I want to attempt to eliminate a flavor nuance in my IPA’s by ruling out my water source as a potential issue and building as close to the exact Pale Ale profile in BrunWater as possible using distilled water.
The pale ale profile is as follows: 140Ca, 18Mg, 25Na, 300SO4, 55Cl
I can create the following profile from distilled: 113Ca, 16Mg, 21Na, 298SO4, 58Cl. The calcium is a lower than the suggested profile and the only way I can see raising it without raising any of the other ions is to add pickling lime which increases my alkalinity requiring me to then acidify the sparge. I don’t own any pickling lime and would rather not needlessly increase my alkalinity if I don’t have to.
Is 113Ca close enough or should I add the pickling lime and acid as well?
For the record, to build the above mentioned profile I am using
You were part of that epsom salt thread that was running the other day. My take on that was that you could get away with less Ca than previously thought. I know Martin specifically answered your question on the PA profile and my take on that was the Ca was higher to balance the higher sulfate without causing flavors. I’m guessing that if your profile is 113 and your within the correct pH then I think your good to go.
Ok, I remember the conversation now. One thing I was thinking of as I was going down the message was that if this is a settling/aging issue, any beer you ship will be distressed and likely require additional time. If you really think its a water issue then going all distilled is the best way to identify it I guess, but water is a variable that just doesn’t change that much and we’ve all been making IPAs in Cle for a long time, so I don’t know. Do you dry hop your IPAs?
I keg everything, but I have a Bells 2 Hearted that is in secondary now and I’ll pull a couple of bottles off to see if I get something similar. 2 week priming, then condition in fridge for a week sound about right?
Also, I will buy the next water report since you gave me the last one. Just let me know when (wait for spring or summer or does it matter) and I’ll get it.
[quote=“moose”]Ok, I remember the conversation now. One thing I was thinking of as I was going down the message was that if this is a settling/aging issue, any beer you ship will be distressed and likely require additional time. If you really think its a water issue then going all distilled is the best way to identify it I guess, but water is a variable that just doesn’t change that much and we’ve all been making IPAs in Cle for a long time, so I don’t know. Do you dry hop your IPAs?
I keg everything, but I have a Bells 2 Hearted that is in secondary now and I’ll pull a couple of bottles off to see if I get something similar. 2 week priming, then condition in fridge for a week sound about right?
Also, I will buy the next water report since you gave me the last one. Just let me know when (wait for spring or summer or does it matter) and I’ll get it.[/quote]
I do dry-hop all my IPA’s yes. I usually condition in bottles for 2-3 weeks and put in the fridge anywhere from a day to a week depending on how quickly I drink them or plan ahead.
As far as when to get the water report I believe last time I did it in the early winter. I do believe water profiles change with the seasons but I don’t know how much. Since we have Lake Erie water it may be less affected by the seasons. That’s more of an educated guess than based on any real facts though.
