Water recipes when starting from RO

[Patirck]

Is there a list of recipes to get water conditioned properly for a particular beer style? I am planning on brewing a pilsner and I have very hard, high sulfite tap water so I am going to use 100% bottled water. I have used the ez calc spreadsheet and it seems there any many ways to get the ph and balance correct, but I wonder if there is a specific way that is better for this style of beer? Is there a difference between using various salts and other minerals to get to the same numbers?

 

[mabrungard]

Sure, there are several mineral salts that can be used to create a specific water profile. I have included several typical salts and a few untypical salts that can be used in formulating brewing water in Bru'n Water.

AJ Delange is an expert in Pilsener brewing and he is a proponent of starting with a very low ion water such as RO and building only a moderate ionic profile in his Pilsener brewing water. You do want a modest amount of calcium and low sulfates.

The very low hardness Pilsen water profile is a nice starting point, but its best suited to brewers that are willing to decoct their mash. The very low calcium in that profile makes it important to extract some of the calcium from the grist to supplement the water.

Bru'n Water does include some beer color-based water profiles that serve as starting points for brewing water. When using the beer color-based profiles, the amount of alkalinity in the final brewing water will probably need to be adjusted slightly with either an acid or a base to promote a desirable mash pH. All of those profiles use moderate ionic concentrations in the finished water since that typically produces better tasting beer. You want the beer to produce most of the flavors and just have the water providing great support. Only a few beer styles benefit from the water impinging its flavor on the beer.

 

[Krrazy]

Great question -- I've been thinking about the same concept lately. I'll be interested to see how this thread develops.

 

[ajdelange]

The very low hardness Pilsen water profile is a nice starting point, but its best suited to brewers that are willing to decoct their mash. The very low calcium in that profile makes it important to extract some of the calcium from the grist to supplement the water.

Is there another way to brew Pils?

Seriously, if I can, I'd argue that both decoction and very soft water are essential parts of a good Pils. I've seen arguments that you can get a Pils as good as a decocted one with the use of melanoidin malt in a step mash but I have never brewed one. So based on that I can't say that the soft water does or doesn't work with infusion (or other step) mashing. I wouldn't think it would be a problem - in fact if you went with harder water I'd think you'd have 2 departures from the goal - phoney melanoidins and a lack of that soft water quality. Beyond that, boiling (as in the decoctions) tends to remove calcium (precipitate it as appatite). Doubt it would enhance calcium extraction from the malts as modern malts are so well modified that all you really do in a decoction is generate melanoidins. But it's an interesting question.

I will say that I do Kölsch (about the only ale I do with any regularity) with the same soft water and a step mash and have noted no detriment WRT to fermentation or the flavor of the beer. Clarity might be a different matter but Kölsch yeast is so dusty that I expect a little haze (and am much to lazy to filter it).

Only a few beer styles benefit from the water impinging its flavor on the beer.

Pils is the logical complement. It benefits from the water not impinging on its flavor.

 

[Patirck]

I am not planning to do a decoction mash. I have added .5 lbs. Melanoiden. I have done his with hefeweizen and had good. Results. I tried a decoction once and was not impressed with the results versus batch sparge with some melanoiden in the grist.

I started to play wit the bruin water spreadsheet and it does give some insight to creating a water profile. I am still not sure if the sodium level needs to be raised from 8ppm. It appears in red but it only indicates that it should be below 150ppm.

 

[mabrungard]

The red cell color is only an indicator that the Existing or Diluted Water has that ion at a higher concentration than indicated for the desired water profile. If the concentrations are only of any of those red cells are within 20 or 30 ppm of the desired concentration, then you can ignore the excessive ion (except for magnesium which needs to be below 30 ppm in most cases). In the case above, the 8 ppm sodium or triple that concentration would probably not have much flavor impact.

 

[Patirck]

I have played around a bit more and starting 100% RO water I add .5 grams of epsom salts and it puts me in the pilsen box on the adjustment summary tab. The only value not green is calcium - it is at 1.0. If I'm not doing a decoction will this be a problem? Does adding the melnoiden take care of the potential problem?

 

[mabrungard]

I would shy away from a true Pilsen profile if you're not decocting. AJ Delange has good advice for Pils brewing with RO. You'll have to search for it, but I think that it amounted to adding only calcium chloride to the RO water.

The Melanoidin malt is supposedly making up for the taste impact of deleting the decoction, it would not make up for the calcium deficiency.

 

[ajdelange]

I have played around a bit more and starting 100% RO water I add .5 grams of epsom salts and it puts me in the pilsen box on the adjustment summary tab. The only value not green is calcium - it is at 1.0. If I'm not doing a decoction will this be a problem? Does adding the melnoiden take care of the potential problem?

