Used an Amber Full water profile for my IPA. Was wondering if adding a little extra gypsum might be called for (tastes like it’s missing something)? Starting with distilled water and building up with:
7.8 gal strike - full volume added BIAB, no sparge
2g gypsum 12lb 2 row
2.8g cal chloride 1lb German Munich
1.8g epsom .5lb crystal 40
1.6g baking soda
and 2ml lactic
I see that you parroted the profile fairly closely with those additions. In keeping with the spirit of those ‘color based’ profiles, they are very moderately mineralized for any style and well under what some brewers are using for hoppier and more bittered beers like IPA.
You have a lot of ‘headroom’ for adding more sulfate and I suggest that you try out the effect by adding a pinch of gypsum to a glass of the beer. This is hardly accurate, but pinch of gypsum (maybe a millimeter or two thick) between your thumb and index finger will add about 100 ppm sulfate to a pint of beer. I suggest you try a pinch and if that improves things, try another pinch. There should be enough headroom in your sulfate content to allow it.
Thanks for the reply Martin. Are you suggesting that if this works (adding a pinch per glass) I would then add gypsum to the enitire keg to improve things? I was more so asking for the next time, given the profile how much more gypsum, but if I could add gypsum now to the already carbed and finished batch I will try this as well.
So two part question: how much more gypsum in general to the Amber Full profile for hoppier beer (starting with distilled), and shall I add some gypsum to complete batch/keg, maybe 1/2 tsp at a time, after beer is complete (and would I stir it or just let it settle over time)?
Thanks
I understand what you’re saying here, but for the (extreme) novice like me, this gets us up and running in the ballpark. I drug my feet on building water but I have (admittedly) noticed a difference when I use distilled and build from scratch. (Even though I swore I wouldn’t). I appreciate you putting this together with those builds as basic as they may be.
In my opinion, having only 100 ppm sulfate isn’t sufficient for any hop focused beers. It just won’t dry the beer out enough to let the hops shine. Around 200 ppm sulfate is enough to get the effect. I build my IPAs and PAs with about 300 ppm sulfate.
Figure out if you like the sulfate dose with the pinch in a glass method first. You’ll have to stir the beer for a few minutes to get the gypsum to fully dissolve. If one pinch helps, be sure to try another pinch to see if it goes too far for your taste buds.
Once you have an idea of the sulfate level you prefer, figure out a total gypsum dose needed to take your keg from the current sulfate level to the preferred level using Bru’n Water. Then add that dose to the keg, all at once so that you don’t admit any more oxygen than necessary. You will have to rock and roll the keg to get the gypsum to dissolve. You’ll have an idea of how long it takes for the gypsum to dissolve from your pint of beer experiment.
Remember, sulfate doesn’t make your beer bitter. Its makes your beer finish drier.
I add 8 grams gypsum to 10 gals of well water for my pale ales.
Update: Ruined my beer. 
Oh well. Added too much gypsum, an additional 2 grams, so virtually doubled it, and made it taste like apple cider vinegar. I wasn’t too happy with the outcome of the batch anyways so no big loss. Chalk it up to trial and error. Yes, I used a pun.
Add some baking soda to kill the acidity.
Adding both baking soda and lactic acid is kind of working at cross purposes as far as mash pH is concerned.
I can see you were shooting for the 15 ppm sodium in the amber full profile while trying to keep the sulfate/chloride levels in line though.