Matching a water profile

[Dellboy78lfc]

I have been given a specific water profile to use for a recipe, and as I use RO water as my source water, I thought it would be easy to build the exact profile. Here is the profile:

Ca 100, Mg 7, Na 100, Cl 150, SO4 60

The closest my brewing software will get me with the salt additions I have in stock is:

Ca 61, Mg 6, Na 63, Cl 149, SO4 60

So, pretty close, but I can’t seem to raise the calcium and sodium without throwing something else out. I guess it’s a bit of a balancing act but just wondered if anyone else had any tricks or ideas to get me closer, or if there are some other salts I can use etc?

The recipe was one featured on a well known YouTube channel for a Vermont style Mountain IPA touted as being both crispy and juicy!

Thanks in advance!

 

[chopps]

Brewfather will get you very close with treated mash and sparge water. And quite close with no sparge. Just tested your target starting from RO with only gypsum, calcium carbonate and epson salts and got this :

edit : actually, sorry Na is still off….

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

to be honest i should think you’ll be fine with that, but yes ideally a little more calcium would be nice… perhaps the key is to use not entirely RO but just a proportion of it; that way you’ll get a bit more Ca and also a bunch of other trace elements that will keep your yeast happy

 

[Horners]

Brewfather will get you very close with treated mash and sparge water. And quite close with no sparge. Just tested your target starting from RO with only gypsum, calcium carbonate and epson salts and got this :

View attachment 49528

edit : actually, sorry Na is still off….

I came up with sometime similar - sodium seems to be the problem in this little conundrum. I would have thought that this profile as fine, sodium being less important than the other elements?

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I came up with sometime similar - sodium seems to be the problem in this little conundrum. I would have thought that this profile as fine, sodium being less important than the other elements?

tiny bit of sodium chloride (canning salt, or sea salt) perhaps?

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

According to Bru'N Water, from RO you can get to Ca 100, Na 75, Cl 150, Na 62 by adding:

0.05 g/L gypsum (CaSO4 x 2H2O)
0.21 g/L canning salt (NaCl)
0.27 g/L chalk (CaCO3)

I'm not really sure the Mg matters - but if you really want it you could play with the Epsom vs. Gypsum maybe?

The tool has a comment about adding chalk:

Chalk has limited solubility (about 50 mg/L) in water and wort ​

making it less suitable for adding alkalinity. ​

DO NOT USE CHALK FOR BREWING UNLESS IT HAS BEEN ​

FULLY PRE-DISSOLVED INTO WATER WITH CO2. ​

​

Chalk should not be added to water if acid is also added since ​

they counteract each other.​

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Chalk has limited solubility (about 50 mg/L) in water and wort ​

making it less suitable for adding alkalinity.​

Braukaiser has a fairly detailed explanation of how to dissolve chalk into brewing water using CO2 here: Building brewing water with dissolved chalk - German brewing and more

 

[Dellboy78lfc]

I will check out the chalk suggestion, although I will be using lactic acid to lower my ph so not sure how that will affect it. I may just have to get as close as I can this time and see how it comes out! They definitely mention sodium in the video. I was hoping it was going to be a revelation as sodium levels are usually much lower in my IPA’s

 

[Dellboy78lfc]

Here is a link to the video if anyone is interested…

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I will check out the chalk suggestion, although I will be using lactic acid to lower my ph so not sure how that will affect it. I may just have to get as close as I can this time and see how it comes out! They definitely mention sodium in the video. I was hoping it was going to be a revelation as sodium levels are usually much lower in my IPA’s

If you post the profile for your tap water then I'll have a look at a mix of that plus RO - generally a better idea anyway IMHO

 

[Dellboy78lfc]

If you post the profile for your tap water then I'll have a look at a mix of that plus RO - generally a better idea anyway IMHO

Thank you, although I always used Ashbeck bottled water from Tesco before turning to RO, as I didn’t trust the water reports for our area. I guess I could use some of that maybe…?.

The Ashbeck profile is Ca 11, Mg 4, Na 10, Cl 14, SO4 11

 

[chopps]

I'd be very happy to sell my tap water for £1/litre
Bring your own bucket :)

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I didn’t trust the water reports for our area

Have you considered getting some of the Salifert testing kits? They won't tell you everything but they are quite straightforward and fun to do... I have the Ca and KH/Alk ones which agree well with my water report.

Alternately for the princely sum of £35, Murphy and Sons will do you a full brewers analysis with suggestions on how to correct for various styles... well worth it in my opinion
Murphy's Expert Lab Water Analysis

 

[Dellboy78lfc]

Have you considered getting some of the Salifert testing kits? They won't tell you everything but they are quite straightforward and fun to do... I have the Ca and KH/Alk ones which agree well with my water report.

Alternately for the princely sum of £35, Murphy and Sons will do you a full brewers analysis with suggestions on how to correct for various styles... well worth it in my opinion
Murphy's Expert Lab Water Analysis

View attachment 49543

This looks quite helpful…although now I’ve forked out on the RO equipment I’m invested in it now!

 

[Dellboy78lfc]

The only way I can see in the short term to get round this is either stick with my original profile which was a bit light in calcium and sodium, or up the chloride and sulphate a bit to enable me to get a bit more calcium and sodium into the mix. Something like this?

 

[stripeyjoe]

I spent a good hour on Brewers Friend trying to do the exact same profile. I got fairly near based on my tap water which, living in north London, should be close to Wild Card’s. It was warning me that the balance was more towards malt than hops though which seems wrong for this style.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

now I’ve forked out on the RO equipment I’m invested in it now!

Well true, but if your tap water is anything like mine then you’ll probably end up wanting to add a proportion of RO to it anyway :-) Its very useful to have a bit of RO around anyway

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

The only way I can see in the short term to get round this is either stick with my original profile which was a bit light in calcium and sodium, or up the chloride and sulphate a bit to enable me to get a bit more calcium and sodium into the mix. Something like this?

View attachment 49585

Yes that’s probably better - you need enough calcium and so long as the balance between the chloride and sulphate is in about the right proportions thats a good compromise

 

[stripeyjoe]

I wonder if there is a typo and it should be 160SO4… that gives a balanced rather than very malty profile.

 

[Dellboy78lfc]

I wonder if there is a typo and it should be 160SO4… that gives a balanced rather than very malty profile.

I actually emailed the guys at The Craft Beer Channel to ask about the water profile and they sent me a screenshot from their brewing software of their exact profile. The exact figures were Cl 149.8 and SO4 61. Similar to a NEIPA profile in ratio to each other, but lower amounts. I’m pretty sure NEIPA profiles show as favouring the malt as well due to the higher chloride, but I think it just restrains the hop bittterness and gives a fuller mouthfeel. And the large amount of late hops and dry hops means you can still taste ‘em.
I have emailed them again with the two profile options I have managed to work out with my RO water so will report back when hopefully I get a reply!