Honing water profile

[Bashley]

Hi all

I'm a few brews in now and would like to hone my water profile a little. As I'm absolutely useless at mathematics I need some help. I've attached the water profile of where I live in France. I'd like to know how to
change the profile to suit 2 main styles: IPAs and English Ales. I've checked out some of the calculators online but I'm completely flummoxed.
Also, am I right in assuming that once youperfect the water profile, you don't have to concern yourself with pre and post mash PH? Thanks for any help!

 

[MmmBeer]

Hi Bashley, I have done a lot of reading on water treatment and I still find it fiendishly confusing, despite an A level in chemistry. From what I understand (and others can correct me) the most crucial parameters are the Calcium Hardness KH (also confusingly called alkalinity), Chlorine / chloramine concentration and pH. What I find so confusing is the mixture of units used by water companies / chemists / test kits and home brewing books. KH is concentration of carbonates and bicarbonates, in parts per million, your water report lists 233.39 mg/l. If my maths is correct (don't count on it), this equates to 69 ppm. There will also be some carbonates adding to this figure. The desired KH figure depends upon the colour of your beer, varying from 20 ppm for a pale beer to 120 for stout or black beer. This is reduced by adding a food safe acid like lactic acid or CRS (a mixture of phosphoric and hydrochloric acids). As for chlorides, add half a campden tablet in your mash water.
For more details read the Beginners Guide to Water Treatment thread.

 

[svenito]

Your hardness or alkalinity is the water's resistance to pH change. The higher it is, the more acid is required to affect a change in pH which is what the grains would normally do during the mash. Adding additional acid will reduce the calcium carbonate by percipitating it out of solution. Phosophoric acid will create calcium phosphate, water, and CO2 for example. The other two main factors are sulphate and chloride levels, and the ratio between them.

What water profile you go for will depend on the type of beer you are brewing, and what kind of falvour profile you want. The thread Beginners Guide to Water Treatment is a great source of info, followed by the advanced thread.

I generally approach my water profiles like this:

Decide what style I want. Say for example a hoppy beer, bitter, not too malty.
I enter my water profiles into the Brewersfriend advanced water calculator and see what the resulting profile is for my water and a blend. I use a base profile from the selection (eg Light and Hoppy) and then work from that.
I know I want a ration of Sulphate:Chloride of around 3:1 for example. So I check the levels in the calculator and add amounts of gypsum and calcium chloride until I am happy. I don't mind if my levels are a bit higher than those from the profile, I mostly care about the ratio at this point.
Then I adjust the pH with some acid
Once done I review the summary and use my own judgement as to whether or not I am happy with it. Usually I go back several times and retweak some values as I read up on water profiles for that type.

Hope that helps

 

[Stephenj]

Far too complex for my little mind. Love how it's been simplified here, and the beginners guide and I'm still totally lost. Good luck sorting you water profile by the way

 

[Bashley]

Far too complex for my little mind. Love how it's been simplified here, and the beginners guide and I'm still totally lost. Good luck sorting you water profile by the way

Yeah I know what you mean. Can't I just bang my current water profile into a computer, with the water profile needed and be told how much 'stuff' I need to throw in? Oh, that would be a dream. :)

 

[svenito]

Yeah I know what you mean. Can't I just bang my current water profile into a computer, with the water profile needed and be told how much 'stuff' I need to throw in? Oh, that would be a dream. :)

That is kinda what beersmith does. It will suggest additions based on your base water, dilution, grain bill, and target profile.

 

[Bashley]

So, in brewsfriend are you just trying to get everything hitting normal?

 

[svenito]

So, in brewsfriend are you just trying to get everything hitting normal?

As long as it's within an acceptable range (green stars at the bottom) I adjust to get the profile I want. If I use a specific preset profile I don't worry too much about hitting the exact values if I can't and just aim for a similar ratio of sulphate and chloride. I'm often a 20-50ppm over or under the target profile. The amounts are important, but the ratio is said to make a bigger difference.

I have crappy tap water and no RO and am too stingy to use distilled, so I mix with ashbeck. Adjusting the mix already allows me to tweak some of the values. The rest I do with additions

 

[Bashley]

Thanks Svenito. I'm not sure which ratios you're referring to, I haven't seen that on the beersmith program.

I typed in my profile but I think I'm misunderstanding something. So4 is sulfite, but on my water profile (in French) there isn't sulfite listed, so I assumed it was 'potassium'. Given that with every target profile I'm over -700mg difference I'd say I've made a gaff. So from my jpeg above I'm not sure which one sulfite would be. 'Durete' is water hardness. And the others are pretty much self explanatory. If anyone could help I'd be greatly appreciative!

 

[svenito]

I am referring to the ratio between SO4 and Cl.

Take a look at this profile https://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/?id=RM3X786 and at the bottom you will see "SO42-/Cl- ratio: 3.0 More Bitter"

So in this case I have 3 times more SO4 than Cl because I wanted a more bitter flavour and bring out the hop aroma. In other brews I would end up with a ratio "SO42-/Cl- ratio: 0.5 Very Malty" - which was a weissbier profile I used.

Does that make sense?

Potassium is K, so that's not sulphate. Your profile image above doesn't seem to list it unfrotunately. You can try contacting the supplier for a more indepth report, or send a sample for analysis.

 

[Bashley]

Yeah, I kind of get it!

 

[svenito]

Don't worry too much about the actual values at the start. How to Brew by Palmer and the online calculators all tell you the acceptable ranges for the each addition. As long as they are somewhere in between that you should be fine. Focus more on the ratio at the start and as you get comfortable, work on honing the whole profile.
Most given water profiles you see in things like Brewersfriend or BeerSmith are quite old and the water used by breweries round those areas is probably quite different by now. I tend to just use them as a starting point.

 

[Zephyr259]

I've been using the bru'n water spreadsheet for the past few months. The gist of water is to get your pH in the right range of approximately 5.4.

For our purposes mg/L and ppm are the same thing, no conversion necessary.

Calcium salts will lower pH and you need at least 50 mg/L calcium for yeast health, 100 is better. Dark malts are more acidic and might give a low pH even with enough calcium, this is where alkalinity comes in as carbonate or bicarbonate. These ions will raise the pH so stouts etc tend to require higher levels than a pale ale.

My water has 42 mg/L bicarb which seems perfect for amber ales, a bit high for really pale beers and way low for stouts so for the latter I add baking soda to balance the pH, last dark beers have needed 140 - 190 mg/L bicarb.

After this you can look at sulphate to chloride ratio, with sulphate emphasising dryness and hop character, chloride emphasises the malt and gives more mouthfeel.

Water chemistry is pretty complex but the application is actually very simple.