31 replies to this topic

[Big Nake]

First off, why are the "great brewing waters of the world" so all over the map for Munich? I have checked three different sources and they're very different. Even with that, I'm not sure that's the best way to approach it because who knows what the brewers do to the water? My water looks like this...Sodium: 13 Calcium: 34Magnesium: 12 Sulfate, SO4-S: 9Chloride: 21 Bicarbonate, HCO3: 138 I made a couple of Oktoberfests this year with 100% filtered water and just some CaCl to boost the calcium a little. That made my water suitable for a malty beer, which a Festbier is. But one source for Munich water says that the sulfates are 120, another shows it as 79 and BruNWater shows it as 18. How can that be? I do believe that my Oktobers suffer from a lack of crispness and I wonder if some gypsum should be added to my water as well. When you guys make an Oktoberfest lager, are you looking to get a certain character from your beer or do you just wing it? I wonder if Daniel's book Designing Great Beers has any answers... that's where I'm headed next. Cheers.

[Big Nake]

On page 327, he suggests that bicarbonate should be below 100 (settling on 76), calcium and sulfate should both be around 50 and everything else should be under 20 (this is a catch-all water profile for VMO). That suggests that I should have added gypsum because my calcium would've been around 50, my chloride 21 but my sulfate only 27. Anyone else have a good water breakdown for the style?

[positiveContact]

Note: this is for the mash and my water is really soft so the water in the kettle is pretty much this stuff cut in half.httpss://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-QK65DGMW9UQ/UFMZ4KXKCoI/AAAAAAAAMrQ/vyk15JdOFGQ/s1010/o%2527fest%2520water.JPG

Edited by StudsTerkel, 14 September 2012 - 04:50 AM.

[Big Nake]

So more sulfate than chloride, for sure. Well, the sort-of bad news is that one of these is already cold, carbed and kegged and the other one is in primary. The sort-of good news is that I have encountered this issue in the past and have actually been able to "back-sulfate" the beers and save them. I think it was my Spiced Pumpkin Ale that needed a little crispness so I took about a gram of gypsum and added it to a small amount of boiling water and then allowed it to cool and added it right to the keg. It worked. I will probably do this for the kegged beer and for the one in primary, I'll add some gypsum to the water that I heat for the gel solution and add all of that to the secondary and rack the beer on top. Lesson learned. It looks like I need to dilute about 25% (to lower the bicarb to 85ppm) and add 2g of gypsum and 1g of CaCl to get calcium to 50, chloride to 32 (slightly high) and sulfates to 57... that's if I wanted to get close to Daniels' numbers and they would still line up with yours, to a point. The funny thing is that water calculators will tell you that water with a profile like this is best for a "BITTER" style... which Festbier certainly is not. I guess I need to ignore that from now on. Cheers Studs & thanks.

Edited by KenLenard, 14 September 2012 - 05:59 AM.

[positiveContact]

well this is just how i do the water and i like it. diff strokes.

[Steve Urquell]

Ken, I would trust Martin B's Bru'n water for the profile. He put a lot of research in before using those in his program.Do you use acid malt in your mash? I find that it has added a little "pop" to my beers. Just looked at my recent Bopils and I did 67ppm chloride, 31 sulfate and 1% acid malt and it has a nice crispness to it.

[Big Nake]

Ken, I would trust Martin B's Bru'n water for the profile. He put a lot of research in before using those in his program.Do you use acid malt in your mash? I find that it has added a little "pop" to my beers. Just looked at my recent Bopils and I did 67ppm chloride, 31 sulfate and 1% acid malt and it has a nice crispness to it.

I occasionally use acid malt but more commonly just use some lactic acid to adjust the mash and/or sparge pH. I would think that could have a similar effect. Funny that you mention the Pils because I was just about to make a starter with WLP830 so I could make a Pilsner which will probably be a bit of a mash-up between German and Bohemian styles. Pils, some Vienna, Tettnanger to bitter and then late Saaz. Everything I read says that adding gypsum to this style is inappropriate. If I cut my water in half and dilute w/RO, my sulfate number would be 14. AJ DeLange has said that the lower the sulfate the better. I wonder about this. I planned to use about 4 ounces of hops in this Pils and wonder if that will make up for low sulfate. I suppose I could add a small amount like ½ gram to the mash just to add some crispness but I would hate to bring out harshness between the hops and water. I have concluded that I am just a very slow learner when it comes to matching water profiles to beer styles.

[Steve Urquell]

Looking back and accounting for ion loss in my mash tun(didn't add salts to the kettle), I came up with 19ppm for my sulfate. I don't worry about regional profiles too much and add salts to increase what I like in a flavor. AJ doesn't like sulfate at all in anything. I think it adds a little bit to hop-forward styles and add it for those beers.Noonan states that gypsum gives a "drier and fuller flavor and improves the quality of hop bitterness" I, like you, have found that I like to add a little SO4 my beers to increase the crispness of the hop flavor.

[positiveContact]

yeah - before I started adding gypsum to my o'fest I found it to be too soft. i like em crisp!

