Water profile for Heavy Dark Belgian Ale

[safcraft]

So i am trying to adjust my water to brew a Westvleveteren 12 clone.

Found this to make my goal :

Westvleteren Water Profile
Calcium (Ca+2): 114
Bicarbonate (HCO3-): 370
Magnesium (Mg+2): 10
Sodium (Na+): 125
Sulfate (SO4-2): 145
Chloride (Cl-): 139

This is what i will be starting with :

My Water Profile
Calcium (Ca+2): 35
Bicarbonate (HCO3-): 95
Magnesium (Mg+2): 5
Sodium (Na+): 8
Sulfate (SO4-2): 25
Chloride (Cl-): 15

My water is pretty soft, i can also use RO, as i have used in the past for Pilsen beers, but i dont think it will help here.

I have a big question mark in my head, that is how can i increase the Bicarbonate to 370 and have a proper PH for mash ?

Using Brun'Water spreadsheet i can easily get all minerals to what i need using :

3,2g Gypsum
0,5g Canning Salt
6,0g Baking Soda
3,2 Calcium Chloride

Finished water profile will be:

Westvleteren Water Profile
Calcium (Ca+2): 136
Bicarbonate (HCO3-): 364
Magnesium (Mg+2): 5
Sodium (Na+): 120
Sulfate (SO4-2): 136
Chloride (Cl-): 130

Problem : Mash PH is estimated in 6.4
If i add Lactic Acid, i am reducing alkalinity and thus removing the bicarbonates i added with the Baking Soda.

How do you guys cope with this ?
Am i doing the math wrong ?

Should one remove the Baking Soda and add it only at Boil ?
Cheers and thank you for helping

 

[mabrungard]

That is a highly mineralized profile. Are you sure you want to use it? At the most, I wouldn't target any more than about half the concentrations in that profile.

Another important fact is that you should never target a raw water's bicarbonate or alkalinity values since the brewers undoubtedly reduced those values in order to produce a desirable mashing pH.

 

[ajdelange]

In trying to match a water profile forget about the alkalinity and try to match the other ions recognizing that if you should need alkalinity (acidity) to reach proper mash pH you will have to accept the cation (anion) that goes with it. Obviously these can be adjusted for.

 

[safcraft]

No...in fact i am not sure i want to use it. My goal is to use a good mineralized water, proper of a westleveteren or rochefort.
Any advice would be apreciated.

What should be my goal here in terms of water minerals?
I was able to reach the intended minerals and still having a 5.3 ph mash using 500g of acid malt. That 10% on a 5.7kg grain bill..... too much?

 

[ajdelange]

There are 2 goals here. One is to get proper mash pH and the second is to do that winding up with the desired mineral content for flavor and that really depends on what you prefer so that it is often best determined by experiment. As I said in my last post you should not shoot for a particular level of bicarbonate in your brewing water or beer as in the finished product the bicarbonate that came in with the water is virtually all gone and is swamped by the bicarbonate from the carbonating gas. I expect the reason you wound up with so much sauermalz is because you added bicarbonate to hit the Westvleteren 'profile'.

So an approach is to take the Westvleteren profile:

Westvleteren Water Profile
Calcium (Ca+2): 136
Bicarbonate (HCO3-): 364
Magnesium (Mg+2): 5
Sodium (Na+): 120
Sulfate (SO4-2): 136
Chloride (Cl-): 130

Ignore the, bicarbonate and then see what we have to do to get your water:

My Water Profile
Calcium (Ca+2): 35
Bicarbonate (HCO3-): 95
Magnesium (Mg+2): 5
Sodium (Na+): 8
Sulfate (SO4-2): 25
Chloride (Cl-): 15

to match the Westvleteren at pH 5.4. An exact match, by which I mean all ion concentration errors less than 0.005 mg/L (except bicarbonate which we are ignoring) can be had by adding modest amounts of CaCl2, NaCl, CaSO4, NgSO4, NaHCO3 and phosphoric acid to your water. Lactic could also be used if you prefer. The water is now taken care of - it's been brought to mash pH and you can turn your attention to the acid or base requirements of your grist. Should you need some acid to get the grist to pH 5.4 then simply add more phosphoric or lactic acid (which can be in the form of sauermalz). Should you need alkali simply deduct it from the phosphoric or lactic acid addition you made for the water.

 

[safcraft]

That whas very clear, thank you!
I will take in consideration the remaining levels of minerals and of course mash ph.
I question though , why do people use chalk in boil kettles if not to up the bicarbonate levels ?

 

[ajdelange]

..why do people use chalk in boil kettles ?

I don't know! Usually people add salts or acids to the kettle in order to reduce wort pH. One would have to suppose that a brewer would add it to the kettle if he wanted to increase wort pH but if the runoff pH is so low that it needs to be increased for the kettle I would think the wort would be ruined by pH that low in the mash tun.

if not to up the bicarbonate levels

Desirable knockout pH is between 5 and 5.2. At pH 5.1 all but 5% of added carbonate has been converted to CO2. At beer pH only 1% remains.

At one time (and it wasn't that long ago) home brewers figured, I suppose, that if chalk was sold at the local LHBS it must be something we should be using in our beers. Recipes, magazine articles and even brewing books advocated adding it to our beers by the tablespoonful. We are wiser about this now.

 

[safcraft]

I don't know! Usually people add salts or acids to the kettle in order to reduce wort pH. One would have to suppose that a brewer would add it to the kettle if he wanted to increase wort pH but if the runoff pH is so low that it needs to be increased for the kettle I would think the wort would be ruined by pH that low in the mash tun.

