American Hybrid/ Belgian Water Profiles

[Stevorino]

yeah, your water is a lot like mine. Use the spread sheet. Fine for very pale beers. Maybe add some Ca. Enter it and see what it gives you. It will make sense.

Thanks, Proofman -- I appreciate your help.

May the be with your .

[ajdelange]

According to Markowski's "Farmhouse Ale" a typical Saison brewery receives water that has pH 7.2, HCO3- at 350, Ca++ 52 Cl- 20, Mg++ 17, Na++ 35 and SO4-- 107 with a total hardness of 454 "all mg/L". Now there is a problem with this data (table on p154) in that those levels of calcium and magnesium only add up to a total hardness of 200 ppm as CaCO3. You can't just add Mg++ to Ca++ - it has to be done on an equivalence basis and ppm as CaCO3 is one such. I have seen places where the conversion from equivalents to ppm as CaCO3 is calculated as twice what it should be so if we assume this to be one of those cases then the number based on Ca and Mg here would be 400 but we don't need the total hardness number so let's just ignore this. The next pronlem is that the bicarbonate level ( which the author says is "calculated" is too high for the levels of other minerals present. Reducing it to 164 mg/l (i.e. to less than half - again there may have been this factor of 2 confusion) gets a balanced water. Note that water profile reports in books and magazine articles are screwed up in a fashion similar to this more often than not! So forgetting about total hardness and setting bicarbonate to 164 mg/L we would have a water with a reisdual laklinity of 91 which would induce a pH shift of 0.15 upward from a distilled water mash to about 5.9 which is clearly undesireable. Something must be done about this and what Saison brewers do is either decarbonate the water (lime treatment), add higher kilned malts typically Vienna and/or Munich and this is where the orange, SRM 6-14 (with 10-14 being considered the classic rante), color comes from, or add lactic acid or sauermalz (acidified malt - contains lactic acid) to the mash.

Steverino's water could be used to brew a Saison using any or a combination of the acid sources mentioned above but it would be lacking in sulfate and so the beer would not give the classic Saison hop flavor. Adding 180 mg/L gypsum to this water would get the sulfate to the same level as reported by Markowski and raise the calcium to 46 mg/L as well. 35 mg/L table salt (deiodized!) would get the chloride to 20 mg/L but the sodium level would be at 20 (as opposed to 35 in Markowski). This wouldn't bother me.

The residual alkalinity of this mix would be -11 ppm as CaCO3 so you wouldn't need much acid, sauermalz or dark malt to get the right mash pH. If you wanted to be at the darker end of the color range I'd stand by with some chalk at dough in in case the mash pH went too low (below 5.2 measured at room temperature) but you probably wouldn't need it.

[Stevorino]

According to Markowski's "Farmhouse Ale" a typical Saison brewery receives water that has pH 7.2, HCO3- at 350, Ca++ 52 Cl- 20, Mg++ 17, Na++ 35 and SO4-- 107 with a total hardness of 454 "all mg/L". Now there is a problem with this data (table on p154) in that those levels of calcium and magnesium only add up to a total hardness of 200 ppm as CaCO3. You can't just add Mg++ to Ca++ - it has to be done on an equivalence basis and ppm as CaCO3 is one such. I have seen places where the conversion from equivalents to ppm as CaCO3 is calculated as twice what it should be so if we assume this to be one of those cases then the number based on Ca and Mg here would be 400 but we don't need the total hardness number so let's just ignore this. The next pronlem is that the bicarbonate level ( which the author says is "calculated" is too high for the levels of other minerals present. Reducing it to 164 mg/l (i.e. to less than half - again there may have been this factor of 2 confusion) gets a balanced water. Note that water profile reports in books and magazine articles are screwed up in a fashion similar to this more often than not! So forgetting about total hardness and setting bicarbonate to 164 mg/L we would have a water with a reisdual laklinity of 91 which would induce a pH shift of 0.15 upward from a distilled water mash to about 5.9 which is clearly undesireable. Something must be done about this and what Saison brewers do is either decarbonate the water (lime treatment), add higher kilned malts typically Vienna and/or Munich and this is where the orange, SRM 6-14 (with 10-14 being considered the classic rante), color comes from, or add lactic acid or sauermalz (acidified malt - contains lactic acid) to the mash.

