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Water for a Festbier (my apologies in advance)


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#1 Big Nake

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Posted 04 June 2013 - 10:17 AM

Sorry for the water thread.  There, I said it.

 

With many of my beers coming out much better lately with reduced bicarbonate (pretty much all styles), one style I have coming up shortly is a Festbier and I'm not sure how to tweak the water.  If you believe the Munich water has between 250-300ppm (or so) of bicarbonate, should I still be cutting it (assuming Munich brewers don't use their water without adjusting) or what?  What do you guys who make Festbier do with your water?  My gut reaction is to cut it about 25% with distilled (bringing my bicarb down to about 100), and get the calcium back up to 50ppm mostly with CaCl, leaving a malty ratio.  Thoughts?



#2 positiveContact

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Posted 04 June 2013 - 10:24 AM

Sorry for the water thread.  There, I said it.

 

With many of my beers coming out much better lately with reduced bicarbonate (pretty much all styles), one style I have coming up shortly is a Festbier and I'm not sure how to tweak the water.  If you believe the Munich water has between 250-300ppm (or so) of bicarbonate, should I still be cutting it (assuming Munich brewers don't use their water without adjusting) or what?  What do you guys who make Festbier do with your water?  My gut reaction is to cut it about 25% with distilled (bringing my bicarb down to about 100), and get the calcium back up to 50ppm mostly with CaCl, leaving a malty ratio.  Thoughts?

 

I use my soft water and add a mix of calcium chloride and gypsum to get my pH right.  I like to have a little bit of sulfate to give the beer a little edge.



#3 Big Nake

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Posted 04 June 2013 - 10:31 AM

But your bicarb is still low?  I'm thinking this is a good approach.  What is the approximate SRM of your Festbier?



#4 positiveContact

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Posted 04 June 2013 - 10:38 AM

But your bicarb is still low?  I'm thinking this is a good approach.  What is the approximate SRM of your Festbier?

 

sorry - I add a little bit of chalk as well.  I don't need to add a lot though since my water handles "amber" by default.  I could actually brew an o'fest with zero additions if all I cared about was hitting mash pH.  I'm mostly adding stuff to up the calcium a bit and to get a little bit of sulfate in there.  thinking back I may have stopped using calcium chloride and just add some gypsum and chalk that cancel each other out in terms of pH.



#5 Darterboy

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Posted 04 June 2013 - 02:19 PM

I've been following A.J. Delange's advice and building my water from r.o. (from the Glacier machine at the grocery store) and using sauermalz on lighter-colored beers. I don't think carbonates are ever a good idea, are they?  I suspect the brewers of Munich boiled their brewing water to de-carbonate it before brewing.

 

Per A.J.:

 

