Is there a way to get Brun Water to make water adjustment suggestions for you, instead of tweaking the salts to find the right profile?
It seems like after inputting my water profile into the program, there has to be a way that I can know how much of what to add to my strike water, and my sparge water, in order to get the right target profile.
I spent quite a bit of time trying to tweak the program tonight, and I still don’t feel very confident that I have the right balance of salts to make a perfect best bitter… as much as I’d like to RDWHAHB, i really want to get this right.
Well I can see it getting easier the more you do it, but for instance, there’s more than one way to add calcium to soft water, and depending on which salts you use, you change other values, like the SO4/Cl ratio. So tweaking it one way throws other things off.
What I settled on for my best bitter tonight is 0.5g of gypsum and 2.7g CaCO3 to my mash, as opposed to 4.4g Gyp and 2.4g CaCO3 that I added to my barleywine last month. But, it adds up in terms of ppm’s, I guess that’s all that matters…
IMO, there’s more room for user error if the program doesn’t suggest the ideal additions for you, as you’d expect a brewing program to do for mash volumes, target temps, infusion amts., etc.
Maybe I just don’t understand water chemistry enough, yet, and I should do more reading on the subject.
Yep - once you get the imput page done, go to the water adjustment page and select the profile you want (upper left) - I usually just go with pale ale profile for a bitter. That should bring up the suggested profile. Below you will see “diluted” profile and finished profile. In the table at the bottom - add gypsum, CaCl, epsom salt to get your finished profile to match (somewhat closely) the suggested profile. Depending on your water you may want to dilute tap water with RO water.
What these guys said! You said you were trying to increase your Ca. Did you look at the recommended levels for sulfate and chloride and try to hit those targets also? It’s kinda eird tht you needed CO3 at all. You can always email Martin and ask him. He’s a great guy and very responsive to emails.
Does take a little playing around with the different additions to get things right but once you after a few times you can dial it in pretty quick. I save off a Bru’n Water file for each of the types of beers I brew, makes it pretty quick to start from very similar recipes.
It can be done, but it makes the assumption that a brewer has all those minerals available to use. Some brewers don’t keep all of them on hand.[/quote]
Not only that, but it’s just too much for my poor brain to deal with!
I was searching old threads trying to find an answer to my question but still not clear…I’m planning to brew a Special Bitter(13 SRM, IBU =30, OG = 1.045) but am not sure what Desired Water Profile I should use in Bru’n Water. Is this an Amber Bitter profile since SRM is between 7 & 17 per instructions tab, OR is it the pale ale profile since a bitter is an English Pale Ale?
[quote=“Hop-2-It”]I was searching old threads trying to find an answer to my question but still not clear…I’m planning to brew a Special Bitter(13 SRM, IBU =30, OG = 1.045) but am not sure what Desired Water Profile I should use in Bru’n Water. Is this an Amber Bitter profile since SRM is between 7 & 17 per instructions tab, OR is it the pale ale profile since a bitter is an English Pale Ale?
Thanks.[/quote]
I don’t think it’s gonna make a world of difference. Although I might pick a balanced profile, since a bitter isn’t all that bitter.