Steverino's water could be used to brew a Saison using any or a combination of the acid sources mentioned above but it would be lacking in sulfate and so the beer would not give the classic Saison hop flavor. Adding 180 mg/L gypsum to this water would get the sulfate to the same level as reported by Markowski and raise the calcium to 46 mg/L as well. 35 mg/L table salt (deiodized!) would get the chloride to 20 mg/L but the sodium level would be at 20 (as opposed to 35 in Markowski). This wouldn't bother me.

The residual alkalinity of this mix would be -11 ppm as CaCO3 so you wouldn't need much acid, sauermalz or dark malt to get the right mash pH. If you wanted to be at the darker end of the color range I'd stand by with some chalk at dough in in case the mash pH went too low (below 5.2 measured at room temperature) but you probably wouldn't need it.

Were you using the nomograph or spreadsheet to make those calculations?

So for the Saison, if I'm reading this correctly, I need to add 180 mg/L gypsum and 35mg/L table salt to my mash and boil kettle. So assuming a total water level of 40 Liters, I'd be adding 7.2 grams of Gypsum and 1.4 grams of Table Salt? This would bring calcium levels to just under 50ppm -- do I want my calcium higher for yeast healthy?

For the Blonde -- I would think it'd be more balanced with a malt focus-- so add something like .... 6 grams of calcium chloride and 2 grams of gypsum (assuming 40L still)?

Thanks again for all the help guys --- I'm learning a ton. If I ever make it out west for a BN Party you can touch my

[ajdelange]

The calculations were done with the NUBWS (Nearly Universal Brewing Water Spreadsheet) which is at www.wetnewf.org and you are welcome to it but be aware that what you pay for "near universality" is complexity and most find it too imposing. There is a user's manual (aslo at wetnewf) that goes with it which isn't quite up to date (i.e. doesn't reflect the latest changes to the spreasheet itself).

The numbers for the Saison should work or at least serve as a starting point. Saison should have assertive dry hop flavor but if what you get is too much so then back off on the gypsum. You can add these salts to the water directly the main advantage of which is that it's much easier to get them uniformly mixed in. And if you use table salt be sure it is deiodized (iodine kills yeast). Kosher salt is deiodized.

For the Blond I can't find any data so what you propose seems reasonable though your chloride will be at 77 mg/L which is pretty high but as there is no sodium to speak of this shouldn't be a problem and adding this much calcium chloride does get the calcium up to 56 mg/L. Which brings us to the last question: should the calcium be higher in the Saison formulation? That is up to you. More calcium is certainly a good thing with respect to break formation, yeast health and precipitation of oxalate from the beer (which I never though much about until my first bout with kidney stones). OTOH many fine beers (e.g. Bohemian Pilsners) are made with low calcium levels in the water. So here the choice depends on how closely you want to imitiate what happens in Wallonia. I'd do it without increasing the Ca++ in the first batch and then in the next batch increase it. I well remember a water class I did in which I gave them two Burton ales - one brewed with "authentic" Burton water and the other with my untreated well water. Everyone agreed that the Burton water one was more authentic but that the other was the better beer.

[Stevorino]

The calculations were done with the NUBWS (Nearly Universal Brewing Water Spreadsheet) which is at http://www.wetnewf.org and you are welcome to it but be aware that what you pay for "near universality" is complexity and most find it too imposing. There is a user's manual (aslo at wetnewf) that goes with it which isn't quite up to date (i.e. doesn't reflect the latest changes to the spreasheet itself).

The numbers for the Saison should work or at least serve as a starting point. Saison should have assertive dry hop flavor but if what you get is too much so then back off on the gypsum. You can add these salts to the water directly the main advantage of which is that it's much easier to get them uniformly mixed in. And if you use table salt be sure it is deiodized (iodine kills yeast). Kosher salt is deiodized.

For the Blond I can't find any data so what you propose seems reasonable though your chloride will be at 77 mg/L which is pretty high but as there is no sodium to speak of this shouldn't be a problem and adding this much calcium chloride does get the calcium up to 56 mg/L. Which brings us to the last question: should the calcium be higher in the Saison formulation? That is up to you. More calcium is certainly a good thing with respect to break formation, yeast health and precipitation of oxalate from the beer (which I never though much about until my first bout with kidney stones). OTOH many fine beers (e.g. Bohemian Pilsners) are made with low calcium levels in the water. So here the choice depends on how closely you want to imitiate what happens in Wallonia. I'd do it without increasing the Ca++ in the first batch and then in the next batch increase it. I well remember a water class I did in which I gave them two Burton ales - one brewed with "authentic" Burton water and the other with my untreated well water. Everyone agreed that the Burton water one was more authentic but that the other was the better beer.