[Big Nake]

Right. It makes sense if you look at it carefully... you have a lot of Munich in an Oktoberfest and you're typically not hopping the bejesus out of it (I bittering with about 6.5 AAU of hops at the start of the boil and that's all) and both of those things would lean towards the malty/sweet/soft side of things. Without sulfate, late hops or something to balance it, the beer will be overly soft.Chils: That 19ppm of sulfate was what... an overall ppm for all of the water? For the Pils or for an Oktoberfest you're referring to? Just curious. On the Pils, I could see relatively soft water but then firm bitterness up front and late hops additions to give the beer more snap. This Pils I'm envisioning would have it's last hop addition as the whirlpool addition we were talking about earlier. That addition being Saaz... my mouth is watering already.

[MtnBrewer]

Ken, Munich water is pretty high in bicarbonate so I definitely wouldn't try to duplicate it for an o'fest. Like most styles, I don't think festbier is all that sensitive to water.

[Steve Urquell]

Right. It makes sense if you look at it carefully... you have a lot of Munich in an Oktoberfest and you're typically not hopping the bejesus out of it (I bittering with about 6.5 AAU of hops at the start of the boil and that's all) and both of those things would lean towards the malty/sweet/soft side of things. Without sulfate, late hops or something to balance it, the beer will be overly soft.Chils: That 19ppm of sulfate was what... an overall ppm for all of the water? For the Pils or for an Oktoberfest you're referring to? Just curious. On the Pils, I could see relatively soft water but then firm bitterness up front and late hops additions to give the beer more snap. This Pils I'm envisioning would have it's last hop addition as the whirlpool addition we were talking about earlier. That addition being Saaz... my mouth is watering already.

Yep, the bopils was 19ppm overall post sparge. I added a bunch of saaz to my whirlpool and am digging it. I didn't add gypsum to the bopils I brewed before this last one and felt it was lacking something. This one has a few diff things though--acid malt, gypsum, and the whirlpool addition, so hard to pinpoint if the improvement was from exactly one thing or a combo of several.The point I was poorly trying to make with my other post was that, If I think gypsum will add to any style, I will add it. I don't get hung up on regional styles or regional water profiles too much.

[denny]

Trying to match the water of a particular city is a fool's errand as Martin has pointed out many times. You don't have any idea of when or how it was measured, which is why you can find such widely differing reports. Beer styles developed in response to the water that brewers had to work with, so if you stick with adjusting water by Martin's color/flavor parameters you'll have better results.

[Big Nake]

Trying to match the water of a particular city is a fool's errand as Martin has pointed out many times. You don't have any idea of when or how it was measured, which is why you can find such widely differing reports. Beer styles developed in response to the water that brewers had to work with, so if you stick with adjusting water by Martin's color/flavor parameters you'll have better results.

I actually did target Martin's "Amber Malty" profile for this beer. He suggests:Calcium 55Magnesium 5Sodium 15Sulfate 35Chloride 49Bicarb 105I used 100% filtered tap water and added 2g of CaCl to the mash which brought the overall numbers to:Calcium 52Magnesium 12Sodium 4Sulfate 27Chloride 53Bicarb 113Maybe the Sodium number being slightly low in addition to the sulfate being 8ppm low could account for the overly-soft profile of this beer. I know the Magnesium, Sodium and Sulfate can ALL contribute to crispness so that may be the issue. I tried to get as close as possible to his profile w/o overdoing the additions but maybe a pinch of kosher salt & gypsum could've brought this up.

Edited by KenLenard, 14 September 2012 - 09:45 AM.

[Steve Urquell]

Ken, did you add some acid to reduce that bicarb? I plugged in the numbers with that profile and my last O'fest and it would have pushed my mash pH higher than I like. High pH can lead to dull flavors.

[Big Nake]

If I make the mash additions like gypsum and CaCl and then end up with a high mash pH, I adjust downward with lactic acid. I check the pH very carefully and always try to get that 5.2, 5.3 mash and sparge pH. My notes tell me that I mashed at 152 and that the 2 grams of CaCl added to the mash brought my mash pH right in line without adjustment. My water + additions say that the pH would be suitable for a beer between 9 and 14 SRM and my Oktoberfest SRM was 9 so no adjustment was made. I use the ColorpHast strips to check mash and sparge pH on every batch, no exceptions. I am tempted to try to make another batch of this and get the sulfate up a little and also the sodium, per Martin's Malty Amber profile and see if it makes a difference.

[denny]

Ken, it sounds like you're basically on track. I suggest you shoot Martin an email and ask his opinion. He's a great guy and usually replies promptly.

Edited by denny, 14 September 2012 - 11:28 AM.

[Big Nake]

Ken, it sounds like you're basically on track. I suggest you shoot Martin an email and ask his opinion. He's a great guy and usually replies promptly.

I guess I really need to make Martin's water profiles my new mantra. I say this because I started sniffing around asking people about proper water profiles for various styles of beer and didn't get much useful feedback. I think it's helpful for people to share information about what they did with their water for various styles... not where they started (because all of our water is different) but where they ended, with each of the main ions and their ppms. I suppose that Martin's sheet is the closest I have seen to this information and it is pretty robust. My next beer will be this Pils with 830 and I'm going to try to get close to his "yellow balanced" profile and see what happens. Thanks gang!

[SchwanzBrewer]

How about a link or book to look to for water info from Martin?

[denny]

How about a link or book to look to for water info from Martin?

httpss://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/There is a water knowledge section to the spreadsheet.