Desirable knockout pH is between 5 and 5.2. At pH 5.1 all but 5% of added carbonate has been converted to CO2. At beer pH only 1% remains.

At one time (and it wasn't that long ago) home brewers figured, I suppose, that if chalk was sold at the local LHBS it must be something we should be using in our beers. Recipes, magazine articles and even brewing books advocated adding it to our beers by the tablespoonful. We are wiser about this now.

So i am not that wise (yet)...i thought that to replicate a Heavy Beer like a Westvleteren or Rochefort, one would need a Hard water with high level of bicarbonates. Thus, adding Chalk to the Boil Kettle would be a way to increase Bicarbonates , and not mess with Mash PH (done in previous step)....

So what you are advising is forget about Bicarbonates, and focus on Sulfates, Sodium, Chlorides and Calcium levels... correct?

 

[ajdelange]

So i am not that wise (yet)...

Few of us are granted Athena's gift in that regard.

Most natural water contains some bicarbonates and as we have been discussing to make a proper mash we need to get rid of most of them. We do this with acid. It is widely recognized that colored malts are acidic (relative to low kilned, base malts) and therefore generally assumed that if a beer is dark its original brewer must have used dark malts in order to neutralize the bicarbonates in his available water. Turning this around it was assumed within the home brewing community that to brew a dark beer one would have to have lots of alkalinity (bicarbonate) in the water and this led to books, nomographs, and calculators that told you how many tbsp of chalk you should add depending on how dark your beer was. What this trend failed to recognize was that even the carbonaceous waters of Munich were largely decarbonized before they hit the mash tun. Simple heating in the HLT will cause a lot of carbonate to drop out and it wasn't long before brewers figures out other schemes, such astreating with lime, to get rid of it.

i thought that to replicate a Heavy Beer like a Westvleteren or Rochefort, one would need a Hard water with high level of bicarbonates.

If you are going to brew beers with a lot (I often say inordinate amounts) of dark malts their acidity can more than overcome the alkalinities of the other grains and, if you use low alkalinity water, there aren't enough sinks for the protons sourced by the dark malts at desirable mash pH. Thus some additional sink must be provided and while chalk doesn't work particularly well (because of long reaction times) sodium bicarbonate and calcium hydroxide do. In any case you don't need to add the alkalinity that wasn't there in the first place because the original brewer removed it.

Thus, adding Chalk to the Boil Kettle would be a way to increase Bicarbonates , and not mess with Mash PH (done in previous step)....

A lot of people have thought that you need bicarbonate in water and many profiles are published with it included, such as the one you found for Westvleteren. Now if you are going to publish a profile descriptive of the water of Westvleteren it should show what's in the water of Westvleteren, including the bicarbonate because if you took it out you'd have a very badly balanced profile.

So what you are advising is forget about Bicarbonates, and focus on Sulfates, Sodium, Chlorides and Calcium levels... correct?

Yes.

 

[zwiller]

I think it is clicking for you now. Yes, forget bicarb and the baking soda... Try this: back out all salts and dial in for mash pH of 5.2 with your acid. Then start adding salts to try and replicate the Westy profile. You will likely need to reduce acid addition to keep mash pH 5.2. I would use non iodized table salt and gypsum.

Dial in pH first then water profile "to taste"...

 

[ajdelange]

I think it is clicking for you now. Yes, forget bicarb and the baking soda... Try this: back out all salts and dial in for mash pH of 5.2 with your acid.

This means determine the proton deficit of the malts alone. In most calculators you will have to ask it how much acid to add to get distilled water mash to the target pH. I said to do the water first and then the malt but it doesn't matter the order as you aren't going to do anything until you have a plan that covers both.

Then start adding salts to try and replicate the Westy profile.

Next step is to determine the proton deficit of the water and this can come in the same form: the amount of acid you need to add to the water to get it to mash pH while satisfying the desired ion contents. As the only alkalinity in potable water is from bicarbonate and hydroxyl ions you can do two problems: one is to acidify the water with its specified alkalinity and pH to the target pH. That is the amount of acid you will use to take out the brewing water's alkalinity. The total amount of acid you need is the sum of the acids you determined in calculating the distilled water mash and the acid you need to treat the water. The second problem is to determine how much neutral salts you need to get a particular profile.

You will likely need to reduce acid addition to keep mash pH 5.2.

There is no way that you will find you need less acid after considering the water than before unless the water's pH out of the tap is less than the desired mash pH in which case the proper action is to call the water works (and the health department).

I would use non iodized table salt and gypsum.

To closely match the profile he published earlier he is going to need CaCl2, NaCl, CaSO4, MgSO4, NaHCO3 and acid. Why is he adding sodium bicarbonate and acid which will neutralize it? In order to get sodium from 8 to the desired 125 mg/L without exceeding the chloride target of 139 mg/L by adding too much NaCl. He is adding effectively adding some sodium diphosphate or sodium lactate and if he happens to have either of those he can use them. Using sodium diphosphate allows a reduction in the phosphoric acid required to treat 5 gallons from 5.70 mL to 5.25.

Now because in this case he is simultaneously adjusting sodium level while adding acid to get rid of the bicarbonate that comes with it separating into two problems gets a little tricker. Again, ignore the bicarbonate to get the sodium where you want it, not the amount of bicarbonate imposed and add extra acid to take that out. It's best to use an optimization program which does these things simultaneously but none of the programs I am aware of can do that (that I am aware of).

 

[zwiller]

I was going for the KISS approach... Props for for pushing the authenticity envelope!

 

[safcraft]

This has been a very very productive and helpfull thread!
Thank you so much .
Beer made acording to instructions and mash ph hit right on the money!
CHEERS