.
For instance, to show how the 'ratio' falls apart...
You'd say that a beer with a 10:1 ratio of sulfate to chloride would be really dry and bitter, and one with a 1:10 ratio of sulfate to chloride would be very full/malty, right? Well, what if it's 10ppm Sulfate to 1ppm chloride, or 1ppm sulfate to 10ppm chloride? In reality you wouldn't even taste/notice the mineralization.
You've found a balance of minerals that works for that particular style of beer. The ratio is irrelevant.
I tried long and hard to get John to leave the ratio out and to leave out to play down RA and to put some things in which he elected not to. But it was his book after all. All I could do was advise.
Apparently you are missing the point. So one last time. 280 ppm and .23 ratio is two degrees of freedom which can be expressed as 280 ppm of sulfate and 64 of chloride. I hope by now that we agree that 140 ppm of sulfate and 32 ppm would be a substantially different beer IOW that the ratio of 0.23 is pretty useless as a predictor of what the beer would be like.
I have been trying to discourage use of the ratio as a single degree of freedom since people started advocating it and according to Martin in the thread headed by the sticky John gets the 'credit' for promulgating it. The reasons I discourage it are because it lulls people into thinking that one degree of freedom describes the sulfate chloride question and that simply is not true. Apologists for it say well it works for sulfate between x and y. Well when you limit sulfate to a range between x and y you have used up part of a degree of freedom.
You and anyone else will better understand the role of sulfate and chloride by thinking of their concentrations as independent variables and learning what the effects of each are.
The point from the sticky is that the ratio is best forgotten but it is couched using the same technique I tried in this thread i.e. trying to stimulate thinking on the part of the reader which would lead him to that pretty obvious conclusion on his own.
Apparently you are missing the point. So one last time. 280 ppm and .23 ratio is two degrees of freedom which can be expressed as 280 ppm of sulfate and 64 of chloride. I hope by now that we agree that 140 ppm of sulfate and 32 ppm would be a substantially different beer IOW that the ratio of 0.23 is pretty useless as a predictor of what the beer would be like.
I have been trying to discourage use of the ratio as a single degree of freedom since people started advocating it and according to Martin in the thread headed by the sticky John gets the 'credit' for promulgating it. The reasons I discourage it are because it lulls people into thinking that one degree of freedom describes the sulfate chloride question and that simply is not true. Apologists for it say well it works for sulfate between x and y. Well when you limit sulfate to a range between x and y you have used up part of a degree of freedom.
You and anyone else will better understand the role of sulfate and chloride by thinking of their concentrations as independent variables and learning what the effects of each are.
The point from the sticky is that the ratio is best forgotten but it is couched using the same technique I tried in this thread i.e. trying to stimulate thinking on the part of the reader which would lead him to that pretty obvious conclusion on his own.
Fair enough.
I see that point, and I get it. The 0.23 ratio on its own would be useless, which is why I chose to state my sulfate concentration in addition. At first I thought you were trying to make the point that it doesn't matter what my sulfate content is and the ratio was all that mattered, which confused me and made me re-think and backpedal a bit. Instead of saying "I agree" to that, I should've said, "you might be right," or "Are you sure?" You're AJ, who am I to contest your point on water chem? But, the point you are (now clearly) making I agree with and is how I understood it. Although, I am more certain in my conviction on the ratio and its over-emphasis than I was before, so thanks.
I agree entirely with this.
Agreed.
Understood. I think if anyone but you or Martin had said that same response about 140/32ppm, I would've contested it. But when AJ says 140ppm at the same ratio would work just as well, it makes me second guess my conviction. In short, you confused me for a bit and caused me to backpedal, but I agree entirely with the points you're making here.
Yup. Got it. Thanks!
The problem I find with brewers using the ratio, is that the magnitude of the concentrations is overlooked. In other words, the ratio is misused. I tell brewers that the ratio provides some guidance when the chloride level is somewhere between 25 and 100 ppm. That way, the magnitude of the ion concentrations are addressed.
Overall, it would not upset me to see the ratio fall out of use.
Overall, it would not upset me to see the ratio fall out of use.
GotPushrods
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I imagine you could help that along with the deletion of a few spreadsheet cells here and there. Just sayin'.
x and y: 2 concentrations; 2 degrees of freedom
x and r: one concentration and a ratio; 2 degrees of freedom; y = r*x
y and r: one concentration and a ratio; 2 degrees of freedom; x = r*y
R and ø: magnitude and phase; 2 degrees of freedom x= R*cos ø; y = R*sin ø
I've never seen it expressed as magnitude and phase before but why not?
x and r: one concentration and a ratio; 2 degrees of freedom; y = r*x
y and r: one concentration and a ratio; 2 degrees of freedom; x = r*y
R and ø: magnitude and phase; 2 degrees of freedom x= R*cos ø; y = R*sin ø
I've never seen it expressed as magnitude and phase before but why not?
This is how stated it initially.
