Water for BDSA

Brewing Processes
1

Hey fellow brewers, here are my water salts additions for a Belgian Dark Strong Ale I am going to brew soon. For those of you who adjust their water and for those who have experience brewing belgian style beers, please let me know your opinions on these additions and also your preferences for water when brewing this style

Ca:65 ppm
CaSO4: 56
CaCl2: 82
Na:57
Bi: 80
Alk: 65

2

Are you starting with ro water?

3

[quote=“, post:2, topic:31357”]

Are you starting with ro water?

4

Keep it simple. You don’t need to add SO4. Can’t comment on the alkalinity because I don’t know your grist, but I just use dark syrup and do a pils mash for my BDS, so no alkalinity needed.

5

this. If you are starting with RO water, get your sulfates and chlorides in line with calcium sulfate and calcium chloride and then use either an acid or an alkalanizer to get your mash ph right. Everything else will take care of itself if you do that.

6

In my BDSA the color comes from the candi syrup so the mash profile is for a light colored, malty beer.

7

Point taken but here is the grain bill.
45# Pilsen 1.6 SRM
5# Cara-pils 2.0 SRM
5# Munich 5.5SRM
2# Aromatic 19 SRM
2# Special B 180 SRM
Acid Malt
D90 & D180

So with this grain bill, in your opinion, do I still need to forget about added alkalinity? I was emulating  belgian water profiles from the book Brew Like A Monk.

Also, I use BS3 to calculate my recipes. I went and deleted the SO4 to see how it affected the balance and it changed from malty to extremely malty.
I know I could reduce the amount of CL2 to bring it back to just malty but what is the reason for eliminating the SO4?

8

There’s no need for acid malt and adding alkalinity. Those are at cross purposes. I would target 50-60ppm of calcium from CaCl. As far as the SO4, what’s your reason for adding it? I tend to not add things without a clear idea of why I’m adding them but if it’s a recipe that’s worked for you in the past trust your experience.

9

All of this

10

I appreciate the response. I would say balance and add a touch of dryness to this style of beer. A dryness/sweetnees balance. Really no other reason other than I always add both CaCL2 and CaSO4 to my recipes. I think it also enhances the hop bitterness, again adding a balance in whole.

I will play around with BS3 and see what it looks like on paper. Thanks again!!
Feel free to correct anything I stated too!! Brewing is a constant learning curve and as I stated a few weeks ago, Belgian beers are low on my brewing history so anything you can share is very much appreciated!