Water... the final frontier. Up till now I've basically just used my tap water for brewing, but as it is very high in total dissolved solids (~300 ppm), probably mostly due to temporary hardness, I want to try building up my brewing water from RO. And I want to keep it simple. After reading Gordon Strong's discussion of the topic, I am thinking about doing the following: (1) Treating mash and sparge water with phosphoric acid to achieve a pH of 5.5 (RT), and (2) Add some combination of CaSO_4 and CaCl (total of 1 tsp, typically) to the mash water. So I have several questions are for others who build their water from RO: (1) Does this procedure seems like it will work? (2) What works for you? That is, what are your procedure/process for building your brewing water? (3) How do these procedures vary for different styles of beers? Cheers!
Sort of. But it's not really the water's pH you want to adjust. It's the mash pH. And that will depend on your grist, your water, and any mineral and/or acid additions. Generally, I build to at least 50ppm of calcium, using Gypsum and/or Calcium Chloride, depending on style. Then if I want more Sulfates and/or Chlorides, I add more Gypsum and/or Calcium Chloride, again depending on style. Then I add acid (if needed) to get the mash pH into range. Note that the mineral additions also affect mash pH, which is why I sort those out first, before determining if I need to add acid. I use EZWater to do the calculations. If starting with distilled/RO water, it's really all the same process for me. The targets will be different, and the amounts of minerals/acid needed to get there will be different, but it's the same process.
I like using bru n waters spreadsheet for building my water from distilled. You can pick a target profile whether it be a specific region in the world or just general styles (yellow bitter, black malty, amber balanced etc etc). I like having at least 50 ppm of calcium like vikeman to ensure yeast flocculation isn't affected. I then use either calcium chloride/calcium carbonate to get my different minerals to the suggested ranges. A big thing I like to focus on mainly is my sulfate:chloride ratio. The higher the the sulfates the more bitterness is accentuated which I like in my hoppy styles where I like to dial that back down for more malty beers. The software really does all the work for you. Type in your grain bill, and you can get your mash ph dialed in using either a lactic acid addition or maybe some calcium carbonate. Water is quite overwhelming but as long as you focus on your calcium, sulfate and chloride levels and or ratios and your mash ph you will make a very nice beer. I also like to do my sparge water addition in the boil kettle to ensure all salts make it into the final beer.
Followup questions: (1) Are your treatments for the mash and sparge water the same or different? If different, how so? (2) Do you just go with the calculated numbers from EZWater, or do you also measure the mash and make further adjustments? I have been playing around with EZWater, and so am somewhat familiar with it. (3) What determines whether you'll go for more than 50 ppm Ca and your sulfate/chloride ratio? I understand that hoppy styles prefer more sulfates and malty more chloride, but I guess I am asking if there is a recommended amount of Ca and a set of ratios for different styles that one might start from.
Bru n waters built in profiles will give you target values for each salt per style. Not sure how ez water works?
Quite often I don't treat my sparge/mashout water at all. And when I do, I often add it to the kettle instead. It all depends on whether I need the additional salts to get the overall levels (flavorwise) where I want them. Remember this... mash additions affect flavor and mash pH. Kettle additions affect flavor. I hardly ever measure anymore, since at least for the grains I typically use, I know what to expect and can trust the answer in EZWater to be close enough. Style. Some styles, Bohemian Pilsner for example, benefit from soft water. For a Bo Pils I build to 50ppm (or sometimes even a little lower). And I use mostly Calcium Chloride (for a more rounded malty flavor) to get there. Some styles, American IPA for example, benefit from fairly hard water. So for an IPA I'll go quite a bit higher than 50ppm, and I use mostly Gypsum (for a more crisp bitterness) to get there.
