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Salts and distilled H2O

Post #1 made 13 years ago
by kartoffel
So I'm going to make A Bell's two heart clone. I bought enough distilled h2o to do the whole brew but I picked up some brewcraft burton water salts. I have had awkward bitterness in my other high ibu beers using my tap water, which being from milwaukee should be good enough for a pale ale. Any one got any opinions about my idea to add 5tsp to all my water (5tsp since that's what I'm planning to end up with is 5 gallons.) The instructions say 1 teaspoon in 1 gallon adds 889ppm hardness being broken down to 135ppm Ca 388 SO4 19 Mg 183 K and 165 Cl. This seems good enough based on what I read but I also read that people strongly discourage making water from distilled water. I think these salts take care of everything I need within a reasonable range for a 5 gal batch, or should I use more than 5tsp since some water gets held back in the grain.

Post #2 made 13 years ago
by BrickBrewHaus
kartoffel, I haven't used burton salts before so I can't comment on how well they work. Therefore, I won't try to persuade you one way or another. But I will make a few suggestions/comments/things to think about

1)Using distilled water is fine for all grain brewing AS LONG AS YOU ADD SALTS/MINERALS TO IT. Distilled water is void of all minerals, minerals that the enzymes and yeast need to do their job. Therefore you must always add minerals/salts back to it.
2)When using distilled water, you should be mindful of the possibility that your mash pH may drop too low. Distilled water cannot resist the change in pH like regular water because it is void of carbonate ions (alkalinity). I would recommend checking mash pH with strips or preferably a meter.**
3)Just because burton has famous water, it doesn't necessarily mean its the best water. A couple of well-respected (in my opinion) brewers preach the simple-water-profiles-are-better gospel. I encourage you to experiment for yourself.
4)Based on 3), I wouldn't use more than 5tsp. IMHO, disregard the argument that you should add more because of grain absorption. If you truly think that you need more, after tasting it or some other factor, then add more next time.


**My personal experience says that you should be fine with a beer of this color, possible approaching a mash pH on the low end. This might not be the case if you were brewing a RIS, for example, so I would always recommend checking.
Last edited by BrickBrewHaus on 23 Sep 2012, 09:12, edited 2 times in total.

Post #3 made 13 years ago
by kartoffel
Rather than buying a huge ammount of different minerals and salts I decided to get the burtons as good starting point and it seems the burton salts are different between brands. The brand I have listed the exact makeup unlike some others but I think the makup is a pretty close match to what some people were saying to use in their IPAs. I'm discontent with my local water and how it makes the hops tastes, they never get quite like a commercial craft beer. I figure less is more perhaps and will stick with 5tsp. I'm only concerned about the buffering potential of the distilled+salts though. I'm not sure about the ph and I have no way to measure it (plans for future brewing exellence) the recipe does have some vienna and carapils so hopefully that will help the mash ph out enough. I will also be using a small ammount of DME which should have some minerals in it, just 3lbs to take some of the weight out of my bag.

Post #4 made 13 years ago
by ArcLight
I find Water Chemistry complex.
Distilled water is fine, but you do need to add salts.

>.135ppm Ca 388 SO4 19 Mg 183 K and 165 Cl

Go ahead and try it. But let me offer you an alternative suggestion.

>>>Rather than buying a huge ammount of different minerals and salts<<<
I bought a "huge" amount of stuff.

- 100 Campden Tablets (for Chlorine) $3 (each tablet is good for 2-3 batches, so thats 1 penny per brew session)

- 2 Ounces of Epson Salts $1.29 - (I use a couple of grams per brew session 28 grams in an ounce, so thats about 4 cents per 5 gallon batch.

- 1 pound of Calcium Chloride

- 1 pound of Gypsum

This "huge" cost is what? 10 cents per brew session?

What I suggest is using BrunWater (its free) and start with less Chloride and Sulfate. You can actually add a pinch of gypsum to different beers to see how you like the effect.

Your Burton salts may give you a minerally taste.

Post #5 made 13 years ago
by BrickBrewHaus
I tend to favor arclights approach better. By having each salt individually, you can control the ratio of each much more closely. The ratio is locked in if you purchase them pre-mixed and that ratio won't give you the best profile for every beer style.

