So I've watched a dozen or so videos on water chemistry and I got the gist of it, but I'm still failing to fully connect the dots on getting my water profile right. I've blindly added minerals in before, but this is the first time I'm really trying to dial in a water profile and I'm mostly plugging in numbers and doing some trial and error on a calculator. I got my water report back from Ward with the following: Ca < 0.1 Mg <1 Na 2 CI 2 SO4 <1 HCO3 <1 Far as I understand, this is a pretty blank slate kind of profile. This is my local RO water store as the base. I am brewing a Robust Porter and I lifted the water profile he's using here (water profile @ 8:39)because his grain bill and overall recipe is very similar to mine. That calls for Ca 51 Mg 7 Na 36 CI 63 SO4 62 HCO3 94 I plugged that in here with my starting 10 gallons (gonna just overshoot on total water available to be safe) And now I'm playing with possible additions but seeing how different combinations affect different aspects I'm mostly just doing trial and error to see if I can get it close to the end result I am looking for. I found that 4.5 Baking Soda NaHCO3 4 Gypsum CaSO4 4.5 Calcium Chloride CaCl2 Results in Ca 57 (+6) Mg 1 (-6) Na 36 (0) CI 59 (-4) SO4 60 (-2) HCO3 87 (-7) My questions Can I take that and run with it? Seems pretty in the ballpark Is there a better, easy to use tool out there that I can input my start and desired end, and have it give a prescription of what to add instead of my trial and error? What's the best way to account for the dark grains I'll be adding and their affect on my PH? Or should I leave that for another time and just figure this out first? Before you ask: I'm a moron who couldn't pass high school chemistry, so please have patience with me
I've adjusted water chemistry only a few times and have experienced the same struggles regardless of the software/tool. Of the recipe calculators I've seen, none of them will do what you're asking, they're all poke-n-hope. My guess is that over time one can build a personal knowledge base and get a feel for what to expect in a final product given various inputs/adjustments, resulting in less poking. Brewcipher is my preference. Partly because that's the one I used early on in recipe design and became comfortable with. A major plus in my book is author @VikeMan is a member here. He's very supportive of his creation, and patient with us morons .
Here's a primer on brewing water treatment, pretty much aimed at beginners, that might help. I would read the whole thing, then go back to slide 9, which details one approach to brewing with RO water. Intro to Brewing Water Treatment Also, regarding trying to reproduce a water profile that someone else has published... sometimes they are not real profiles, i.e. they are impossible to build. But if you do want to use one, pay attention to the Calcium, Sulfate, and Chloride numbers. And don't ever chase a specific HCO3 number. There's usually no reason to add any alkalinity ("HCO3").
Below is a link which includes some water recipes for a few beer styles/types: https://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Various_water_recipes Cheers!
I was going to say this, but... in the case of a robust porter (which is the case here) or a stout, sometimes a little alkalinity can be a good thing. This is because dark roasted malts are acidic, sometimes too acidic. With any water profile calculations, you also want to look at the predicted mash pH and keep it close to about 5.5 or even 5.6. With dark malts sometimes this falls to the low 5's or even 4.8-4.9, (depending how much is being used etc.), in which case, baking soda can be a legit addition as long as it doesn't raise the sodium much higher than about 60 ppm.
Or alternatively pickling (slaked) lime could be used, no concerns about too high amount of sodium here. Cheers!
I second that! Pickling lime is my go to for dark beers. I’ll use some Baking soda too but pickling lime is always the majority
