Helles water profile

Brewing Processes
1

How low in mineral additions are people taking a water profile for a munich helles?  Are we talking say, half the minerals as indicated on Brunwater’s Yellow balanced profile?

2

My next one will be DI/RO water with CaCl, MgSO4, NaCl added, and enough phophoric to hit 5.5ph
About…
50ppm Ca
10ppm Mg
10ppm Na
100ppm Cl
40ppm SO4

3

I still use Yellow Balanced.

4

I use about half of Yellow Full and add all minerals to the mash to get the mash Ca content above 40 ppm. That usually leaves the overall content with about 20 to 30 ppm sulfate and chloride.

5

Thanks, Martin. I’d like to give that a shot.

6

I usually use the Yellow Balanced profile, sometimes I’ll just use 1/2tsp calcium chloride in the mash with phosphoric acid or acid malt; it varies. Still kind of trying to find my favorite water profile. It’s a difficult style to brew really well, maybe the hardest.

7

Here’s a couple Kai posted:

Very Soft: 22 Ca, 31 S04, 39 Cl (http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Various_water_recipes)
Edel Hell: 50 Ca, 57 S04, 43 Cl (Edel Hell - German brewing and more)

Mashing around 5.4

I’ve went pretty soft before on the Calcium with lagers - lager fermentations seem to be ok with it.

8

Yeah, I have seen Kai’s Edel hell water profile and kind of shot for in between that and yellow balanced profile.  I was just curious how low one can really go (RO water) without creating a totally bland beer.

9

Last winter I made a Helles with all DI and just 25ppm calcium from CaCl. It won first at Bend but only scored about 34. It had wrong Vienna (gambrinus vs best) and too much lactic.