I want to brew a blonde ale using only bottled water. My question is what minerals and salts should I use for an all grain 5 gallon batch? I want it to be super light and balanced. I want to follow Jamil's classic blonde recipe using 2-row, a touch of crystal 15L, and one addition of Willamette hops at 60 mins of a 90 min boil.
Start with distilled/RO, add 50-75 PPM calcium with a blend of CaCl and gypsum. That's about it. No need for carbonate, sodium, or magnesium.
My preferred water tool is MpH and it has a tab for suggested water profiles. For a Blonde Ale MpH suggests a water profile of: · Calcium: 50 – 100 ppm · Chloride: 50 – 100 ppm · Sulfate: 100 – 200 ppm Cheers!
I want to use distilled/RO water like Poland spring 1 gallon bottles. I only have calcium chloride, gypsum, Epsom salt, and baking soda. Is lactic acid important in this style for being a light colored beer?
Lactic acid is only important for lowering mash pH. With a blond ale, you should be able to do that sufficiently with calcium chloride and gypsum, and not need additional acid. Here's my favorite profile (overall concentration, in parts per million) for a blonde ale.. Ca Mg Na Cl SO4 HCO3 56 0 0 70 40 0 Use about a 2:1 ration of Calcium chloride to gypsum. The amount will depend on how much water you're treating. Use some water software to determine that.
Poland Springs is spring water; it is not distilled/RO water. http://www.nestle-watersna.com/asset-library/Documents/PS_ENG.pdf Cheers!
7 gallons total water (strike, sparge, whatever) doesn't sound like enough for a 5 gallon batch of a typical blonde ale. However, in 7 gallons (total) distilled water, you'd need 3.8 grams CaCl2 and 1.9 grams CaSO4 to hit the profile I posted above. Note that if you don't want to use acid in this batch, you're probably looking at using all those salts in the mash infusion, then sparging with plain distilled water. I really don't know the grams to teaspoon conversion factors. They'd be different for each salt. And it's much better to weigh them. Again, I'd really recommend some software. MpH and BrewCipher (which uses the MpH model) are both free.
I downloaded the excel from the Homebrewing Physics website, but I dont see the suggested water profiles tab. Can you help me?
Which version did you download? I use v2.0 and the suggested water profile tab is the 5th tab on the bottom from left to right; it is between the Sparge Water tab and the Sparge Acid tab. Cheers!
I would simplify things, for 5 gals of a light balanced ale I would use these salt additions for mashing : Considering starting from distilled water 1 teaspoon of CaCl2 1 teaspoon of Gypsum 1/4 teaspoon of table salt
If spring water, add no salts, but maybe use a few ounces of acidulated malt to bring the mash pH down to like 5.4. If distilled water, a teaspoon of gypsum and a teaspoon of calcium chloride is probably good for 5 gallons. Swaggy, but effective.