Post #6 made 13 years ago
by kartoffel
Well as I don't like my local water I think I will do this experiment and use it as a baseline to make further adjustments. I'll use 4tsp of the salts 1tsp of CaCl2(from cheesemaking) and 1tsp of baking soda for RA. This leaves my brewing water with, per 5 gal,
Adjusted Water: 142 Ca, 15 Mg, 310 SO4, 47 Na, 194 Cl, 120 HCO3, and 98 alkalinity but it says the RA is -12.88. The sulfite cloride ratio is good and it matches the SRM estimate ph is 5.78 my specialty malts should help bring that down to target range. or should I skip the baking soda which would give me estimated 5.6 Ph but no Na concentration at all.

Either way with high sulfate low na and high calcium along with the abv of the bells clone and how rich its body is I think that the water should be where it needs to be for at least this style and subsequent batches I can alter the distilled water with individual salts if this turns out better than my tap water.

Post #7 made 13 years ago
by ArcLight
kartoffel,
I think you are making a mistake!

1. Do NOT add baking soda unless you know what you are doing and are sure you need it. If you are using well water, that is acidic, along with lots of roasted (acidic) malts, then ok. Otherwise, you may end up having too high a Ph. >>or should I skip the baking soda YES! Skip that.

2. 4tsp of Burton Salts PLUS another teas spoon of Calcium Chloride?
UGH! You will end up with Alka Seltzer.

3. You can perform an experiment with a single bottle of store bought beer. Just pick your style, pour several small glasses, and start experimenting with CaCL vs SO4.

4. What don't you like about your water?
"Bad" water contains Chlorine/Chloramine, iron, contaminants, etc. If its good too much alkalinity, you can add some acid. If it tastes bad, then don't use it.





>>Well as I don't like my local water I think I will do this experiment and use it as a baseline to make further adjustments. I'll use 4tsp of the salts 1tsp of CaCl2(from cheesemaking) and 1tsp of baking soda for RA. This leaves my brewing water with, per 5 gal,
Adjusted Water: 142 Ca, 15 Mg, 310 SO4, 47 Na, 194 Cl, 120 HCO3, and 98 alkalinity but it says the RA is -12.88. The sulfite cloride ratio is good and it matches the SRM estimate ph is 5.78 my specialty malts should help bring that down to target range. or should I skip the baking soda which would give me estimated 5.6 Ph but no Na concentration at all.

Either way with high sulfate low na and high calcium along with the abv of the bells clone and how rich its body is I think that the water should be where it needs to be for at least this style and subsequent batches I can alter the distilled water with individual salts if this turns out better than my tap water.

Post #8 made 13 years ago
by BobBrews
I have great success (awards) with my favorite Black IPA's. I use my well water here in Central Wisconsin USA. My other beers (pale ales) were OK but I never won anything with them. I had no idea what my pH was? And didn't care! Recently (on a whim) I purchased some pH strips. When I tried the strips my pH was off the charts! I didn't even match the colors they had for brewing! I panicked! I then purchased a cheap Milwaukee electronic pH meter. It confirmed that I was +9 or more. The next brew I Purchased a 2.5 gallon jug of "drinking" water and used that 50/50 with my well water. I got a pH of 5.4. Right on the money for Pale ales and the like.

For my Black IPA's I will continue to use just well water but now I will have to adjust my pH for any Pilsners, Amber ales or any other light colored beers. I have heard many times that if you like the beer you brew that you have good water. Maybe now I will adjust my thinking along with my water?
tap 1 Raspberry wine
tap 2 Bourbon Barrel Porter
tap 3 Czech Pilsner
tap 4 Triple IPA 11% ABV
Pipeline: Mulled Cider 10% ABV

http://cheesestradamus.com/ Brewers challenge!
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From United States of America

