I’m brewing a Roggenbier next week and I’m not really where to start for a water profile. Should model it after a wheat beer?
My water (ppm)
Ca 12.2
Mg 1.2
Na 8.1
Cl 19
SO4 73
Alkilinity 134
pH 8.4
If I remember correctly (my log book is at home), for my wheat beer it cut it with 75% RO water and add a bit of Calcium Chloride (quater of a teaspoon) to bring the Chlorides and Sulphates into balance.
Comments or suggestions?
Nobody has any insight on this?
I know everybody loves Denny’s RIPA - and I’m sure I will too, once I try it, but I want to see what rye malt actually adds to the beer, before I throw a bunch of hops on it :-[
Anyway, with a little more research, I decided to aim for a water profile close to Munich. With 75% RO water and some chalk, baking soda and calcium chloride I can get within +/- 20 ppm of a Munich profile for the major ions.
I plan on fermenting with wyeast 3068 and keeping it in the high 50’s to supress the clove esters.
Yes, I’d use the same profile you would use for a wheat beer. Munich water might be too alkaline unless you plan to use dark malts.
Kai
Thaks Kai! I’m not using anything too dark - mostly rye and munich and a little cara-munich (again, the recipe is on the home computer, so I’m going by memory here).
I guess the thing I find most confusing about water chemistry is knowing what to shoot for. Sure, I can find the numbers for a water profile from many regions, especially ones with historic links to brewing, but that doesn’t mean that the brewers there don’t alter their water… ???
I get that question on occasions. My suggestion for almost any German beer is to keep the water fairly soft. That means shoot for about 50-80 ppm Ca, ~10 ppm Mg and a RA that works for your grist. I think in your case, w/o seeing the recipe, an RA of 0-30 ppm as CaCO3 should work.
To brew lighter beers, Munich brewers would decarbonate their water with lime and/or use lactic acid in the mash.
Kai
This is getting printed and put in my log book!