From listening to the Water Podcasts with Palmer, I was getting the impression that if you were going to play with your water, reaching 50ppm of Calcium was essential.

So if I have 40 liters of water (lets assume all 40 goes to the kettle too), 20 Liters in my Mash Water, 20 to Sparge with. Am I right that I want to add half of my salts to my mash water before the grains...and then the other half into the kettle at the beginning of the boil?

[ajdelange]

Opinions vary, of course, but no, 50 ppm is not essential (IMO). As I noted most of the good Bohemian Pilsners are made with water much softer than that (125 ppm as CaCO3). Even as I write this I am playing with my water to reduce the calcium (and other mineral) levels to give me the soft qualities associated with Munich beers (which use decarbonated water which will bring the calcium down to about 20 mg/L). Does calcium do good stuff for break formation, clear filtration, pH reduction in the kettle and oxalate clearance? Yes it does but that doesn't mean you must use that much. Remember that malt itself contains a fair amount of calcium - about 1.3 grams per kg.

As the salts we have been talking about are readily soluble I'd just dissolve them in the total volume of water you plan to use. If you mash with half and sparge with half then you can certainly prepare the two halves separately using half the salts in each if that is easier. All that matters is that the concentrations are proper in each again depending on the effect you are striving for. If the goal is to follow the practices of the farmhouse brewers of Wallonia then you would treat the whole volume of water and pretend it came from a Wallonian well. If you want to drop mash pH a bit more you could add all the salts to the mash water thus doubling its calcium content and reducing its RA. If you were looking for brighter runoff and were controlling mash pH with sauermalz you could add all the salts to the kettle.

[Stevorino]

Opinions vary, of course, but no, 50 ppm is not essential (IMO). As I noted most of the good Bohemian Pilsners are made with water much softer than that (125 ppm as CaCO3). Even as I write this I am playing with my water to reduce the calcium (and other mineral) levels to give me the soft qualities associated with Munich beers (which use decarbonated water which will bring the calcium down to about 20 mg/L). Does calcium do good stuff for break formation, clear filtration, pH reduction in the kettle and oxalate clearance? Yes it does but that doesn't mean you must use that much. Remember that malt itself contains a fair amount of calcium - about 1.3 grams per kg.

As the salts we have been talking about are readily soluble I'd just dissolve them in the total volume of water you plan to use. If you mash with half and sparge with half then you can certainly prepare the two halves separately using half the salts in each if that is easier. All that matters is that the concentrations are proper in each again depending on the effect you are striving for. If the goal is to follow the practices of the farmhouse brewers of Wallonia then you would treat the whole volume of water and pretend it came from a Wallonian well. If you want to drop mash pH a bit more you could add all the salts to the mash water thus doubling its calcium content and reducing its RA. If you were looking for brighter runoff and were controlling mash pH with sauermalz you could add all the salts to the kettle.

what is 'sauermalz' - something like the 5.2 mash buffer? Speaking of which, can I just use a buffer for the mash and add it all at once to the kettle?

I went ahead and tried it out yesterday and it went well from what I could tell. I couldn't find any deiodized salt around the house, but I kept the sulfate/chloride balance well in favor of the sulfate. The post-boil tasting was delicious - hopefully it'll turn out that way after fermentation as well!

Thanks again for your help!

[ajdelange]

"Sauermalz" (literally "acid malt") is malt that has been innoculated with Lactobacillus and allowed to rest at about 47C while those bugs ferment some of the sugars to lactic acid. The accepted lore is that each percent of that stuff in your grist will drop the pH of the mash by 0.1 point. My homebrew supplier has, to my delight, just started carrying it (or maybe it was there on the shelf all along and I just never noticed it). No more hydrochloric acid for me!

5.2 is a mixture of monobasic and dibasic sodium (or potassium - don't know which) phosphates. There are lots of problems with it theoretically. For example, 5.2 is pretty close to the pH at which a phosphate buffer will have minimum buffering capacity. That means that unless you use a ton of it it won't get your mash pH to 5.2 but what it will do is load your mash up with sodium and/or potassium. It might be effective in very soft water but I don't see how it can overcome the buffering capacity of the malt itself at a reasonable (i.e. not sodium loading) dose.