Porter & Water Adjustments

[TimmyR]

Planning a 10-gallon batch of porter for tomorrow and am back at it in Palmer's spreadsheet.

Can I get a sanity check on what I come up with?

Target SRM 37
Source Water
Ca 45ppm, Mg 20ppm, Alkalinity as CaCO3 150ppm, Na 22ppm, Cl 37ppm, SO4 49ppm

RA 106
Target RA 350

Additions for 12 gallon mash volume
Chalk 15g
Calcium Chloride 5 g
Baking Soda 15 g
-----------------
Adjusted Mash
Ca 207ppm, Mg 20ppm, Alkalainity as CaCO3 508ppm, Na 112ppm, Cl 90ppm, SO4 49ppm

New RA 349
Chloride/Sulfate 1.83

Question: if this is right, would I then scale up amounts to be proper ppm for all of liquor? I batch sparge and typically heat one big batch of water in my 26-gal pot.

Thanks!

[BrewQwest]

I have only drafted two water recipes for what I have been brewing so take this with a grain of salt (pun intended ).. I don't know if I would treat your source water, as indicated, for brewing a porter? Using palmer's nomagraph, and with the types of darker grains you will be using for the porter which will lower the mash pH, I would leave your water alone and brew away. You are very close to being in the ballpark with your water the way it is.... Unless you are brewing for a competition, just how black would black need to be?.... IMHO, I don't believe you need to exceed 200-250ppm for a carbonate level for any beer...But then again, I could be mistaken....Having said this, I am sure someone out there with much more experience than I, will comment also... cheers !!

[ajdelange]

Skip the calcium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate. The situations in which you should be adding chalk to brewing water or mash are few and far between (cases where you are being a complete authenticity nut and I'm not trying to poke fun at authenticity nuts because I am one). Porters, assuming they should be brewed with water like London's (RA 25 - 75) don't want an RA anything like 350. In fact your RA of 106 might result in mash pH higher than you want so monitor it. The calcium chloride addition should help somewhat but will only bring RA down to 85. The dark malts should talke you the rest of the way.

[TimmyR]

AJ - just in time I am heating my HLT now.

So you think just about 5 grams of Calcium Chloride to help the Ca out? Did I read you correctly?

I am all about authenticity, but first I am all about keeping it simple. That makes complete sense...I figured my water was pretty well off since most of my stouts and porters seem to taste pretty good.

Thanks AJ...if its ever easier to talk thru this, let me know and I'll PM you my cell.....

[ajdelange]

Yes, 5 grams of CaCl2.2H20 should KISS you to a decent beer. If you want to do it with water that resembles a source from London that can be done too but you need to know which source (London sources are quite variable), what its ion profile is and how the brewers who used it proceded (i.e. did they just throw grain into it, did they decarbonate it first, did they add acid to it?).

[TimmyR]

Thanks again AJ. I went with 5g extrapolated out to my total liquor volume which worked out to a out 0.4g per gallon, but now that I think about it I acutally did not put that much in since I just realized I had more than my projected 14 gallons of liquor. Oh well, the pH still showed 5.2 on my test strip. More numbers to follow.

[TimmyR]

Porter comes up again for the Fall. Looks like the minimalist approach again with carbon filtered tap water and 5g of calcium chloride added to the mash (approximately 9.5 gallons of hot liquor).

[TimmyR]

2011 brings me right back to where I was but I am armed with a pH meter and a lot of posts here on water. 11 gallons of hot liquor for a 27 SRM robust porter. Planning to add 5 g CaCl- and 2 grams CaSO4...or so to the mash to bump the Ca up over 100 ppm.

Then I'll have my faithful Weyerman's Acidulated Malt ready to tweak pH if needed.

Question (AJ I know you've answered this) how many ml of 88% Lactic Acid per gram of sauerzmalt do you think? I have the acid and pipettes. It seems like a great number to know to convert to the 10% of grain bill by weight if I was ever low on sauerzmalt. Also, have you ever had any bad experiences with using lactic acid instead of the malt?

Many thanks.

Timmy