You can brew beer with calcium this low (with or without decoction mashing). The 100% efficiency numbers you all strive to approach are based on mashing of the grains in question with distilled water.

But I don't think most brewers would be comfortable at a level that low. Calcium does good things for beer and so does chloride and, thus, it seems to make sense to add some calcium chloride to low ion water to be used for brewing even "soft" water beers like Boh. Pils.

You don't have to go look it up. I add enough CaCl2 to RO water to produce a calcium ion concentration of about 37 mg/L and a chloride level of about 25. Alkalinity is about 10 (2.5 of which is the alkalinity of the water itself and the rest caused by bicarbonate from the 10% well water I blend with the RO). The calcium and chloride are many times that in Pilsen water but if you have read any of my postings you know that you have to experiment in order to figure out what produces the beer you like best. I'd like to try softer water but the stuff that's coming out now is so good that I'm worried about fixing something that ain't broke. Thus for the moment my optimality criterion is "good beer" as opposed to "authentic beer".

I should mention while we're at it that pH control by the use of, in my case, sauermalz, is an essential part of the process. That makes, IMO, a lot more difference than a bit more or less calcium. I suppose I should also mention that a couple of bags of the Weyermann heirloom floor malted malt found their way into my brewery. I really, really hope that will become available to home brewers in the US because it is really good stuff.

 

[mabrungard]

My largest concerns with low Ca is that yeast floculation is reduced (ie. your beer may take longer to clear) and oxalates are not adequately precipitated in the mash (ie. you may have greater tendency to form beerstone in your brewing and serving equipment).

I personally think the minimum Ca level is 40 ppm, but there are plenty of other resources that indicate the minimum is 50 ppm.

 

[ajdelange]

Just as a sanity check I ran some numbers this afternoon. For three beers made with water of about 37 mg/L calcium content and virtually no magnesium the finished beers had

Beer Mg++ Ca++
VMO 56.9 mg/L 44
Pils 90.8 51
Kölsch 65.1 34

The first two were decoction mashed and the last one step mashed.

So ostensibly the decoction has liberated some calcium but in no case does the beer finish with calcium appreciably higher than that in the water.

Next I took Vienna malt (out of Pils and I would have preferred to check that as it is the base malt in all my lagers) and mixed it with RO water (Ca++ and Mg++ < 0.01 mg/L) in a 1:8 ratio (this is equivalent to 1 pound per gallon) by weight. This I doughed in at 80 °F and let it sit for 26 minutes. Resulting pH was 5.66. Then I put it in a 65.5 °C water bath for 40 minutes and finally boiled it for 22 min. (to simulate a decoction). The results:

Treatment Mg++ Ca++
Stand at 26.3 °C 38.4mg/L 18
Stand at 65.5 °C 44.6 43
Boiled 49 31

Now malt supposedly contains 0.13 % calcium. One gram would, thus, contain 1.3 mg and dispersed over 8 mL (0.008 L) the concentration would be 1.3/0.008 = 162 mg/L so obviously much of the calcium stays bound (and we would have to do a digestion to release it). It looks as if just mashing in at room temperature only releases a small percentage but that raising to sachharification temp frees about a quarter of it (assuming that this particular malt contains the representative 0.13%). As we might expect the decoction boil precipitates some of that calcium released during the saccharification rest.

To put these numbers in perspective: 1 gallon per pound is a very thin mash. 1 quart per pound might be more typical so that mash calcium and magnesium concentrations might be expected to be 3-4 times what I measured. Also for persepective a 12 °P wort at 70% efficiency (real efficiency - not HB efficiency which would be 87.5% for 70 % real efficiency) would require 1.5 pounds of grain per gallon of beer. This values in finished beer from 12 °P wort might be expected to be approximately 1.5 times the numbers I have listed.

I shouldn't have to say it but this is anecdotal data. One can't draw sweeping conclusions from a single, simple experiment like this. However, this example seems to support the following conclusions:

1. Distilled water mashes produce, from the malt itself, sufficient magnesium and calcium to fulfill the co-factor role.
2. The more vigorous the mashing program the more magnesium is released.
3. The more vigorous the mashing program the less calcium is released but rest at higher temperature is required to release an appreciable amount of calcium.
4. The calcium released is less than 1/4 of the total calcium contained in the malt.

 

[Patirck]

This is all very interesting. It is a whole other part of brewing that I have spent too little time on. I measured out ingredients to add to both the mash and sparge. I am starting with distilled water since that is the only way to get the sodium low enough for Pilsen water.

After further playing around with the bru'n water spreadsheet, given that my tap water has 260ppm sulfates, it appears that for malty beer styles that I like, I need to use distilled water. Kind of a bummer since it adds cost and hassle to the process.