Hogaarden water profile

General Homebrew Discussion
1

Any suggestions on Hogaarden water profile? Currently using:

Ca) 76
Mg) 12
Na) 15.8
SO4) 147
Cl) 31
HCO3) 8
Alkalinity) 6.7
RA) 55

2

The sulfate is too high, should be about half that.  Sulfate like that is for a dry IPA

3

Yah, the sulfate is too high.  I’m a long way from a sulfate-phobe, but you don’t want to go overboard with sulfate’s drying effect in an otherwise delicate beer.

There is an actual Hoegaarden water profile in Bru’n Water and it is accurate.  The sulfate is about half what is shown above.

4

Are the numbers for Hoegaarden from the water supply, or what the brewery uses in its beer?

Thanks for the input on Sulphate/Chloride ratio, what would be an ideal ratio for Hoegaarden? I know there is never an ideal, but any thoughts would be good.

5

Forget the ratio. It’s useless.

Yes, the profile is from the municipal supply and there’s no telling if brewers adjusted the water from there. But considering that water adjustment was rarely a consideration for brewers, I’d bet that what you see is what they used.

6

People need to get that through their heads.

7

Is this something from Ray Daniels’ book?  I think my learning took place before that, so I never could figure out what the ratio was all about.  He also has a BU:OG ratio that I never quite understood the importance of.

8

Different thing.  BU:GU is a way of correlating bitterness to gravity.  SO4:Cl refers to sulfate to chloride ratio.

9

I couldn’t agree more! 20ppm of chloride to 40 ppm of sulfate is the same ratio as 200 ppm of chloride to 400 ppm of sulfate. The first one you probably couldn’t taste, while the second one would be rather intensely drying. The two ingredients don’t cancel each other out, but they do tend to provide opposing effects.

In the end, they are two separate ingredients, rather than two sides of the same coin. I always take the approach of setting the value for each one individually based on what I’m looking for.

10

Yes, I know that.  I was thinking both of those ratios were initially from the same source.  I don’t use either.

11

for delicate beers I usually target equal part chlorides an sulfates to get to 30ppm calcium and then adjust with acid of baking soda to get my ph right. I prefer soft water for most beers, with a fwe notable exceptions