Post #9 made 13 years ago
by kartoffel
Well I went ahaid and brewed the other day using the 4+1tsp. The wort tasted good, but it usually does. I didn't use baking soda I figured that was a bad idea but I don't think the water will be alkaseltzer using those ammount of salts in distilled water. I added that much salt to 8 gallons mind you and ended up with a little less than 5 gal in the carboy and will lose a bit to trub. This was by far the clearest wort I have ever had. I could see straight to the bottom which has never happened after the boil. I could even see the cone from my whirlpool. I have had problems with clear beer and my hops tasting like the wrong kind of bitter. If anything the efficiency was higher than usual I measured my wort at 90 degrees so my hydrometer might not have been too accurated but temp adjusted I got 1.061-1.063 which is what I wanted to get but I have been getting a few points below on other biab batches so perhaps the chemistry was better to extract. The beer ended up quite a bit darker than expected maybe they put something other than 20L in that bin at the LHBS because it was pretty red and bells two hearted is not red.

Post #10 made 13 years ago
by datamichael
I've attached a brewing water "cheat sheet". It's been developed over the last ten years or so. It started as notes I used to teach BJCP exam prep classes. (I am a BJCP National judge with over 20 years brewing experience)

Hope it clears up some misconceptions for you!

Michael
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Post #11 made 13 years ago
by Lylo
Thanks Michael!
I'll be hanging this in the brewery.Regarding campden tablets,what is the"careful though" warning for?
Also,with respect to your BJCP creds.
Do you consider yourself a good judge of IBU's?
Don't get me wrong it's just that most judges "of anything" have strong and weak areas in what they bring to the table.
I am wondering if we will be able to get your opinion of how well our BIABacus IBU formulas will stack up against judging.
AWOL

Post #12 made 13 years ago
by datamichael
Lylo wrote:Thanks Michael!
I'll be hanging this in the brewery.Regarding campden tablets,what is the"careful though" warning for?
Also,with respect to your BJCP creds.
Do you consider yourself a good judge of IBU's?
Don't get me wrong it's just that most judges "of anything" have strong and weak areas in what they bring to the table.
I am wondering if we will be able to get your opinion of how well our BIABacus IBU formulas will stack up against judging.
I've had *very* sulfury beers at competitions that I can only guess it comes from overuse of campden tablets. I'll update the cheat sheet to read something like "Use only the recommended amount (typically recommended is one tablet per 20 gallons of water). Overuse can result in very sulfury beer." Thanks

As to the IBU question - I am not sure. There's a lot of variables involved with that - hop aroma and flavor, FG, carb level, etc - can "trick" perceptions. I am certainly willing to help however I can though.

Interesting question though. I am going to add that to my notes. Perhaps in the future I'll brew the same beer several times with varying IBU levels and see what the threshold is for perception. I love brewing experiments!


Michael
Last edited by datamichael on 27 Sep 2012, 04:16, edited 2 times in total.

Post #13 made 13 years ago
by Lylo
Thanks for the quick reply Michael,I am not sure if you have been able to play with the Baby BIABacus or not but,be are challenging all of the many different ways of determining IBU's.Pat has spent untold hours on the formulae and has done an amazing job.
In many instances we find that our calcs are considerably different from others when using the same numbers.However we believe that the formulas we are using make more sense than many if not all of the others.
As a BJCP judge I think your input would be of great assistance.
Thanks
AWOL

Post #14 made 13 years ago
by BrickBrewHaus
Hey Michael...Nice document. I agree with most of it. I've never much cared about replicating famous waters, just monitoring pH which is what you're advocating.

One point of contention: Your discussion on RA, according to well-respected (in my opinion) brewer A. J. DeLange, is incorrect. Check out one of his papers here. You state, "Residual Alkalinity = alkalinity of water + effect of grains" and "Darker grains are more acidic and generally drive RA down. Crystal malts drive RA down the most. Then roasted grains." You're confusing and mixing two very distinct things here. While the former is technically true, its only true because RA is meaningless without grain added to the water. But with the latter statement, you state that darker roasted grains drive down RA but, actually, they are simply neutralizing the remaining alkalinity in the mash/water. They have nothing to do with RA.

