I just moved and looks like I got pretty lucky with my new water. But in a beer that I don’t want a lot of chloride or sulfate how can I raise the Calcium? Could I use pickling lime for the calcium and then counter act the rise in PH with phosphoric acid? If so how would I go about adding those additions, would it be acid and other minerals to water then add picking lime at dough in?
Chloride and sulfate are important components for providing beer flavor. Brewing with little of those ions can actually produce bland tasting beer, so don’t be too averse to having moderate levels of those ions. I find that keeping both below about 75 ppm produces flavor without any distraction. Many of the great brewing waters from around the world have about 50 ppm or a little less. That water has roughly half the chloride and sulfate content of those waters. You have room to play with, in my opinion.
You don’t need too much calcium in brewing water. A minimum of 40 ppm in the mash should reduce beerstone potential. Somewhere around 50 ppm is appropriate for ale yeast to flocculate reasonably well. Lager yeast can perform well with less than 40 ppm.
Beerme, Follow the link in mabrungard’s signature line to download Bru’n Water. It’s a spreadsheet that will help you calculate the desired water treatment for a wide spectrum of beers. The last sheet of the spreadsheet is an excellent discussion of the effects of the ions of concern to beer brewers.
You don’t have to be a chemist to use the spreadsheet - it was created for those of us who sat in the back of chem class. It is helpful to read the instructions (the first sheet) and the “water information” (the last sheet). Actually, it’s best to read both of those sheets twice.
The download is free, but Martin accepts donations and in return provides a spreadsheet with additional features.
There were a couple of decent Brew Strong episodes a while ago that dealt with this. They had a water engineer and home brewer on (Martin Brungard) and as I recall he actually made a slurry of lactic acid and Pickling Lime to add to his water for Heffe. The links for the two shows are:
No, not pickling lime, chalk and lactic acid. The lactic acid dissolves the chalk and forms calcium lactate. This a technique that can be used when brewing with really low alkalinity water and you WANT some lactate in the beer to help create some of those German nuances in the finished beer. The lactate level should be kept below the taste threshold or you will have a ‘twang’ in the beer flavor.
I was thinking I would have to have A LOT of chloride and sulfate to get the calcium up to around 50ppm. Not really based off anything this water is just drastically different than my old water. After getting home and entering the new info into Bru’n water at 60ppm each of chloride and sulfate calcium is at 50ppm which is a good starting point I think.
