More Advanced Water Treatment

[clarkeuk]

Exactly, gypsum is made up of calcium and sulphate, so when you put it in your water it increases the calcium and sulphate levels. Likewise with calcium chloride, except it adds chloride rather than sulphate.

Hahaha don't I feel stupid now it's bloody obvious now the penny's dropped
cheers steve
Another cracking post btw 🖒

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

[Adam0909]

Hi all and @strange-steve

I am right in my thinking here ( hope it makes sense)

My water as is out of the tap is :
CALCIUM = 14ppm
SULPHATE = 18ppm
CHLORIDE = 8.5ppm
RATIO= 2.1 (sulphate/choride)

I am brewing a NEIPA so I want more chloride rich water. I am doing a total volume BIAB with 37 litres of water.
So....

If I use 0.2g/L of Gypsum. I will use 7.4g to raise levels to SULPHATE = 130ppm and CALCIUM = 60ppm.
now If I use 0.3g/L of Calcuim Chloride. I will use 11.1g to raise levels to CHLORIDE = 153.5ppm and Calcium = 141ppm

final values

CALCIUM = 141
SULPHATE = 130
CHLORIDE = 153.5
RATIO = 0.85

 

[strange-steve]

@Adam0909
Yeah your calculations are correct, personally though I'd prefer less mineralisation, especially as you have great water to start with. If it were me I'd add something like 0.1g/L gypsum (3.7g total) and 0.25g/L of calcium chloride (9.25g total). That'll give you the following profile:

105ppm Calcium
74ppm Sulphate
129.5ppm Chloride
0.6 Ratio

 

[Adam0909]

@Adam0909
Yeah your calculations are correct, personally though I'd prefer less mineralisation, especially as you have great water to start with. If it were me I'd add something like 0.1g/L gypsum (3.7g total) and 0.25g/L of calcium chloride (9.25g total). That'll give you the following profile:

105ppm Calcium
74ppm Sulphate
129.5ppm Chloride
0.6 Ratio

@strange-steve Thanks for the advise, much appricated.

On the other hand the other day I did a 37 litre total volume BIAB. With my calcium at 13 ppm I used 0.3g/l of gypsum (11g) to bring it up to ~85-90ppm. Would this be OK and not too much mineralisation?

 

[strange-steve]

@strange-steve Thanks for the advise, much appricated.

On the other hand the other day I did a 37 litre total volume BIAB. With my calcium at 13 ppm I used 0.3g/l of gypsum (11g) to bring it up to ~85-90ppm. Would this be OK and not too much mineralisation?

Yeah, perfectly fine. My preference for lower mineralisation is exactly that, my preference, but many styles benefit from harder water, certainly British styles do. I'm not really a fan of "ideal mineral profiles" because it really should be based on personal taste, it's a bit like being told how much salt and vinegar to put on your chips, but with the info here hopefully it'll get you started on the right path.

 

[Adam0909]

@strange-steve Again I can't thank you enough. I guess lots of repeat batches with different mineralisation levels are needed to find my preference

 

[stigman]

now If I use 0.3g/L of Calcuim Chloride. I will use 11.1g

I thought in Steve's beginners guide it said 0.25g/L was the max for CC addition

 

[strange-steve]

now If I use 0.3g/L of Calcuim Chloride. I will use 11.1g

I thought in Steve's beginners guide it said 0.25g/L was the max for CC addition

You're right I did say that. The reason is that to follow the beginners guide you don't need to know the level of chloride (or sulphate) in your water, so I reduced the max CC addition a little just in case the chloride was already high.

Fot this guide however, you do need to know the level of chloride and if it's very low then an addition of 0.3g/L could be ok. In the OP I recommend that the max chloride should probably be around 150ppm. Hope that makes sense.

 

[Ajhutch]

Hi Steve, can I get some thoughts from you on water for an imperial stout? I’m wondering a few things, in particular
- does the fact it’s a high gravity beer mean I should look for extra calcium?
- does the fact I’m going to use a high proportion of dark grains combined with the high gravity mean I could countenance higher than normal alkalinity?

I’m looking at roughly 70% base malt, 10% crystals and 20% dark grains. OG will be in the 1.080 area.

Sainsbury’s Caledonian water has
- bicarbonate 240ppm
- calcium 60ppm
- chloride 11ppm
- sulphate 28ppm

So I was thinking enough calcium chloride to get the chloride up to 40-50ppm wouldn’t hurt and would give me extra calcium. But should I add a little acid do you reckon?

Second question more generally, do you recommend acidifying all water or just mash water? I do no sparge BIAB, should I aim to aciditfy less?

 

[strange-steve]

@Ajhutch

does the fact it’s a high gravity beer mean I should look for extra calcium?

I don't think so, I've never read that higher gravity wort requires more calcium so I'd just aim for somewhere around 100ppm as usual, just make sure your yeast pitch rate is good.

does the fact I’m going to use a high proportion of dark grains combined with the high gravity mean I could countenance higher than normal alkalinity?

