[blatz]

Is there any concern here? Is not the Ca a bit low for yeast health in this profile?

agreed - shouldn't it be over 50ppm at least?

[mabrungard]

Yes, we know the calcium is lower than desired for yeast and break performance.  I didn't say that this is necessarily good for brewing, just what the original profile becomes after boiling and decanting.  Recall that Pilsen water is also notoriously low on calcium and it still produces good beer. 

That does not mean that we shouldn't improve this water with a little more calcium to bring it to a better performing 50 ppm minimum concentration.  But at least you now know what the Vienna profile probably looked like in the Dreher days with the technologic capabilities of the day.  I'd try and keep the Cl/SO4 ratio similar or possibly a little more to the chloride side when adding the calcium.

I'll start another thread later regarding how the boiled profile is calculated.  It shouldn't be buried in this thread.

[Kaiser]

We are considering preboiling some water off and sending it to ward labs, but if there is an easy (easy being a relative term ) way to calculate this I would love to know. 

I don’t think that there is a need to send this water to Ward Labs. Simply using a GH&KH test kit might be more economical. That’s what I did when I used slaked lime to precipitate temporary hardness.

Martin can comment on boiling the water, but in essence the process is very similar to adding slaked lime. I have some detailed information on this here: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Alkalinity_reduction_with_slaked_lime
Including calculations, which might be a bit dense, though?

I actually prefer using slaked lime over boiling the water since it uses less energy and it may also require less effort given you have slaked lime at hand.

Kai

[mabrungard]

Kai is correct that Lime-Softening is very similar in its results, excepting that if you take the pH during lime softening up to about 11 you will also drop out some magnesium.  That is another possible advantage to lime softening.  I agree that it is a better way than boiling, but I actually don't know when the advent of lime softening was.  I'm pretty sure some of my water treatment text books have that information, but I couldn't find it now.  I'm not sure if Dreher or other brewers at that time would have had that knowledge.

Remember, either of these treatments can only remove the temporary hardness components and not the permanent hardness.  If the water has bicarbonate, its got temporary hardness.  The sulfate and chloride contributes to permanent hardness.

Oh, and I agree with Kai that using the aquarium test kits for GH and KH are perfect for assessing what goes on with either treatment.

[tomsawyer]

The BJCP specifically says "moderately hard, carbonate rich water".  It does seem that 80ppm HCO3 fits this bill.

Also, the chloride and sulfate of the boiled water are both quite low from a flavor contribution perspective.  Given the soft malt and balanced bitterness I suppose this is no big deal, but does anyone use higher levels of both salts?  and do you try for a 1:1 ratio for a balanced flavor profile?

I only add Buffers and Acidity to my Mash and adjust the Chloride to Sulfates for my boil (that's just me).  I have found that the simplest way for me to break down water adjustments is this; PH of your mash, and Chloride to Sulfates of your wort.

I don't understand why you wouldn't kill two birds with one stone and add your CaCl2 and CaSO4 to the mash.  They both lower pH and keep you from having to add as much acid, then they're around as flavor components.

[mabrungard]

The BJCP specifically says "moderately hard, carbonate rich water".  It does seem that 80ppm HCO3 fits this bill.

Lennie, you are right.  But, the raw water from Vienna is exactly that...moderately hard, carbonate rich water.  As I point out, brewers still had the capability to alter their water and they did.  The other point to consider is the raw Vienna profile could not produce a good amber colored beer, its far too alkaline.    This revised profile is most likely what the originators of the Vienna style had to work with.

[lonnie mac]

So, this is what I am coming up with:

Ca     30 ppm
Mg    14 ppm
Na     20 ppm
SO4  57 ppm
Cl     14 ppm
HCO3 77 ppm

This is using 20 gals RO water with the following additions:

11g Epsom salt
5g Calcite
1g Kosher salt
4g Baking soda
1g Calcium Chloride

Is there any concern here? Is not the Ca a bit low for yeast health in this profile?

So then, does my profile look acceptable for an amber colored beer? I will bump the Ca up a tad...

I should add, I am making up this water here in about 30 minutes!

[hoser]

Kai,
Thanks for the tips!  I am a faithful follower of your blog. I love your evidenced based brewing.  Allright, enough of the love fest   I have actually performed your procedure for my local water and did send it off to Ward labs as well as my tap water and some R/O so I knew my actual water values.  I went back and looked at the results and it did work.  It took my Ca+ from 61 to 39ppm, HCO3 from 190 to 59, and CaCO3 from 161 to 156.  So, it made a difference in my bicarbonate.  I am sure I made some errors along the ways..  My chemistry is a little rusty from my pre-med days.  I do have a GH/KH test per your blog as well, so maybe I will do that test this weekend and match it against the slaked lime test I did earlier.

Martin,
I can't wait to see how you calculated the post boil numbers and how those stack up against my slaked lime experiment.

Thanks again guys!

[thcipriani]

For the love of gawd why don't someone simply make a stupid calculator that you input your volume (20 gal) and the profile you want to hit and kabam!

FWIW, Ken Schram's BreWater is exactly that. While it is a flawed calculator in many ways it is the perfect tool for finding the needed salt additions to hit your target profile. You plug in a profile, what salts you'd like to use, and hit cntrl-f then KABLAM.

Alternatively, You could use the 'solver' excel plugin with any of the current popular spreadsheets and have if find the best solution by changing only the cells you choose.

[tygo]

Alternatively, You could use the 'solver' excel plugin with any of the current popular spreadsheets and have if find the best solution by changing only the cells you choose.

Hmm, I never thought of using solver.  I might have to play around with that.

[1vertical]

Lonnie,
I know this will be 20 20 hindsight b/c you have finished this water build.
But I wonder if you have used Palmers nomograph?  Once I learned how
to manipulate the thing, it does a LOT of the drain bamage for me.....
Sean pointed me to it at this location...
http://nomograph.babbrewers.com/

Thanks Sean

[lonnie mac]

Thanks for the help fellas... Yea, I have used Palmers nomograph as well.

I basically used the boiled Vienna profile, and bumped up the ca a bit. The brew went great! We will see how it turns out.

[1vertical]

If you get a negra modelo ringer, please let me know.  I got very close
IMO with an ale yeast believe it or not, colors were indistinguishable
....side by side taste test (blind) the groupo modelo was NOT the preferred beverage.

just sayin.

[1vertical]

Ok time for that update Lonnie, What did the beer end up like???
I got my WhiteLabs 940 waiting for the time to make Mex Lager...soon soon....
was gonna make a Negra Modelo wanna be...