TimCA wrote:I got the report back from Ward this week and was quite surprised by the results...
Ca 14, Mg 4, Na 8, SO4 1, Cl 8, HCO3 49. CaCO3 52, CO3 <1, TA CaCO3 40 and PH of 6.1
Except for Ca being a bit low, that should be good water for mashing an SRM 8-11 beer. JZ's APA recipe is 8.7, so you are already in the right ballpark.
TimCA wrote:Any how what do you all use for calculating your water additions?
I use Palmer's RA spreadsheet with Open Office. Works great!
TimCA wrote: I.E. what is more important SO4 OR Cl.... (in Sundays case I am brewing Jamil’s APA)
Well, they are both important!
Here's what I've been doing with water for 10 gallon batches since I got my own Ward Lab's report back and fiddled with Palmer's spreadsheet a bit.
First part is make sure the residual alkalinity is correct for your combination of mash and water. Yours is pretty good. A 1ml addition of 88% lactic acid for this batch will get it even closer to center.
Second, make sure you have a minumum of 50ppm Ca in the mash. You are low at 14, so if you are making a 10 gallon batch with about 6 gallons of strike water, add 4g gypsum to bring up the Ca. Since this is a hoppy beer, and your SO4 is also low, the extra SO4 from the gypsum is OK.
Now your mash is done, so sparge with RO or distilled water. Yeah, that's right, you heard me. Palmer says that since the RO water is neither adding nor taking away anything that is not already in balance, that it won't adjust the pH of the mash.
Now that you have all your wort in the kettle, make sure you still have at least 50ppm of Ca in there for yeast health and add any flavor ions that suit the style. In your case you are low on Ca again (I know we adjusted the mash, but then you diluted it back again in the sparge), so add some gypsum and/or CaCl to bring it back up. Typically I find I do them in equal parts, except on hoppy beers where I will go with all gypsum.
So after all that, to brew 10 gallons of JZ's APA with your water I would do:
1. 4g gypsum + 1ml Lactic acid in the mash
2. Sparge with RO. If you sparge with your water you will have to add some acid, I don't know how much but it won't be a lot
3. 8g gypsum in kettle
That should leave you with 54 Ca, 1.3 Mg, 2.7 Na, 2.7 Cl, 120 SO4 which I think should make a fine pale ale.