Water profile for IPA.

[blkandrust]

Plan on brewing an IPA next weekend,first time messing with salts.How does fhis profile look? Any critique,be it good or bad,is appreciated.All readings are ppm.
Calcium 104-
magnesium25
sodium 5
sulfate 240
chloride 44

 

[Senior Monkey]

I was hoping to see replies from experienced brewers. We treated our extremely soft city water and achieved this profile for our 3rd and 4th IPA brews. (We noticed a real taste difference for the better)
Calcium 132
Magnesium 28
Sodium 6
Sulfate 328
Chloride 66

 

[Dgallo]

Are you going for a more west coast ipa. Both profiles above would accentuate a more aggressive bitterness. Is that what your going for?

 

[Yooper]

The profile in the first post is fine! I tend to go lighter on sulfate, but that's personal preference. No way would I go over 300 ppm though, so I wouldn't go with the second profile at all. Keep the magnesium under about 25 ppm in most cases (a higher one can work with some IPAs but there can be a bit of a sour note to it), so your magnesium there is fine.

Calcium of 80 ppm or so, up to 100 ppm, and sulfate 150-300 ppm would be a good bet for west coast style IPAs.

For most of mine, I go with 150 ppm of sulfate.

Shoot for a mash pH of about 5.35-5.4 and you'll be all set.

 

[Singletrack]

I enjoy the taste of some drywall (gyp board, plaster board, sheet rock) in my IPA, so I use sulfate up to 400.

 

[Senior Monkey]

Thanks for the feedback. On our next IPA, we'll cut back a bit on the Calcium Sulfate. This will bring our profile closer to blkandrust's profile. We'll compare a bottle of the new with the old and see if we can detect a difference!