What would happen if my brew liquor is 5.5 with 0 ppm calcium?

[Finlandbrews]

I meant pH of 5.5 considering pH would stay at this level during mashing if no calcium concentration. In fact, I was wondering as we always talk about calcium reacting with phosphates as a major reaction which acidify the mash, what would happen with no calcium in the water? Would there be virtually no acidification if only base malts used? What about the phosphates would they be unused and result in bad flavors? How would it affect mash efficiency to have 0 ppm calcium? Once I read calcium is not needed to be high and even 20/30 ppm would be enough as malt makes enough calcium (it was mentioned around 50 ppm) which would be enough for healthy fermentation. Is there any idea behind trying to figure out calcium concentrations in order to "consume" all phosphates present in the malt? Finally, do all malts contain phosphates and what are these phosphates needed for?

 

[mabrungard]

The malt supplies all the Ca that the yeast need for their metabolism. So, you can brew with zero Ca in your water. However, there are reasons why you would want Ca in your brewing liquor. In ales, you do want the Ca in the water so that the beer clears more quickly. In all beers, you do want to have about 40 ppm Ca in the mashing water to help remove oxalate from the wort. Remaining oxalate produces beerstone and potentially kidney stones in you.

 

[Finlandbrews]

The malt supplies all the Ca that the yeast need for their metabolism. So, you can brew with zero Ca in your water. However, there are reasons why you would want Ca in your brewing liquor. In ales, you do want the Ca in the water so that the beer clears more quickly. In all beers, you do want to have about 40 ppm Ca in the mashing water to help remove oxalate from the wort. Remaining oxalate produces beerstone and potentially kidney stones in you.

Ok so i understand oxalate is an issue. It s very scary if it produces beer stones in my kidneys! What is this oxalate, how does it form and does it have any taste when ending in the resulting beer? Isn't more calcium better than too little then?

 

[mabrungard]

There are articles in Zymurgy and The New Brewer that present the compiled information from peer-reviewed Journal articles that prove that calcium is not required in brewing water. A surprising finding was that lager yeast performance can actually be impaired if the calcium content in the water is elevated. For lager brewing, less Ca is definitely better than more. With ale yeast, calcium content is less detrimental. But you still would not want to add more calcium than necessary to supply the sulfate and/or chloride you desire for beer flavor.

Oxalate is a natural component of malt and I don't believe that it imparts a flavor to beer.