Gypsum for Heady Topper clone

[leojez]

Hello,

I'm looking at doing a Heady Topper clone and after reading posts on various forums one key part of getting it right is in the water treatment, and specifically the addition of gypsum.

This will be the first time I use water additions and am more than slightly confused.

If I'm not mistaken, the target total hardness in heady topper is 750mg/L, however, most people comment that this is exceeds the limits of common sense. I got a water analysis of my water done by Murphy & Son (through brewuk.com) and my report says 867 - but this is ppm. Here are the readings for raw liquor:

Ions (All figures in ppm)
pH 7.13
Nitrate 3.30
Total Hardness (as CaCO3) 867.00
Calcium 53.60
Magnesium 5.18
Chloride 21.28
Sulphate 13.00
Alkalinity (as CaCO3) 144.00

Not sure how to convert to mg/L and then also how much gypsum I would need to add to reach target ... and then if that amount would be too much anyway.

I guess the simple question I want to ask is, how much gypsum should I add for this clone?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[strange-steve]

Good luck with your clone, it's one I've been wanting to do for a while. Heady topper is interesting because although it's probably the quintessential NEIPA, according to the head brewer it doesn't follow the typical chloride>sulphate ratio that seems to be common in NEIPAs.

Now as for your question, that figure of 750ppm hardness in HT is not the raw liquor but actually from the finished beer so you can disregard that. What is important to know is the alkalinity, calcium, sulphate and chloride, however Alchemist, other than saying they favour sulphate, have been rather secretive with their water. But aiming for a fairly typical IPA water profile should get you close enough.

Your water is fairly high in chloride, so to get to the proper sulphate>chloride ratio you could end up with a rather mineraly flavour according to Bru'n Water. If you have access to some RO water or are willing to use bottled water, you might have a better starting point.

With your tap water you would need to add about 1 tsp of gypsum per 10L of water, which will give you about 390ppm of gypsum (btw ppm and mg/L are the same) and a ratio of 1.85, however that is far more mineralised than I would like to use, especially because you will need to lower your alkalinity with lactic acid or CRS which will add even more minerals.

 

[leojez]

Your water is fairly high in chloride, so to get to the proper sulphate>chloride ratio you could end up with a rather mineraly flavour according to Bru'n Water. If you have access to some RO water or are willing to use bottled water, you might have a better starting point.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the brilliant advice! I've just realized though that my copy and paste skills are useless and I the figures I put for Chloride and Sulphate are wayyyy out. Here's the correct figures:

Ions (All figures in ppm)
pH 7.13
Nitrate 3.30
Total Hardness (as CaCO3) 867.00
Calcium 53.60
Magnesium 5.18
Chloride 21.28
Sulphate 13.00
Alkalinity (as CaCO3) 144.00

Would the gypsum amounts you recommend change?

Thanks again!

 

[strange-steve]

Ah that's a much better starting point! If I were you I'd add 0.4g/L gypsum. That will give you roughly:
145 calcium
21 chloride
223 sulphate

Don't be too concerned about the 10:1 ratio, because the chloride is very low. That should give you the crisp, dry finish you want for this beer.

Another thing you should definitely consider is lowering the alkalinity with an acid addition. About 0.2ml/L lactic acid or 0.6ml/L CRS would be a good start. Edit to add: if you can't get access to acids then an equivalent addition of acid malt would be 8g per liter of mash water.

 

[henteaser]

In another forum, someone spotted a section of their brew sheet. This was a few years back so take it with a pinch of salt., but shows some of the water values;

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVItX3hAcno[/ame]