RO Water Additions Witbier

johnplctech · February 7, 2012, 3:15pm

I’ve been looking at Bru’n Water and trying to figure out what to add to my water and could use some suggestions from some more experienced brewers on what to add to my water.

I’m making the batch from 100% RO water.

The recipe I have for a 6 gallon batch is:

8.00 lbs. Rahr 2-Row Pale Malt
3.00 lbs. Durst Wheat Malt
1.00 lbs. Flaked Oats

1.00 Oz Bitter Orange Peel 10 Min.
2.00 Oz Corriander Seed 10 Min.

1.00 oz. Hallertau Hallertauer 60 min
0.50 oz. Saaz 10 min

I’m fixing to order some fresh yeast and would like to know what else to purchase to doctor up the water. I have lactic acid 88% and gypsum on hand and a virgin PH meter. Seems to me that each addition affects some other and I’m just wondering what you guys might use when you brew with RO water?

Thanks
John

glug_master · February 7, 2012, 10:58pm

Here’s what I’ve been using to build my RO water:

[b]Baseline: Add 1 tsp of calcium chloride dihydrate (what your LHBS sells) to each 5 gallons of water treated. Add 2% sauermalz to the grist.

Deviate from the baseline as follows:

For soft water beers (i.e Pils, Helles). Use half the baseline amount of calcium chloride and increase the sauermalz to 3%

For beers that use roast malt (Stout, porter): Skip the sauermalz.

For British beers: Add 1 tsp gypsum as well as 1 tsp calcium chloride

For very minerally beers (Export, Burton ale): Double the calcium chloride and the gypsum. [/b]

Source

I treat 5 gallons and what I don’t use for mashing in I top up with filtered water for the sparge.

tom_sawyer · February 8, 2012, 4:38pm

+1 to the calcium chloride, thats what I put in my witbiers. It provides calcium and the chloride accentuates the malt/grain flavor. I also add a pinch of sea salt and Epsoms salts. Don’t know that you’ll need lactic but it won’t hurt. The raw wheat gives a slight tartness anyway, as well as the light cream color that lacks the usual yellowish hue. I brew these with RO, it makes a lovely clean background for the wheat and the hint of spices. I brew these for the wife, she loves all kinds of wheat beers.

johnplctech · February 9, 2012, 12:15pm

Thanks guys,

This gives me a base line to start at.

Thanks
John

johnplctech · February 18, 2012, 2:23pm

Ok, I decided to make my first beer in years a Hefewiezen with 100% RO water.

For a 10 gallon batch I have so far…
Briess Wheat Malt = 10.00lbs 53.9%
Briess Pilsen Malt = 8.00lbs 43.1%
Sauer(acid) Malt = 0.55lbs 3.0%

Hallertauer pellet hops = 1.25oz 60min

Add 1/2 teaspoon of calcium chloride to 5 gallons of water for the mash although I’ll try and narrow that down to grams per gallon with Bru’n Water if I can figure that one out… On my rig I pump the strike water from my HLT to the mash tun, can I just add the correct amount of calcium chloride to the strike water before adding the grain?

If I remember right the general rule is 1/2 of the wort comes from the mash and 1/2 comes from the sparge. So after allowing for water absorption by the grain of about 2.23 gallons my strike water needs to be somewhere like 8.5 gallons and my sparge water about 6.25 gallons.

Does the above sound generally correct?

Thanks
John