Hello I going to brew dry stout(all-grain) an I am going to used RO water I just don’t know what salts to add. An these brewing water calculator I just don’t understand how they work.
If you have looked at Brunwater I may/might be of some help. Many more brewers here could be of more help though. Is your tap water municipal or private well? If your water is private well have you had a Wards water test for brewing?
I use EZ water, but Brunwater is the gold standard. There’s also a product out there to just dump in. Probably not precise, but if you wanted to dip a toe in, it might be a first step:
Consider getting “Home Brew Recipe Bible” by Chris Colby. There’s more in the book than what the title would suggest.
With each set of recipes, he offers general guidelines for water treatment (adding minerals to RO or distilled water). He also offers advice on what to taste for to adjust the profiles (“If you brew a beer and it has a metallic taste, try reducing …”).
$10 (ebook) for curated content. For me, it saved many hours of wandering the web and wondering where to look next for quality resources.
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Ok, I plugged into Brun water a ‘black balanced’ which should fit a Stout.
Using 4.0 gallon of RO mash water and 4.0G sparge water for a 5G batch:
Mash: add 0.6gm CaSo4(gypsum), 1.0gm MgSo4(epsom), 1.2gm CaCl2, and 1.0gm CaCO3(chalk)
Sparge: add 1.4gm CaSo4, 1.0gm MgSo4, 2.0gm Cacl2, plus 3ml lactic acid
If you don’t have those chemicals, then maybe using the NB accumash stuff isn’t such a bad idea.
Looks good, with the only suggestion I would make is substitute pickling lime for Chalk…that stuff has fallen out of favor due to its insolubility and ineffectiveness. Pickling lime, cheap at Wallyworld, is easy to use, a modicum of care to prevent contact with skin or eyes, but that should apply to everything we do, anyway…
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Agreed. I never use chalk after trying to dissolve it to make it soluble. My most logical attempt was trying seltzer water, figuring carbonic acid might work. It didn’t. Both Martin and AJ’s threads in HBT convinced me a couple years ago to forget it. I’m not sure why I let it slip. Must be getting old…
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Brewing a Dry Stout does not require chalk or alkaline water. RO water is preferred for brewing that style. Mash the non-roast grains separately and then add the roast grains at the end of the mash.
Why is that? Too much acid, per say? Sneezles61
Jim youd get a kick out of this being a fellow Maineiac. I worked an event for Shipyard here in Florida (where they’ve opened up breweries) and they very proudly explained that they match their water profile here to that of Sebago Lake water. While I understand this is for product consistency and Maine water is 1000000% better than Florida water I thought it was funny they talked about Sebago Lake like artisanal spring water (it is basically Poland springs…) but it’s just the Portland municipal water…
Oooooo, you’re wise to their tricks.
My Homebrew club met at Geaghan’s brewery today for a talk on water. It was a very short talk. Apparently Bangor and Brewer water is so good that all the breweries in the area do is dechlorinate it and add a little gypsum.
My well water needs a little more work than that.
I had a well when I lived in Hermon for a while. My water tasted so bad I filtered it just to make ice cubes… here in Florida it’s just really heavy on the chlorine.
