Water profiles for light-colored styles...

[KenLenard]

My tap water is a little high in bicarbonate for lighter-colored lagers so I have been playing with distilled water and additions. Does anyone have a tried-and-true water profile for a style like this? I'm a batch-sparger and I have gypsum, calcium chloride, epsom salt and lactic acid at my disposal. My filtered tap water looks like this...

pH: 6.6
Total dissolved solids (TDS): 264
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm: 0.44
Cations/Anions, me/L: 3.3 / 3.4

Sodium: 13
Potassium: 2
Calcium: 34
Magnesium: 12
Total Hardness: 135
Nitrate, No3-N: 0.4
Sulfate, SO4-S: 9
Chloride: 21
Carbonate, CO3: <1
Bicarbonate, HCO3: 138
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3: 113

This year I have made a number of batches with 100% distilled water with small additions of these salts just to get the numbers to a modest level but I have had some funky, harsh, sharp and tangy flavors coming out of these beers. I typically make these lagers at around 1.050, SRM 4-5, IBU 20-25. Can anyone give me a "build your water" primer? The batches that have come out the best have additions to the mash only, not the sparge or kettle. Thanks & cheers.

[ajdelange]

Can anyone give me a "build your water" primer?

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewin ... er-198460/

[KenLenard]

Hi AJ: Thanks for the link and thank you for helping us mortals get a grip on this. Please bear with me & ensure that I am applying your advice properly...

If I diluted my filtered tap water 3:1 with distilled, all of my water numbers would be below 20 (below 10, actually) and my bicarbonate would be 34.5 (alkalinity would be 28).. If I used 3 gallons of water to mash and 5 gallons of water to sparge (this is for a light-colored beer... blonde ale, German or Czech Pilsner, American Standard or Premium, maybe Cream Ale), I would want to add 1.6 tsp of CaCl to the mash (1 tsp for each 5 gallons of water used). This would make my overall calcium number 54, my chloride 82 and everything else would be very low (2-3ppm). I guess the only sticky part for me is whether I am looking strictly at my mash numbers or overall numbers. I want to get away from adding salt additions to the sparge or kettle. Does it sound like I'm on the right track?

Thanks & cheers!
Ken

[ajdelange]

I always just treat the whole volume of water I'm going to brew with and don't distinguish between the water I am going to mash with and that with which I am going to sparge. Thus for 8 gallons treated it is simply 1*8/5 tsp CaCl2 to be added to the entire volume at once. That just makes things simpler and there really is no reason to treat mash and sparge water differently except in cases where the sparge water is quite alkaline which is not going to be the case here as you have diluted with DI.

[KenLenard]

Thus for 8 gallons treated it is simply 1*8/5 tsp CaCl2 to be added to the entire volume at once.

Okay, so if I'm understanding this sentence, it does sound like 1.6 tsp of CaCl (which I believe comes to around 5 grams) to ALL eight gallons of the water... then mash & sparge with that water. If the pH was high in the mash (for whatever reason), some lactic acid or small amounts of CaCl to lower it, correct? Sounds reasonable and doable.

Thanks for the guidance.
Ken

[ajdelange]

Yes. It's about 1 gram per gallon and, depending on how tight you pack the powder, whether the teaspoon is "level" or not etc. CaCl2 generally weighs about 5 grams per teaspoonful.

Lactic acid will drop an excessively high pH faster than calcium chloride but it takes a lot less of it so be careful if you go that route.

[KenLenard]

Okay, great. Thanks again AJ. Making a beer in this style this week (a Czech Lager of sorts with Pils, some Munich, Saaz hops and 2782 Staro lager yeast) and using this information. Cheers!