I’m going to give the Sunraker Pils recipe a try off the AHA members area. I’ve not brewed this style before. The only mention of water in the recipe is “double filtered tap water” and a ph of 5.4. Any particular minerals I should add to this?
The recipe description says it is a German Pilsner. BrauKaiser has a recommendation for German Pilsner water at the link below. It looks fairly close to Yellow Balanced water from Brunwater.
Great. Thank you!
i tried making a by-the-book german pilsner and used kai’s water profile, making it from distilled. i think it was really good for a german pilsner. i wouldnt change it when i do it again.
Kai’s profile for German pils is what I use.
I’m gonna add one thought. It is generally accepted that traditional German Pilsner has very low mineral levels across the board, 0-25 ppm per brewing salt. Living with water that matches that profile I make one adjustment to my pils, add enough calcium to aid yeast flocculation, 50-75 ppm. I think it’s important in a low tech homebrew setting plus I like the affect of calcium chloride on the style.
For me, German pils is sulfate heavy. Not like IPA, of course, but more so than a lot of people think. And FWIW, Martin has said that calcium levels for lagers don’t need to be as high as for ales. The Ca is for yeast flocculation and lagering will take care of that.
I think Czech Pils is the low mineral beer. I think Helles has less mineral content also.
Thats the way I see it, too
Brewing a Czech Pils today, I realize the OP is talking about a german pils but this is roughly what I use for my lagers/pilsners.
RO water
Ca-35ppm
CaSo4-35ppm
Cl2-54ppm
Na-31
In my experience there hasn’t been a need to take the Ca near or over 50ppm
IIRC, Martin said 25 was fine for a lager. For G pils, I try to get sulfate up to at least 50.
The Jever water profile presented in Bru’n Water is very nice for German Pils brewing. The elevated sulfate is helpful in producing a nice dry finish that lets the bittering come through.
Lager brewing DEFINITELY DOES NOT require a minimum of 50 ppm calcium in the brewing water. However, having at least 40 ppm calcium in the mashing water does help precipitate oxalate from your beer which helps reduce beerstone problems. I start with RO water and use a technique in which ALL the salts for the entire water volume are added to only the mashing water (this boosts the mashing Ca content). My sparging water is left as pure RO water and that brings the overall ion concentrations down to lower values in the final wort. The supporter’s version of Bru’n Water enables this technique.
I’m fine being in the minority here and completely accept my approach produces a less sharp or crisp beer. What I like with a German pils is to be able to add a bit more hops without it being over emphasized or to sharp allowing me to put in a touch more hops for more hop flavor.
Even during the ibu war days of ipas 10 years ago I relied on soft water to keep the hop presence “soft” but present.
My thoughts on water: Starting with distilled or RO water, I use CaCl for what I consider soft water styles and gypsum for sharper water styles. I sometimes use both equally as a balanced approach or lean more one way or the other to emphasize soft vs sharp borrowing from the British sulfate/chloride ratio. But mostly I try to avoid messing with water too much.
I quit using anything besides CaCl and/or gypsum a while ago after jacking up one too many beers following published water recipes. I worry less about brewing an authentic beer, especially since we have no idea what breweries’ actual water profiles are, when brewing it with soft water might make it taste better. I quit using spreadsheets, color reference, and gram scales in an illusion of accuracy. I was probably precise but I doubt it was accurate. I save the scales for measuring hops and yeast.
However, it is my understanding that calcium does much more than just aid in yeast flocculation and help precipitate oxalate.
It is my understanding that there is a benefit to α-amylase efficiency in its effort to degrade starch, protects α-amylase at mash temp, and has an effect on mash pH (calcium reacts with phosphates in the grain husks to release phytic acid which naturally lowers pH and has antioxidant effects).
Since mash pH and converting starch to sugar are my chief concerns, for these reasons I use at least 50 ppm calcium via CaCl and/or gypsum in every mash. I use teaspoons and the BeerSmith water module reports in ppm. Close enough is good enough.
If I add stylistic flavor salts, which I rarely do anymore, they go in the boil as a season to taste addition. In this case, for me a little goes a long way.
Maybe I’m mistaken in all this, but I can say it sure hasn’t hurt. This ‘keep it simple’ approach makes brewing easier and I like my beers a lot better since I adopted it.
My RO system is installed after my water softener per mfg specs, so I suspect I get a bit of residual NaCl, but not much. I follow Brew Bama’s approach on my pils - yesterday I did a 10 gallon batch and only added 4 g each of CaCl2 and CaSO4 to the strike and none to the sparge.