Yes, but to what extent is a difficult question to answer. In the OP I suggest alkalinity of about 120ppm (145ppm bicarbonate) for a black beer, but then "black" could be anything from about 35SRM up to 100+SRM. The darker it is, the more alkalinity is required to offset the acidity of the dark malts, but trying to determine exactly how much alkalinity you need is very difficult.

So I was thinking enough calcium chloride to get the chloride up to 40-50ppm wouldn’t hurt and would give me extra calcium. But should I add a little acid do you reckon?

I put your numbers into Bru'n Water and you should be in the right mash pH range with that water without any acid. Actually RIS is a style which can benefit from a small sodium addition to enhance flavours, and personally I would add a little sulphate to give a crisper finish, so if it were me I'd add something like 0.13g/L each of gypsum and table salt (this will add chloride as well as sodium). That'll give you the following profile:

90 calcium
90 chloride
100 sulphate
1.1 ratio
5.6 estimated pH (based on 30L mash)

Second question more generally, do you recommend acidifying all water or just mash water? I do no sparge BIAB, should I aim to aciditfy less?

Yep acidify all water. Doesn't apply to you if you are full volume BIAB, but you want your sparge water to be low alkalinity and/or low pH (<6) to minimise tannin extraction from the grain.

 

[Ajhutch]

Thanks a lot Steve. I ran the numbers through the John Palmer spreadsheet and came up with different outcomes on chloride and sulphate, but not massively so. Alkalinity was my biggest concern on this one anyway.

 

[Ajhutch]

I put your numbers into Bru'n Water and you should be in the right mash pH range with that water without any acid.

Well you were spot on, not that I expected anything less!

Or my pH meter is wrong of course.....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[strange-steve]

Well you were spot on

There's a first time for everything I suppose :)

 

[BeerCat]

Hi Steve. I have been playing around with this water calc and i am struggling https://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/ I have inputted the amount specified in your first water guide and its out. I selected the "Dublin" water profile and it says an alkalinity of 230ppm which seems double what i thought it should be. When i select "light coloured and hoppy" there is zero alkalinity but i am able to get the numbers roughly right. What am i doing wrong? Thanks.

 

[strange-steve]

Trying to match geographical water profiles is flawed because the breweries from those locations don't necessarily use the water as is. Brewing any beer, even a stout, with 230 ppm alkalinity water will not give you a mash pH in the correct range. The water profile in the image you attached looks good to me for a stout.

For a light coloured hoppy profile on that calculator, try 5.5g gypsum and 2g calcium chloride. Seems to be pretty close.

 

[WakefieldBrewing]

Hi all,

First post here and first time actually bothering to look at my water profile.

I'm brewing an American Pale Ale tomorrow and trying to use Bru'n Water to get it right. However, their Pale Ale water profile suggested a target of 300ppm for sulphate which seemed very high. I'm therefore planning to adjust to get the following for the mash water:

Calcium - 149
Magnesium - 5
Sodium - 16
Sulphate - 180
Chloride - 124
Bicarbonate - 49

Does that look reasonable?

Thanks

 

[strange-steve]

Hi all,

First post here and first time actually bothering to look at my water profile.

I'm brewing an American Pale Ale tomorrow and trying to use Bru'n Water to get it right. However, their Pale Ale water profile suggested a target of 300ppm for sulphate which seemed very high. I'm therefore planning to adjust to get the following for the mash water:

Calcium - 149
Magnesium - 5
Sodium - 16
Sulphate - 180
Chloride - 124
Bicarbonate - 49

Does that look reasonable?

Thanks

Hi, welcome to the forum.

300 ppm sulphate is a bit higher than I generally go, but it's not unreasonably high so don't be afraid to increase it some more.

What is your base water profile?

 

[WakefieldBrewing]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

300 ppm sulphate is a bit higher than I generally go, but it's not unreasonably high so don't be afraid to increase it some more.

What is your base water profile?

I followed your advice and purchased the Salifert kits. From those I got:

Calcium - 60ppm
Alkalinity - 57ppm

And then from Yorkshire Water:

Magnesium - 5
Sodium - 15.5
Sulphate - 80
Chloride - 28
Nitrate 14.5

I think my main problem was that my first attempt resulted in a sulphate:chloride ratio of about 11!

edit - I should also say that the only things I have to hand to adjust are:

Gypsum
CRS
Calcium chloride
Bicarbonate of soda
Table salt

 

[strange-steve]

Ok well how about something like:

Calcium 145
Sulphate 220
Chloride 76
Alkalinity 20
Ratio 2.9

Which you could get by adding 0.25g/L gypsum, 0.1g/L calcium chloride and 0.2ml/L CRS.

 

[WakefieldBrewing]

Perfect.

Thank you so much. I'll start heating my water now!