Water Chemistry and Extract Brewing

What assumptions should one make about the ion content of extract beers? What rules of thumb should be followed? I know when I started thinking about brewing beer a few years back, the advice was not to worry about water chemistry, but I feel like that advice only applies to the chemistry adjustments made out of mash considerations and not necessarily out of other considerations. Obviously, extract has been mashed, so pH adjustments are probably not critical. But what about other aspects of water chemistry that influence fermentation and flavor profiles? Calcium to help the yeast floc, sulfate to chloride ratio to influence bitterness/maltyness? I often adjust my chemistry for all grain beers but am stumped about what to do with extact, having no knowledge of the ion content of the extract.

 

The question is how to proceed with water additions if you know something about the water chemistry but nothing about the extract's ion content? My water is pretty low ion content. Ca=14 ppm, Mg = 3 ppm, SO4=1 ppm, Cl=4 ppm. The info on alkalinity seems irrelevant because I won't be doing a mash.

If I assume the extract adds no Ca and SO4, then I guess the calculations are simple enough. Add gypsum and calcium chlroide to the boil to raise Ca and SO4 to desired levels. But is it a good assumption?

 

Right. These are basically the points of departure for my question. Although I was never sure if hop utilization was the right term for the impact of minerals. I guess I think of minerals as enhancing perception of bitterness and utilization as an extraction efficiency; that's not quite the same thing, but my understanding may be faulty. Either way, I don't believe that detail is not paramount to my question.

 

Yeah, I know it has everything I need. I was just wondering what I might try to enhance hoppiness. I'll probably go with some gypsum because it is a bitter and your half tsp seems like a reasonable starting point.

I brew extract batches only a couple times a year (less time available for brewing during the academic calendar) will probably not be repeating the recipe to optimize by taste.

 

I have all-grain equipment and about 100 all-grain batches under my belt. But it's extract brewing that I lack the experience with, specifically with regard to knowing the ion content of the extract so I can better adjust the chemistry for flavor enhancement. I'm glad you found BIAB and wish you continued success with it, but simplifying the mash approach doesn't exactly help me with an extract batch.

 

I'm a step ahead of you. I will be doing an extract sour too. I'll use a munich extract as the base for a sour and a Maris Otter extract as the base for a bitter. In my first year of teaching (2008), I got bummed out because I could not find suitable periods of time to brew all-grain during the academic year. So, beginning the following year, I started making 1-2 batches of mead, cider, and extract beers between Sept & May to stoke the homebrewing passions.