26 replies to this topic

[Big Nake]

Inspired by the other water thread and not wanting to hijack, I'm starting this one. Hopefully it will help educate some of us less-fortunate ones. I admit that I am very weak in this area and most of the stuff I read about water chemistry puts me right to sleep or sails directly over my head. A few years ago, I filtered some of my water and sent it to Ward Labs. Here are the results...pH: 6.6 Total dissolved solids (TDS): 264 Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm: 0.44 Cations/Anions, me/L: 3.3 / 3.4 Sodium: 13 Potassium: 2 Calcium: 34 Magnesium: 12 Total Hardness: 135 Nitrate, No3-N: 0.4 Sulfate, SO4-S: 9 Chloride: 21 Carbonate, CO3: <1 Bicarbonate, HCO3: 138 Total Alkalinity, CaCO3: 113 I make some gold beers like American Standards, Pilsners and Blondes. I make my various amber lagers along with MLPA, Home Run Red, etc. I have a good number of beers that are made around 3-4 SRM along with another good-sized group in the 7-9 SRM range. I do add some CaCl (about a tsp in the mash) or gypsum because my calcium number is a little low. I will say straight out that many of my beers in the 3-4 SRM range come out pretty nicely. But I do wonder if the water could be better suited toward these lighter beers. What styles of beer would this water make the best and what should I be adding for other styles? I do have 5.2 in my arsenal but I haven't used it in awhile... ever since my wife complained that some of my beers tasted "soapy". Any thoughts, Waterheads? Thanks!

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

Have you tried using your water report in conjunction with palmer's spreadsheet? You can be fairly ignorant of what's going on and still use that spreadsheet with some success I think.

[Big Nake]

Thanks Zym. Okay, I entered my water numbers into Palmer's spreadsheet and without any additions, it shows a good SRM range of between 12 and 17. If I add 1 teaspoon (I entered 4.2 grams...) of calcium chloride, the SRM range went from 5 to 12 and if I added 1½ tsp of CaCl, it comes to a range of 3 to 8. Interesting. But two things jump out at me: My chloride number shows 293 and is in red. Also, the chloride to sulfate ratio remarks show "very malty". What are these two things telling me?EDIT: I played with it further and added 1/2 tsp of gyspum and 1/2 tsp of CaCl and now it shows "balanced" and my chloride level came down to 110. Ah-ha!

[Humperdink]

Thanks Zym. Okay, I entered my water numbers into Palmer's spreadsheet and without any additions, it shows a good SRM range of between 12 and 17. If I add 1 teaspoon (I entered 4.2 grams...) of calcium chloride, the SRM range went from 5 to 12 and if I added 1½ tsp of CaCl, it comes to a range of 3 to 8. Interesting. But two things jump out at me: My chloride number shows 293 and is in red. Also, the chloride to sulfate ratio remarks show "very malty". What are these two things telling me?EDIT: I played with it further and added 1/2 tsp of gyspum and 1/2 tsp of CaCl and now it shows "balanced" and my chloride level came down to 110. Ah-ha!

There's a practical limit to chloride to sulfate ratios and content. Are your water volumes correctly entered into the spreadsheet? Try entering grams at a time to see where you come into the lowest amount of salt additions necessary to get to your target SRM. then work backwards to work into a volume amount from there. I think I remember 7:1 SO4:CL being the upper bound and 2:1 being the upper bound for cl:SO4 on the other end of the balance scale. I'd have to be home to confirm as I can't get onto any other sites from work.ETA: see, what do you need us for!

Edited by chriscose, 17 February 2010 - 05:31 PM.

[Big Nake]

I entered 1 tsp of CaCl and about ¾ tsp gypsum so that my low end SRM number went to 3 and the sulfate-to-chloride ratio reads "malty". If I increase the gypsum, I can get the ratio to say "balanced". I am only looking at the lower end SRMs because they are some of the trickiest beers to brew and I wonder if slight water modifications are the key to nailing this type of beer. Again, many of my recipes produce beers in the SRM 7-10 range and I think those beers are less problematic for my water. I will continue to play with this and see what it says. I am slightly hesitant to add more & more salts because I have sampled a number of other local brewer's beers that came out salty. It wasn't a secret... they knew it and blamed it on "water over-experimentation".

[Joe]

I'm no expert, but since we are kind of in the same boat, I'll explain it the way I wished someone would have explained it to me two days ago:Mash needs to be 5.2 - right?CACO3 increases PH.Roasty malts decrease PH.Therefore there is the balance between roasty malts (acidic) and CACOH (alkaline) to get the mash to the proper PH (5.2).Calcium cancels out CACO3 through some kind of reaction with malt. So more calcium (and magnesium) - the more CACO3 is cancelled out - lower PH. This new PH (after calcium and magnesium cancel out their equivalent of CACO3) is called Residual Alkalinity (RA) - and is used to match up the range of SRM (assuming darker the beer - the more roasted malts).So if you want to brew a lighter beer and you have too high of a PH, add more calcium.Calcium comes as a salt - so you can't JUST add calcium - gotta add either Sulfate (gypsum) or Chloride (calc chloride) too. Apparently the ratio between sulfate and chloride affect perceived bitterness (more sulfate than chloride) or perceived maltiness (more chloride than sulfate).So there are the basic concepts (from a noob's perspective) - the spreadsheet does that math so you can dial it in.You probably knew all of this already - but it helped me to write it out. Hopefully it helps someone else out to.Sincerely,Water Noob.

