Membership questions? Log in issues? Email info@brewersassociation.org

Author Topic: adjusting water profle  (Read 1721 times)

Offline russell

  • Assistant Brewer
  • ***
  • Posts: 111
adjusting water profle
« on: December 21, 2018, 12:05:31 am »
  So I have been trying to get my water profile down. It seems when choosing the target profile there are a lot of different profiles from different countries along with colors such a brown balanced, brown full, brown dry. So if I am doing a British brown ale I am not sure which to choose. Why cant here be a profile for the water for each kind of beer I want to make that just says "British Brown Ale" or "Irish red ale" or "milk stout"?
  When I choose Beer style, the software (mine is BeerSmith 3) will show me the OG, IBU, FG, and ABV. Why isn't some other things like Sulfate to Chloride ratio and Bitterness ratio included with the others? those also seem important.

Big Monk

  • Guest
Re: adjusting water profle
« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2018, 05:53:49 am »
  So I have been trying to get my water profile down. It seems when choosing the target profile there are a lot of different profiles from different countries along with colors such a brown balanced, brown full, brown dry. So if I am doing a British brown ale I am not sure which to choose. Why cant here be a profile for the water for each kind of beer I want to make that just says "British Brown Ale" or "Irish red ale" or "milk stout"?
  When I choose Beer style, the software (mine is BeerSmith 3) will show me the OG, IBU, FG, and ABV. Why isn't some other things like Sulfate to Chloride ratio and Bitterness ratio included with the others? those also seem important.

For some time now, I've taken the following path for all beers:

1.) Get Calcium to 40-50 ppm (personal preference) using CaCl and CaSO4
2.) Depending on style, supplement Mg and SO4 with Epsom
3.) Dose NaCl to taste

It's been said many times across a few forums: SO4/Cl ratio is less important than the actual values of SO4 and Cl.

Offline Bob357

  • Brewmaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 895
  • Consensus means nothing to me. I am who I am.
Re: adjusting water profle
« Reply #2 on: December 21, 2018, 06:31:12 am »
 Almost all breweries treat their source water, so the profile for the source water is useless unless you know how it was treated prior to brewing with it. Your best bet is to use the profile that best describes the beer you're brewing.
Beer is my bucket list,

Bob357
Fallon, NV

Offline kramerog

  • Brewmaster General
  • *******
  • Posts: 2262
    • My LinkedIn page
Re: adjusting water profle
« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2018, 12:35:02 pm »
BeerSmith 3 uses BJCP beer style definitions, which include OG, IBU, FG, and ABV, IIRC, which are things that are  easily measured or knowable.  The style definitions don't include mineral content so that's why there is no mineral content info in the beer styles in BeerSmith 3.

Like Bob says, BeerSmith3's water profile info is pretty useless.

Mash pH calculators - Bru'n Water seems to be the best and is most popular around here - are pretty helpful at getting mineral additions dialed in but there may be style specific info too when you are ready to dig really deep into a style - Martin Brungard's water series in Zymurgy was very helpful on specific beer styles.

Offline Bob357

  • Brewmaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 895
  • Consensus means nothing to me. I am who I am.
Re: adjusting water profle
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2018, 05:15:33 pm »
I said no such thing. What I said is that source water profiles are pretty much useless. FYI, BeerSmith is far from being the only brewing software that includes location specific source water profiles. Also, I never referred to BeerSmith in the response you followed up on.

I have used the water tool in BeerSmith 3 since the its inception with very good results. Perhaps you read things into the tool as you have into my response that you refer to.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2018, 05:22:14 pm by Bob357 »
Beer is my bucket list,

Bob357
Fallon, NV

Offline Robert

  • Official Poobah of No Life. (I Got Ban Hammered by Drew)
  • *********
  • Posts: 4214
Re: adjusting water profle
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2018, 05:55:35 pm »
True, water reports should not be imagined to be anything like the water brewers in famous places use, any more than you are using your water as you find it.   Dortmund for example has very highly mineralized water, and brewers there were early masters of demineralizing it.  Pilsen has famously soft water, and they have always added salts to make it usable.   George Fix wrote that analyses of the finished beers show that, as treated, the brewing water in Pilsen is actually harder than that of Dortmund!   So if you're making a  brown beer and you want it to taste dry, use a Brown Dry profile as a guide, and so on.  But don't try to nail it perfectly.  I think water treatment should tend toward the minimum needed to obtain correct mash pH,  without any ions reaching levels that will have undesirable flavor effects.

Sent from my SM-J727V using Tapatalk

Rob Stein
Akron, Ohio

I'd rather have questions I can't answer than answers I can't question.

Offline hopfenundmalz

  • Global Moderator
  • I must live here
  • *****
  • Posts: 10678
  • Milford, MI
Re: adjusting water profle
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2018, 09:05:04 pm »
Ayinger has two wells. One is shallow and they use that for darker beers. They have one that is 603 meters deep, that is below an impervious layer of rock that leads up to sources in the Alps. It tastes "wet" when you get a sample on the tour.

Don't confuse a municipal water report with what a Brewer has for soutce water. Remember that breweries treat water. Decide what is best for your beer. It might take a few brews to dial it in.
Jeff Rankert
AHA Lifetime Member
BJCP National
Ann Arbor Brewers Guild
Home-brewing, not just a hobby, it is a lifestyle!