Water for a Bo Pils

I am planning on making a Czech Premium Pale Lager probably Thursday and curious about the water. I read and hear that very soft water is recommended.

Any thoughts on using plain R/O water without any salts added? I know Martin recommends (I think) at least 50ppm Ca.

RO water is kind of all over the map so it may be tough to know what’s in it.  Some people treat RO as if it were distilled but distilled is all-zeroes-all-the-time so at least you would know where you were starting.  I used to pic up “RO” water from the grocery store (in a big dispensing machine) and I had my doubts so I sent a sample to Ward Labs and found out that it had all sorts of stuff in it.  The water for a Czech Lager should be soft, for sure.  You could try to get to 40ppm of Ca so that you can keep things soft and just add some CaCl to get to 40ppm.  I always hear that nothing is going to happen at 50ppm that wouldn’t happen at 40ppm.  Magnesium shouldn’t be an issue because malt has an adequate amount, maybe add a smidge of kosher salt to get your Na up off the ground.  Soft water mutes hops so you might have to use more hops than you would ordinarily think.  For me, I typically use my source water (which is modest on most ions) and then use some percentage of distilled and add back just enough CaCl to get to about 40ppm of Ca and call it good.  Good luck.

Adjust to 40ppm Calcium balancing the Sulfate and Chloride levels.

I do hear people that want some amount of sulfate for added crispness or whatever but I hear more people say “no sulfate” in a Czech beer.  I know it’s okay to have some because I have 27ppm of sulfate in my water and sometimes do not dilute and the beer is very good, IMO.  I may dilute 50% and so my sulfate is 13.5ppm which also works.

The Czech Pils we just kegged was made with 100% RO water.
No minerals added. Nothing.
And it turned out great!

Thanks to everyone for their replies.

I definitely don’t recommend a minimum of 50 ppm calcium in a lager. What I do like for lagers is starting with water like RO and adding all the calcium salts for the entire batch to only the mashing water so that the Ca content of the mash is about 40 ppm. When the nearly mineral-free is added for sparging, the overall mineral content of the batch is lowered.

With regard to chloride and sulfate, I think the modest levels found in Bavarian (Munich) water produces a decent result.

My apologies, Martin. I was confused as to what I remembered.

Here is my take, RO water with added Ca 30ppm, SO4 40ppm, CL 49ppm. Yellow Balanced profile. Salts in the mash, sparge with RO.