Beer Dust

Is Beer Dust the name of this product? I have not heard of it, but it sounds like a great idea for a homebrewer who doesn't want to learn water chemistry.

 

I requested that this thread be moved to the Homebrewing forum, so you should get a better audience when it gets moved.

 

For future reference, the code of conduct (link) forbids members to "spam, solicit or promote," but does not otherwise forbid discussion of products that homebrewers might be interested in. And in fact such discussions are common on this forum. So unless you profit from the sale of a particular product, there is no problem linking to a website where it is marketed. Of course you also need to follow the other guidelines for relevance, respectfulness, etc. but your question is obviously not problematic in those areas.

As for the product itself, its usefulness really depends on your preferences. Here are my thoughts on this product (which I have never used):

Pros:

1. This product will probably get you a lot closer to an appropriate mineral profile than guessing or just adding a teaspoon of gypsum or whatever, as old-fashioned recipes sometimes suggest. As an added bonus, using distilled or RO water means you won't be making the common beginner's mistake of using tap water without removing the chlorine or chloramine it often contains.

2. By taking an intimidating dimension of homebrewing off the table, the product allows new homebrewers to focus on other areas that many struggle with (making starters, controlling fermentation temperature, etc.).

Cons:

1. It's as expensive as hell. You can pay a lot less for the minerals you need to treat your water, so you're really just paying for them to do your thinking for you. Also, I assume that shipping to Germany would cost a lot.

2. The minerals will probably get you somewhat close to an optimal mineral profile, but how close? There is no way to know without knowing what is included, and of course the vendor doesn't tell you that (how could it? that's its only value-add). I note that within a given style there can be a lot of variance in recipe design, so there's no way the minerals are ideal for every recipe.

3. Related to point #2, water chemistry is a variable that brewers actively use to achieve their desired flavor profiles. A New England IPA is generally going to require very different minerals than a classic English IPA (to be very simplistic, a NEIPA will favor chloride while an English IPA will favor sulfate). This product covers a grand total of four "styles," some of which are actually broad categories comprising lots of styles. This just isn't going to give you very fine-grained control over your mineral profile (as might be the case if there were dozens of options).

4. Also related to point #2, this product is a black box. It may help you make better beer, but as long as you are using it you are not learning how to manage water chemistry on your own.


So in summary, this product is only suitable for someone who for whatever reason doesn't want to learn about water chemistry and is content to use a fairly blunt tool. My personal opinion is that just about everyone should learn water chemistry, since it is not nearly as difficult as people often suppose. (How to Brew by John Palmer has an excellent discussion, and you can also read about it at Bru'n Water.) But there are good reasons a beginning brewer might focus on other variables first, and so the product may be useful for some people who are just starting the hobby.

Assuming you are in Germany, as your profile suggests, and assuming shipping to Germany is expensive, I think you should find someone in a local homebrewing club to help you out with your water chemistry rather than paying so much money. Hell, if you want to post a recipe here, I bet plenty of people would be happy to help you walk through your choices.

[edited to recalibrate confidence on a few points]

 

If the Beer Dust doesn't get you where you want to be, Ward Labs offers a water test for brewers. And, in your favor, they have a telephone number and email address for folks ordering from outside of the United States (including U.S Military bases).
https://producers.wardlab.com/pay/order-brewers-kit.php?step=1&op=kit

 

This is a good point, and I would add that there are really three different viable approaches here:

1. Use distilled or RO water in combination with the Beer Dust product.

2. Use distilled or RO water in combination with minerals you select based on your own analysis or advice from others.

3. Use tap water in combination with minerals you select based on your own analysis or advice from others.

Options 1 and 2 are good if you are uncertain as to the mineral content of your water. A lot of brewers on this forum use option 2 because their local water has undesirable brewing characteristics or they prefer the simplicity of using a blank slate to design water profiles for their beers. You don't need Beer Dust to build up a profile from distilled/RO water.

 

Local hbs use to have this stuff but it didn't sell.http://www.accu-mash.com/

 

What I do is use distilled/RO and then add gypsum/calcium chloride/baking soda/lactic acid to hit the right minerals and mash pH. "Right" in this case meaning the median of whatever a bunch of random people on the internet say. Results so far have been good!

 

Riding the same thought-train and hopefully close enough to the thread topic to not be considered hijacking, what go-to online source(s) might be useful to see generally accepted baseline water profiles for various beer styles; a baseline that one can start from and then tweak to personal preference on later batches?

 

Apologies for a long answer to a short question. You can skip to the final paragraph if all you want to know is how to figure out flavor ions for a particular style of beer.

Throughout this discussion, a very easy way to quantify your mineral additions is to use one of the free spreadsheets (e.g. BrewCipher, Bru'n Water, EZWater). Just be careful that you understand how the software is measuring the salts (is it total grams? grams per gallon of water? does it go in just the strike water, or also the sparge water? etc. etc. - the spreadsheet should make this clear as long as you are paying attention).

In choosing minerals for a batch of beer, there are three main considerations. The first is that in general you want at least 50 ppm of calcium in the wort for purposes of yeast nutrition. This isn't a hard and fast rule, as there are beer styles that traditionally contain less calcium than that, but it's a good rule of thumb for most styles. Calcium can be added in the form of calcium sulfate (gypsum) or calcium chloride, and magnesium can be added in the form of magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt). Few brewers feel the need to add magnesium since the malt provides more than enough for the yeast. The choice of how much calcium sulfate to add vs. how much calcium chloride is driven by the flavor differences between sulfate and chloride (see final paragraph).

The second consideration is the effect of the minerals on the mash pH. Calcium and to a lesser extent magnesium tend to lower the pH of the mash (not because they are acidic themselves, but because they react with phosphate in the malt in a way that lowers pH).

The third consideration is the flavor ions provided by the salts. The three main flavor ions are chloride, sulfate, and sodium. Chloride is thought to give the beer a sweet, round, full-bodied character, emphasizing the maltiness of the beer. Sodium is similar, with perhaps more emphasis on sweetness. Sulfate is thought to enhance the crisp, bitter quality of the beer.

Any good discussion of a beer style (for instance, the style profiles published in BYO magazine) should include some description of the traditional water profile used to brew the beer. Google is also your friend here. But if for some reason you can't find a water profile you trust, it's probably because there is no settled approach and a variety of approaches will work. Also, if memory serves, all of the popular spreadsheets let you select a profile (e.g. "dark malty") and then give you appropriate ranges for the flavor ions. In truth, there's a lot of margin for error here, as you're not going to detect much of a difference for even medium-sized changes in mineral profile (or at least that's been my experience). The beer styles known for their extreme mineral profiles generally have hundreds of ppm of chloride or sulfate, a level that you're not going to reach unless you are really determined to do so.

 

Short questions sometimes provoke long answers. Apology accepted.
Jesting aside, your thoughtful reply is sincerely appreciated.

The “third consideration” in your answer is the “what does what” type of feedback that is especially helpful, and it targeted one of my unasked questions.
I could go on about an epiphanette of sorts, but suffice it to say your post will become part of my library of reference.

Thanks again.

 

Just finding this thread... as one of the owners of Beer Dust, I agree completely with everything that is said. Our product is designed to remove 'water chemistry' from your homebrewing experience and let us help you make the best beer you can. One of the things that I am always interested in is how long water chemistry threads are as it is a rather complicated topic. Our purpose and goal is simply to make this part of your homebrewing experience easy and have great results.... happy to talk with anyone on this topic [email protected]

Have a great brewday!