[Humperdink]

I'm no expert, but since we are kind of in the same boat, I'll explain it the way I wished someone would have explained it to me two days ago:Mash needs to be 5.2 - right?CACO3 increases PH.Roasty malts decrease PH.Therefore there is the balance between roasty malts (acidic) and CACOH (alkaline) to get the mash to the proper PH (5.2).Calcium cancels out CACO3 through some kind of reaction with malt. So more calcium (and magnesium) - the more CACO3 is cancelled out - lower PH. This new PH (after calcium and magnesium cancel out their equivalent of CACO3) is called Residual Alkalinity (RA) - and is used to match up the range of SRM (assuming darker the beer - the more roasted malts).So if you want to brew a lighter beer and you have too high of a PH, add more calcium. Calcium comes as a salt - so you can't JUST add calcium - gotta add either Sulfate (gypsum) or Chloride (calc chloride) too. Apparently the ratio between sulfate and chloride affect perceived bitterness (more sulfate than chloride) or perceived maltiness (more chloride than sulfate).So there are the basic concepts (from a noob's perspective) - the spreadsheet does that math so you can dial it in.You probably knew all of this already - but it helped me to write it out. Hopefully it helps someone else out to.Sincerely,Water Noob.

Bravo. Well put, concise (as this topic can be) and easy to understand. +1 for your efforts.

[Humperdink]

Mash needs to be 5.2 - right?

At mash temperatures that's right, apparently it needs to be ~5.6 at room temps.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I knew you'd figure it out Ken! Just mess around with the additions and watch the resultant mash chemistry change and you'll get a good idea of what you're doing. If anything pops up in red it's a bit out of the normal range so try to avoid that.

[Big Nake]

So does adding only 1 to maybe 1½ or even 2 tsp of salt additions (generally gypsum and calcium chloride) seem appropriate to most brewers? It doesn't sound like it's being overdone to me, but I usually don't make big additions anyway. I like this spreadsheet because if I decide to make a malty festbier, I can see the sulfate-to-chloride ratio and set it to malty (or even very malty) or if I make a hoppy amber ale I can see bitter, very bitter, etc. I kind of knew this already (gypsum for more perceived bitterness, CaCl for a more malty profile) but it's nice to see the control you can have over it especially as it applies to your own water profile. Thanks gang.

[Joe]

I think one of the important things is to make sure you don't exceed 150 ppm calcium. Otherwise phosphates are precipitated which the yeast need. I really like George's approach - just adjust to get the chloride/sulfate profile that you want and adjust the ph using lactic acid. Simple and hard to screw up.Also I have read on some threads that you may not necessarily want to have a high chloride ratio in malty beers - as some of those malty beers (ofests, bocks, etc.) can benefit from the crisp finish that a high sulfate ratio provides. Just what I've read - no practical experience here - but it would seem to reason based on munich's water profile.

[Big Nake]

I think one of the important things is to make sure you don't exceed 150 ppm calcium. Otherwise phosphates are precipitated which the yeast need. I really like George's approach - just adjust to get the chloride/sulfate profile that you want and adjust the ph using lactic acid. Simple and hard to screw up.Also I have read on some threads that you may not necessarily want to have a high chloride ratio in malty beers - as some of those malty beers (ofests, bocks, etc.) can benefit from the crisp finish that a high sulfate ratio provides. Just what I've read - no practical experience here - but it would seem to reason based on munich's water profile.

Joe: I appreciate you starting that other thread and jumping in here too. Luckily for me, my water is relatively easy to deal with. If I had really troublesome water, the whole topic of brewing water chemistry would've eaten me alive years ago. I only need to slightly dabble in this or that to make beers between 3 and 12 SRM which is where the vast majority of my beers fall. I will play with the info I picked up here and with the JP spreadsheet and the apply it to some upcoming batches. Cheers.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

So does adding only 1 to maybe 1½ or even 2 tsp of salt additions (generally gypsum and calcium chloride) seem appropriate to most brewers? It doesn't sound like it's being overdone to me, but I usually don't make big additions anyway. I like this spreadsheet because if I decide to make a malty festbier, I can see the sulfate-to-chloride ratio and set it to malty (or even very malty) or if I make a hoppy amber ale I can see bitter, very bitter, etc. I kind of knew this already (gypsum for more perceived bitterness, CaCl for a more malty profile) but it's nice to see the control you can have over it especially as it applies to your own water profile. Thanks gang.

