What Brunwater profile for a Czech Lager?

[nosoup4me]

I'm doing my first water and I'm trying to figure out the water profile for it.

Should I just go with Yellow Balanced in Brunwater?

Maybe go a little softer?

Right now my water is:
Ca: 48
Mg: 7
Na: 39
SO4: 52
Cl: 72
HCO3: 123

I can either dilute my water with distilled... but it's hard to get the sodium down to 5 ppm on the Yellow Balanced or I can just go all distilled and treat with Gypsum, Calcium, and Epsom to get close to the Yellow Balanced profile:

Mash additions
.2 (g/gal) of Gyp
.4 (g/gal) of Calcium Chloride
.2 (g/gal) of Epsom Salt

Which leaves me with
Ca: 50
Mg: 5
Na: 0
SO4: 50
Cl: 68
HCO3: NA

Adding Lactic Acid to get around 5.4 PH

Sparge with 100% distilled.

Any suggestions?

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

pilsn water would be the true example of the style. however I'd have no problem making a pils with your water as is. You could bump up the SO4 by adding gypsum and get up to 100ppm, that would accentuate the hops a bit more and some bohpils can be up to 35-45 IBU. if targeting a full mouthfeel pils then i'd up the chloride to 100ppm and leave the sulfate where it is.

I dont bother sparging with distilled, I just add a bit of acid to neutralize the alkalinity and some additions to match the mash water profile. it's simple and works for me.

 

[mabrungard]

The mineralization of your water source is already more than high enough for a Czech lager. I find that malt comes through better in the beer when the mineralization is modest. I suggest that somewhere around 30 ppm for both sulfate and chloride is a nice compromise for a lager. Not too minerally, but enough to provide a little water character to the beer. Since calcium salts providing those concentrations may not produce enough calcium in the mash, I suggest that you calculate the total mineral dose for both the mashing and sparging water and then add all the minerals directly to the mash. The supporter's version of Bru'n Water supports this technique while still predicting the pH properly.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

The supporter's version of Bru'n Water supports this technique while still predicting the pH properly.

thanks for this tip Martin, I just noticed that feature the other day on my supporters version but failed to realize why one would want to do that.

 

[nosoup4me]

The mineralization of your water source is already more than high enough for a Czech lager. I find that malt comes through better in the beer when the mineralization is modest. I suggest that somewhere around 30 ppm for both sulfate and chloride is a nice compromise for a lager. Not too minerally, but enough to provide a little water character to the beer. Since calcium salts providing those concentrations may not produce enough calcium in the mash, I suggest that you calculate the total mineral dose for both the mashing and sparging water and then add all the minerals directly to the mash. The supporter's version of Bru'n Water supports this technique while still predicting the pH properly.

Whoa! I never saw that option before!

Awesome.

So at 75% dilution in Mash Water and adding 1.3g of Gypsum and 1 g of Calcium Chloride (combined mineral additions)

I'm getting this for my MASH water:
Ca: 41
Mg: 2
Na: 10
SO4: 45
Cl: 45

And final water profile of after adding 50% dilution to the sparge
Ca: 30
Mg: 3
Na: 16
SO4: 33
Cl: 39

Aiming for a PH of 5.32

 

[mabrungard]

thanks for this tip Martin, I just noticed that feature the other day on my supporters version but failed to realize why one would want to do that.

That feature was an outgrowth of multiple drivers. Oxalate precipitation is improved when calcium content is above 40 ppm. But some lager yeast can have fermentation problems when calcium content is that high or higher.

Selecting the "Add sparging water mineral additions to the mash?" option in the supporter's version of Bru'n Water enables the brewer to temporarily boost the calcium content during mashing and dilute that calcium content back down when the unmineralized sparging water is added.

I use that feature for all my lagers now.