Putting all of this together...With your two statements, you're implying that RA can be adjusted by using grain of different lovibond. This is false. RA is a function of 1) alkalinity 2) calcium concentration and 3) magnesium concentration, not grains as you've stated. The effect of grains comes from neutralizing alkalinity and, hence, lowering pH. The darker the roast, more acid is available to release, more alkalinity is neutralized, and the more pH is lowered in the mash.

With all of that being said, water is an extremely complex issue and I've seen countless generalizations that try to simplify this complexity and put it into layman's terms. I can appreciate the difficulties of trying to do this, I've tried and failed :P If that is your goal here, then I would suggest making a few minor terminology adjustments. I'd be willing to discuss further if you'd like.
Last edited by BrickBrewHaus on 27 Sep 2012, 04:36, edited 2 times in total.

Post #19 made 13 years ago
by kartoffel
I like the document and it has given me some things to think about. If for instance you do want to brew with distilled water. Would you suggest adding of anything to that water? I know its possible to ferment with unadalterated distilled water, but would you want to as a matter of taste?
For the price of distilled water in the short term over slow carbon filtration or a RO system I would rather develop a "house distilled + salt profile". Just brew a simple pale beer with distilled water and differering concentrations of one ion. Then you could mix the final beers brewed with each salt into different ratios and combinations to find one that is sutable in taste. Then you would also have some first hand knowledge attached to your own sences of how the [ions] change taste. With that knowldege if it were ever the case that you could adjust, potentially, for future beers in different styles if needed. At least then you would have a go to water that works and know for yourself rather than rely on the internet to determine, in the future, how to adjust your distilled water coctail.

Also I couldn't even percieve a taste difference in distilled water vs 1tsp of the salts I put in. I don't think my beer will taste too heavy of minerals if I can't even decern the fact that I added the 4tsp+1tsp of CaCl2 to the strike water (~8 gal). Sure I'm left with ~5gal at bottling that will concentrate the minerals but at 5G the ratios of those ions are what are in acceptable ranges from a number of sources so it at least shouldn't be bad.

Post #20 made 13 years ago
by datamichael
BrickBrewHaus wrote:Hey Michael...Nice document. I agree with most of it. I've never much cared about replicating famous waters, just monitoring pH which is what you're advocating.

One point of contention: Your discussion on RA, according to well-respected (in my opinion) brewer A. J. DeLange, is incorrect. Check out one of his papers here. You state, "Residual Alkalinity = alkalinity of water + effect of grains" and "Darker grains are more acidic and generally drive RA down. Crystal malts drive RA down the most. Then roasted grains." You're confusing and mixing two very distinct things here. While the former is technically true, its only true because RA is meaningless without grain added to the water. But with the latter statement, you state that darker roasted grains drive down RA but, actually, they are simply neutralizing the remaining alkalinity in the mash/water. They have nothing to do with RA.

Putting all of this together...With your two statements, you're implying that RA can be adjusted by using grain of different lovibond. This is false. RA is a function of 1) alkalinity 2) calcium concentration and 3) magnesium concentration, not grains as you've stated. The effect of grains comes from neutralizing alkalinity and, hence, lowering pH. The darker the roast, more acid is available to release, more alkalinity is neutralized, and the more pH is lowered in the mash.

With all of that being said, water is an extremely complex issue and I've seen countless generalizations that try to simplify this complexity and put it into layman's terms. I can appreciate the difficulties of trying to do this, I've tried and failed :P If that is your goal here, then I would suggest making a few minor terminology adjustments. I'd be willing to discuss further if you'd like.
Yes, I agree. The second statement should read "Darker grains are more acidic and generally drive mash PH down. Crystal malts drive mash PH down the most. Then roasted grains." I'll change that, thx.

But I'd be up for further suggestions to clarify the issue. My point was simply to give notice that the term "RA" is out there, as you mentioned it's meaningless without the grain in the water, and that it's largely a useless term to most brewers.

As you noted, the goal of the sheet, and the usual talk that normally goes with it, is to get brewers measuring the actual PH of their mash, wort, and finished beer and make adjustments accordingly.

Michael
Last edited by datamichael on 27 Sep 2012, 07:16, edited 2 times in total.

