I’m undoubtedly making this harder than it needs to be. I’ve been planning to make a mead soon, and had wondered about the water profile that would be best, so I was very glad to see the article in the latest Zymurgy about the topic!
How do I set the water volume and any other parameters in Brun’ Water so I can accurately manage the water chemistry?
I haven’t read the article yet, but I’m sure you could just enter the volume of the batch into the mash volume box.
I have been exploring this a bit. The problem is that honey is very acidic and the acidity varies greatly by varietal. So using BWS to try to figure out must pH is problematic. I also use potassium carbonate as a buffer, which falls outside of the tracked ions.
I have been using fairly soft water profiles (pilsen, etc.), built on RO, and then adjusting the pH up using potassium carbonate to hit about 5.0 pH before pitching my wine yeasts. I haven’t tested any of this with ale yeasts - just not sure of the acid tolerance differences (if any). This combined with staggered nutrient additions (SNA) and I am getting fairly nice meads without needing a long aging period. I haven’t tried any fairly hard profiles - yet. Maybe for a dry mead I might.