"By Ajdelange

[color=#000000;][font="verdana;"]One of the first things a beginning brewer is told is that beer is typically 95% water and that, as a consequence of this, getting the water one brews with “correct” for the style is very important. He is also told that most beer styles evolved the way they did because of the nature of the water with which they were originally brewed. Those statements are true enough but the process of understanding what is “correct” and the process of going between the water one has and the “correct” water is, to many, one of the most daunting aspects of brewing.[/color]Many beginning and advanced brewers assume that it is necessary when brewing, for example, a Munich Helles, to duplicate Munich water and there are many places where one can find ion profiles for Munich water and spreadsheets into which one can insert those profiles and details of one’s own water and be given advice on what minerals to add to duplicate Munich. There are multiple potential problems with this approach. First, published water reports are very often wrong. Second, it is not enough to know what [/font][color=#000000;][font="verdana;"]Munich[/color][/font][color=#000000;][font="verdana;"] water is like, You must also know what the brewer did to make the beer with the existing water. In the case of Helles, for example, the water needs to be softened. Finally, the spreadsheets often calculate salt additions based on simplifications of the chemistry involved, consideration of things that are essentially irrelevant (beer color, chloride to sulfate ration) and reliance on models of things (e.g. effects of dark malt on mash pH) that really can’t be modeled very well. When all the approximations are good the result can be fine but when they aren’t the result can be salt addition recommendations that can have a detrimental effect on the beer,[/color][/font][color=#000000;][font="verdana;"]In this note we are going to take a very simple approach to brewing water preparation. In tailoring water we seek 2 goals. The first, arguably more important than the second, is to be sure that the water properties are consistent with mash pH in a suitable range (5.1 – 5.5). The second is that, on the one hand, the mineral content not add or cause flavors which the drinker may not like and on the other that minerals which have a positive effect on the beer, be available in adequate quantity, The first goal cannot be achieved by the use of water treatment alone. Acid is usually required. This is traditionally supplied in German brewing by the use of lactic acid in the form of sauermalz (acidulated malt) or sauergut (wort fermented by lactic bacteria) while in British practice a blend of mineral acids is usually employed. Thus the recommendations that follow also specify acid additions.[/color]The following recommendations apply to “soft” water. Here we will define soft as meaning RO or distilled water or any water whose lab report indicates alkalinity less than 35 (ppm as CaCO3 – all other numbers to follow mg/L), sulfate less than 20 (as sulfate – Ward Labs reports as sulfur so multiply the SO4-S number by 3 to get as sulfate), chloride less than 20, sodium less than 20, calcium less than 20 and magnesium less than 20. If your water has numbers higher than these, dilute it with RO or DI water. A 1:1 dilution reduces each ion concentration to 1/2, a 2:1 dilution to 1/3 and so on. If your water contains chloramines add 1 campden tablet per 20 gallons (before any dilution)[/font]Baseline: Add 1 tsp of calcium chloride dihydrate (what your LHBS sells) to each 5 gallons of water treated. Add 2% sauermalz to the grist.Deviate from the baseline as follows:For soft water beers (i.e Pils, Helles). Use half the baseline amount of calcium chloride and increase the sauermalz to 3%For beers that use roast malt (Stout, porter): Skip the sauermalz. For British beers: Add 1 tsp gypsum as well as 1 tsp calcium chlorideFor very minerally beers (Export, [color=#000000;][font="verdana;"]Burton[/color][/font][color=#000000;][font="verdana;"] ale): Double the calcium chloride and the gypsum.[/color][/font][color=#000000;][font="verdana;"]These recommendations should get you a good beer if not the best beer. To get the best you should vary the amounts of the added salts noting carefully whether a change benefits or detriments your enjoyment of the beer. Additional sulfate will sharpen the perceived hops bitterness. Additional chloride will round, smooth and sweeten the beer. Add or decrease these in small amounts.[/color]Those serious about getting the best possible results should buy a pH meter and check mash pH increasing or decreasing the amount of sauermalz to get pH around 5.3. Unfortunately the strips don’t seem to work very well."[/font]



#6 neddles

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Posted 04 June 2013 - 03:24 PM

Oh boy, it is on now.

 

Good post Darter. I'm gonna bet Ken has read this, and more than once.

 

And I would agree that more than likely less CaCO3 is going to be better. You make a lot of beer Ken, why not try making it with your suggested 25% dilution and then make it again with 100% distilled so there is as little CaCo3 as possible, add salts so that the other #'s are identical and compare the two?


Edited by ettels4, 04 June 2013 - 03:24 PM.


#7 MtnBrewer

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Posted 04 June 2013 - 04:09 PM

Ken, my festbiers are very malty and I use unaltered COS tap water (very soft as you know).

#8 Big Nake

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Posted 04 June 2013 - 04:43 PM

Oh boy, it is on now.

 

Good post Darter. I'm gonna bet Ken has read this, and more than once.

 

And I would agree that more than likely less CaCO3 is going to be better. You make a lot of beer Ken, why not try making it with your suggested 25% dilution and then make it again with 100% distilled so there is as little CaCo3 as possible, add salts so that the other #'s are identical and compare the two?