Post #21 made 13 years ago
by datamichael
kartoffel wrote:I like the document and it has given me some things to think about. If for instance you do want to brew with distilled water. Would you suggest adding of anything to that water? I know its possible to ferment with unadalterated distilled water, but would you want to as a matter of taste?
For the price of distilled water in the short term over slow carbon filtration or a RO system I would rather develop a "house distilled + salt profile". Just brew a simple pale beer with distilled water and differering concentrations of one ion. Then you could mix the final beers brewed with each salt into different ratios and combinations to find one that is sutable in taste. Then you would also have some first hand knowledge attached to your own sences of how the [ions] change taste. With that knowldege if it were ever the case that you could adjust, potentially, for future beers in different styles if needed. At least then you would have a go to water that works and know for yourself rather than rely on the internet to determine, in the future, how to adjust your distilled water coctail.

Also I couldn't even percieve a taste difference in distilled water vs 1tsp of the salts I put in. I don't think my beer will taste too heavy of minerals if I can't even decern the fact that I added the 4tsp+1tsp of CaCl2 to the strike water (~8 gal). Sure I'm left with ~5gal at bottling that will concentrate the minerals but at 5G the ratios of those ions are what are in acceptable ranges from a number of sources so it at least shouldn't be bad.
I wouldn't suggest brewing with unadulterated RO/distilled as a matter of course. Depending on the style, beer brewed with these waters can taste rather thin and flat. And having additional calcium is generally good for the yeast. So I normally do throw in some sulfate/chloride. (most of the time just chloride) I originally did the experiment because Ray Daniels told me it wouldn't work. ;-)

An easier way to experiment is to brew a lighter style, say a kolsch or cream ale, using RO/Distilled adding equal amounts of sulfate and chloride to get around 50 ppm of calcium. Then you can dose the finished beer with sulfate and chloride dissolved in warm water. I've done this several times with groups. The results are interesting and varied, and in many cases, location specific (people from the USA west coast like sulfate). If I had to make a generalization, most people prefer beer with nothing but chloride, at around 150ppm.

Definitely do some experiments. You might include table salt, and baking soda as well just for kicks. More data is always a good thing!

The "flavor" ions are personal preference. They definitely impact the final beer flavor, but not nearly as much as getting the mash ph wrong (specifically too high).

Michael
Last edited by datamichael on 27 Sep 2012, 07:30, edited 2 times in total.

Post #22 made 13 years ago
by kartoffel
I got around to bottling today. FG 1.011 so pretty close to calculated 7% ABV. The sample I used for measuring tasted better than any other beer I have ever made so maybe it was my tap water? I'll wait a month and try one carbed and cold to give a good comparison.

Post #23 made 13 years ago
by Squared
does anyone have any RO + salts "water recipes" they'd like to share?

I normally use my municipal water (I know the Profile) and adjust with gypsum or RO.

I'd like to try using RO and adding salts but I'd like to know your success stories with the salt proportions first.

Post #24 made 13 years ago
by BrickBrewHaus
Squared wrote:does anyone have any RO + salts "water recipes" they'd like to share?
I follow the guidelines laid out here, keeping everything very simple. I do ~3gal batches and keep things simple (no calculating ratios or ion concentrations): 2 tsps of salt (calcium chloride + gypsum = 2tsp). For hoppy beers more gypsum, for malty beers more/all CaCl, for most other beers roughly equal parts CaCl and gypsum. Usually using 100% RO water.

Unfortunately I haven't had an opportunity to experiment with different amounts and ratios of salts. Therefore I can't say this is the "best" method. But this makes water adjustments pain free. And there's a good chance you're ending up with something better than your tap water (especially if you have very minerally or alkaline water). I've read about adding the salts to the finished beer to get the taste profile you like, sounds like a good way to experiment on a very small scale. In that case, you could try to get the minimum required ion profile by adding a very small amount of CaCl or gypsum to the mash, then adding VERY small, measured amounts of salts to the finished beer. Whatever you find to be "optimal" can then be applied the next time you brew that beer or beer style.
Last edited by BrickBrewHaus on 11 Oct 2012, 09:55, edited 2 times in total.
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