Low Calcium, Low Sulfate, Low Chloride right?
Currently my profile is around 30ppm for each. Think I should make any tweaks? pH adjusted to 5.3 with acid malt, filtered tap blended with R/O water, very small addiion of CaCl & Gypsum (1g each).
Whatever Brunwater says for yellow balanced is what I’d do.
That thought hit my head too - looks like 50 calcium, 75 Sulfate, 60 Chloride. But I’ve heard it said that you actually want less Calcium in a lager and Pilsners should be pretty soft water wise. Looks like the Pilsen and American Lager profiles have low Ca, Sulfate, Chloride
For Czech Pils, I have had been very pleased with the results using Calcium 20-30ppm, Chloride 40-60ppm and Sulfate <5ppm. Straight RO water with only CaCl (no gypsum) and lactic acid to hit 5.3-5.4 mash pH.
sure, you can get by with less Ca for a lager, but 50 ppm isn’t gonna hurt anything. Just becasue you don’t have to have that much doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it.
I’ve been happy with low calcium in the recent lagers I’ve brewed. I’ve been using the technique built into the supporter’s version of Bru’n Water where all the sparging minerals are added to the mashing water so that the mineral content in the mash is higher. The higher Ca and Mg content helps push down the mash pH so that less acid is used and that higher Ca content helps precipitate the oxalate. I generally aim for about 40 to 50 ppm Ca in the mash with the sparging minerals in there. The sparging water is left unmineralized and serves to dilute the overall ion content in the kettle wort.
I don’t abide by someone’s opinion that sulfate in noble-hopped beers is undesirable. Pilsner Urquel includes minor gypsum addition to their water and I think that a good Czech Pils needs a little bit of sulfate to help dry the beer finish. Certainly less than 20 ppm sulfate and chloride will be equal or higher.
With this approach, the beer has the opportunity to be soft and delicate and enable the malt to come through.
I mashed at 28 Sulfate, 35 Chloride (in hindsight a bit on the higher end?) and Calcium of 26ppm
However, my mash pH ended up being low (4.95) so I added a ¼ tsp of Chalk to bring it back up. This ended up pushing the Calcium above 40ppm. Not sure why, perhaps the shop was slightly heavy handed with the acid malt or my scale is a bit off.
Appreciate all the feedback so far, I’ll be tweaking some things next time (should have posted earlier!)
Without a giant acid addition, thats not possible. How much acid malt was there???
5oz (3.8% of grain) was the target to bring pH to 5.3.
Some potential variables:
I did calibrate it but my pH meter is on the older side, maybe it’s loosing accuracy?
Acid malt quantity (I didn’t personally measure it)
Running my tap water thru a brita filter adjusted the mineral content?
My scale was acting a little fussy (reliable for larger amount, 4g plus but has a tough time reading 1g or less) so I used it to estimate combined with ¼ teaspoon. Maybe I accidently went a bit heavy on the CaCl or Gypsum.
I never feel confident using acid malt, as I just don’t know exactly how much acid is on it for water adjustments. I don’t like to assume things.
Is that profile preferred over yellow bitter to keep the water profile “soft?”
Completely agree on the acid malt. Adding acid is so much easier and more controllable.
I like the yellow balanced fpor Czech pils and the yellow bitter for German pils. Personal preference.
Lactic Acid + a syringe the best way to go?
I use a little kids medicine measurer. Looks like a miniature turkey baster with 1/2 ml marks. Holds 5 ml. Works just fine.
The graduated medicine droppers are pretty good, readily available, and cheap. I’ve only recently upgraded to finer reading pipettes and there wasn’t really much reason to have upgraded…I just wanted to.
IMO, without a doubt.
+1. Easier and more reliable.
I just listened to the Czech Styles presentation in the 2015 conference seminars. In it Bob Hall recommends super soft water:
Carbonates: 15
Calcium: 7
Sulfates: 5
Magnesium: 2
Sodium: 2
Chloride: 2
Anyone ever go that soft?
Run that through Brunwater, see where the mash pH is predicted. PU is said to do a triple decoction with an acid rest. They may add some Ca according to some reports. If you don’t add the alkalinity it will help the pH fall lower.
According to the city, my tap water is:
Calcium 8.1 mg/L
Magnesium 1.3 mg/l
Bicarbonate 35 mg/L
Sulfate 5.9 mg/L
Sodium 5.9 mg/L
Chloride Not available
So I go pretty close to that.
PU does add calcium salts to their water. Some anecdotal findings I recall from AJ Delange indicate that around 30 ppm chloride and 20 ppm calcium produce a more flavorful beer. I’ve done several light lagers with around 20 to 30 ppm calcium in the overall wort and they fermented and cleared well and they tasted very good. Brewing with much lower mineral content can leave the beer flavor bland. You need some…not much though.