I think those are within the realm of reasonable. If you can get yourself a jewelry scale (or something that can measure small amounts accurately) I think you'll be in better shape. I'm usually adding 1-3g of any particular salt depending on the beer.

[Big Nake]

Kids: I hate to bump this back up, but I have another question here. I am fixated on this chloride-to-sulfate ratio. If I punch in my water numbers and then leave the water alone (make no salt additions), the ratio shows as "very malty". I do add calcium chloride and/or gypsum to up my calcium... but my question is this: If I make a beer with water that has had no additions made to it, will that beer be "very malty" based on this chloride-to-sulfate ratio? Another way to put it... if I were to make a malty festbier or something along the lines of a pilsner that I wanted to be "crisp", would I add some gypsum to get the ratio in balance? On the festbier, the malt-to-hops ratio may already lean towards malty and my water is compounding that. On the pils, you would think that gypsum would be unsuitable... but not if the water already had a "very malty" profile to it. Am I making sense?

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

Kids: I hate to bump this back up, but I have another question here. I am fixated on this chloride-to-sulfate ratio. If I punch in my water numbers and then leave the water alone (make no salt additions), the ratio shows as "very malty". I do add calcium chloride and/or gypsum to up my calcium... but my question is this: If I make a beer with water that has had no additions made to it, will that beer be "very malty" based on this chloride-to-sulfate ratio? Another way to put it... if I were to make a malty festbier or something along the lines of a pilsner that I wanted to be "crisp", would I add some gypsum to get the ratio in balance? On the festbier, the malt-to-hops ratio may already lean towards malty and my water is compounding that. On the pils, you would think that gypsum would be unsuitable... but not if the water already had a "very malty" profile to it. Am I making sense?

I think you are on the right track. I'm testing out this theory on my O'fest. I pushed the ratio into the "bitter" range to see if it comes out more crisp. Last years seemed a little bit dull or soft (not sure the best way to describe it). It was still a great beer but it didn't have the crispness we are looking for I think.

[Big Nake]

I remember having some of the local homebrewers over in December and I had a "Prague Pilsner" on tap that had a lot of Saaz in it. I thought it was a pretty nice, bright beer. A lot of the guys were drinking it but I remember a couple guys saying This beer is so nice and malty! and I wonder if that was because of this ratio... plus I'm sure I used CaCl in that beer which would have made it more malty. I wonder if I should be using gypsum almost exclusively in my beers... except the ones that I want really malty.

[Big Nake]

I don't know if I'm overthinking this or if these are genuine a-ha! moments. I entered an SRM number of 3 into the spreadsheet and the ideal SRM range (in the results) had to come down a little bit. So I continued to add gypsum and CaCl into the salt additions section until the range was something like 3 to 8. To get to that point, I had to add 3 grams of gypsum and 4 grams of CaCl. Does this seem right?Also... I measure my salts by the teaspoon and found something online that suggested that a teaspoon of something like gypsum or CaCl equates to about 4 grams. Sound reasonable to you guys? So ¾ tsp of gypsum and 1 tsp of CaCl for a very light-colored beer like a Kölsch?

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I don't know if I'm overthinking this or if these are genuine a-ha! moments. I entered an SRM number of 3 into the spreadsheet and the ideal SRM range (in the results) had to come down a little bit. So I continued to add gypsum and CaCl into the salt additions section until the range was something like 3 to 8. To get to that point, I had to add 3 grams of gypsum and 4 grams of CaCl. Does this seem right?Also... I measure my salts by the teaspoon and found something online that suggested that a teaspoon of something like gypsum or CaCl equates to about 4 grams. Sound reasonable to you guys? So ¾ tsp of gypsum and 1 tsp of CaCl for a very light-colored beer like a Kölsch?

I can try to check on my scale at home but I remember when I was using volume and then switched to using a scale that I found out my measurements were pretty far off.

[Big Nake]

I can try to check on my scale at home but I remember when I was using volume and then switched to using a scale that I found out my measurements were pretty far off.

That would be cool, Zym. If you could weigh a gram of gypsum or CaCl and then see how that relates to "tsp", that would be helpful. I know you can't go directly from one to the other because it's apples & oranges, but we could at least get close so we know. I think I found something online that said that a tsp of sand is about 4 grams so that's where I got that number. Not scientific, but hopefully close. Cheers.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

That would be cool, Zym. If you could weigh a gram of gypsum or CaCl and then see how that relates to "tsp", that would be helpful. I know you can't go directly from one to the other because it's apples & oranges, but we could at least get close so we know. I think I found something online that said that a tsp of sand is about 4 grams so that's where I got that number. Not scientific, but hopefully close. Cheers.

disclaimer: I'm not sure how accurate my scale actually is