I have read that many times on HBT and have had multiple one-on-one conversations with AJ about water.  I have made a number of malty festbiers with 100% filtered tap water and my first thought is that it could be smoother.  My Festbiers could range anywhere from maybe SRM 6 to 10 and I think a lowered bicarb number would be better.  I would not go with 100% distilled for a Festbier.  Hell, I don't even go 100% distilled for a Czech Pils (I think it's 87% for that) so I could go 25% or maybe 50% but I can't see how I would need to go lower than that.

 

 

Ken, my festbiers are very malty and I use unaltered COS tap water (very soft as you know).

Okay, I'm going to lower the bicarb and bring the chlorides and sulfates up a bit and get Ca to 50ppm and do it that way.  I can't see some of these excellent Festbiers from Munich being made with double the amount of bicarb I have in my water.  Thanks & cheers gang.



#9 positiveContact

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Posted 04 June 2013 - 05:30 PM

so i was right the first time.  just some calcium chloride and gypsum.



#10 Darterboy

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Posted 04 June 2013 - 06:37 PM

Wasn't trying to start anything. Just pass along what has been working for me. 


Edited by Darterboy, 04 June 2013 - 06:41 PM.


#11 neddles

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Posted 04 June 2013 - 06:56 PM

I would not go with 100% distilled for a Festbier.  Hell, I don't even go 100% distilled for a Czech Pils (I think it's 87% for that) so I could go 25% or maybe 50% but I can't see how I would need to go lower than that.

 

Ken, I am probably missing something so excuse me for asking. What do you feel the bicarb is bringing to your beer in terms of flavor? If its not bicarb then what is it in your water that you are trying to keep in the beer by not diluting further.



#12 Big Nake

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Posted 05 June 2013 - 07:49 AM

 

Ken, I am probably missing something so excuse me for asking. What do you feel the bicarb is bringing to your beer in terms of flavor? If its not bicarb then what is it in your water that you are trying to keep in the beer by not diluting further.

I think it's just a matter of how much bicarb is in the water.  My source water has 138ppm and I can tell the difference in a beer where I cut the tap water with just 25% distilled water which brings it down to about 100.  In pale-colored beers, the bicarb sticks out more so it needs to be lowered further.  If I were to make a Festbier that was SRM 6 or 7, I might use 50% distilled.  If it was more like SRM 9 or 10, 25% might be enough.  I'm not sure that I know why the pale beers do not do well with higher levels of bicarbonate but I probably should.  In some beers that are darker, maybe SRM 10-15, cutting the water 25% with distilled makes a noticeable difference... the beer is smoother and cleaner-tasting and the head is much fluffier, softer and stable.  Beers with higher levels of bicarb taste a little more harsh and fizzy-tasting.  I'm not sure that bicarb lends flavor to the beer but there is a character that detracts from the quality of the beer, for sure.  As far as diluting, I have many 1-gallon bottles of distilled water around the house and I don't really need to use a lot of them for the amber-to-dark beers so 25% does what I want without wasting the distilled water.  That will leave more on hand for pale beers.  I just made my Cabana Lager and used 75% distilled water (6 out of 8 gallons).  Cheers.



#13 MtnBrewer

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Posted 05 June 2013 - 07:54 AM

I can't see some of these excellent Festbiers from Munich being made with double the amount of bicarb I have in my water.

At one time they were, back in the Gabriel Sedlmayr days. That's the reason that they are amber instead of pale. But just because Sedlmmayr was able to brew these beers using high bicarb water, it doesn't mean you need high bicarb water to brew them.

#14 Big Nake

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Posted 05 June 2013 - 07:57 AM

At one time they were, back in the Gabriel Sedlmayr days. That's the reason that they are amber instead of pale. But just because Sedlmmayr was able to brew these beers using high bicarb water, it doesn't mean you need high bicarb water to brew them.

Agreed.  The more beer I make (of whatever color) with some percentage of distilled water, the better I'm liking it.  I have made bitters, red lagers, pale ales, pilsners, dark lagers, west coast lagers, cream ales, american wheats, viennas and a bunch of other stuff and they're ALL better with reduced bicarb. 




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