Another Dunkel thread

I had some really nice German lagers in Denver last week and want to brew a Dunkel next.  I have ordered a sack of Barke Munich for 95% of the grain bill.
What I am wondering about is the type of water I want to shoot for in Bru’n Water.  Is Brown/Full better than Munich (straight or boiled) or is there a more appropriate water formula to shoot for in this style?

Never use a city profile.  There’s no way of knowing what the brewer does with the water.  The color/flavor profiles are the way to go.

^^^^
+1,000.

Brewers also often have a different source than the city water report you see, and even the Reinheitsgebot allows brewers to add or remove any minerals they like, as long as the result is still water that could, in theory, exist somewhere in the natural world.  They modify the water any way they have to, to a) hit their desired pH and b) get the flavor profile they want in the beer.  We should follow suit.

I recently brewed a Dunkel and used Bru’n Water’s Brown Balanced profile:

Calcium (Ca): 50.0 ppm
Magnesium (Mg): 10.0 ppm
Sodium (Na): 27.0 ppm
Sulfate (SO4): 70.0 ppm
Chloride (Cl): 55.0 ppm
Bicarbonate (HCO3): 90.0 ppm

They can blend water from a shallow alkaline well and a deep well with low mineral content, i.e. Ayinger.

I know they can add Gypsum and CaCl2. Not sure about other minerals. Sauergut is used to acidify. Acidulated malt is malt sprayed with ssuegut.

Here’s Kai’s Dunkel water:

58mg/L Ca; 3mg/L Mg; 32mg/L Na; 10mg/L SO4; 21mg/L Cl; 150mg/L HCO3

Kunze covers every water  treatment process imaginable.  The only thing not permitted is the use of acid not resulting from microbes native to the barley grain.  This seems a bit absurd when one considers the multitude of unnatural things, for example the sterilization of water with chlorine dioxide or silver ions, that are allowed.

So, would the consensus be “brown balanced” then?

I’d say the choice of “balanced” or “full” is one of personal taste.  What are you after?

That would be my own suggestion.  Consensus?  Probably.

Well, if it is in Kunze, it is allowed. Thanks.

They also use deoxygenated water via stripping columns, as no SMB is allowed.

Yes Kunze makes clear when something is not permitted by German law.  But I find it amusing how often he will go into great detail on how to do something, touting its undeniable benefits, and then, almost with a wink, say that of course we must never do this under the law.  If the Reinheitsgebot is not already one of the most flouted laws in history, German brewers must often wish they could get around it.

Well, not really. The thing that historical profiles help illustrate, is the level of flavor ions in the water. In the case of Munich Dunkel, I always use the Munich profile to guide the level of sulfate and chloride, but the levels of Ca, Mg, and HCO3 are largely dependent upon other factors. I have liked the results for my Dunkels when I use the “Add all hardness minerals to the Mash” tool in Bru’n Water. That enables me to target a minimal Ca content of around 40 to 50 ppm in the mash and then that content is diluted when I add the nearly ion-free RO for sparging.

You’re saying you don’t want the Ca content more than 40 to 50 ppm? The Brown Balanced has it at 50 while Munich is at 77 and boiled Munich is 12.  I guess the main thing you are telling me is to keep the sulphate and chloride levels very low (18 and 8 respectively in Munich water, 77 and 55 in Brown Balanced).
In either case I will most likely build the water from RO.