My thoughts on water: Starting with distilled or RO water, I use CaCl for what I consider soft water styles and gypsum for sharper water styles. I sometimes use both equally as a balanced approach or lean more one way or the other to emphasize soft vs sharp borrowing from the British sulfate/chloride ratio. But mostly I try to avoid messing with water too much.
I quit using anything besides CaCl and/or gypsum a while ago after jacking up one too many beers following published water recipes. I worry less about brewing an authentic beer, especially since we have no idea what breweries’ actual water profiles are, when brewing it with soft water might make it taste better. I quit using spreadsheets, color reference, and gram scales in an illusion of accuracy. I was probably precise but I doubt it was accurate. I save the scales for measuring hops and yeast.
However, it is my understanding that calcium does much more than just aid in yeast flocculation and help precipitate oxalate.
It is my understanding that there is a benefit to α-amylase efficiency in its effort to degrade starch, protects α-amylase at mash temp, and has an effect on mash pH (calcium reacts with phosphates in the grain husks to release phytic acid which naturally lowers pH and has antioxidant effects).
Since mash pH and converting starch to sugar are my chief concerns, for these reasons I use at least 50 ppm calcium via CaCl and/or gypsum in every mash. I use teaspoons and the BeerSmith water module reports in ppm. Close enough is good enough.
If I add stylistic flavor salts, which I rarely do anymore, they go in the boil as a season to taste addition. In this case, for me a little goes a long way.
Maybe I’m mistaken in all this, but I can say it sure hasn’t hurt. This ‘keep it simple’ approach makes brewing easier and I like my beers a lot better since I adopted it.
Topic: Sunraker Pils recipe - water profile? (Read 1217 times)
