Calling water experts: Imperial Stout H2O additions: HELP!

[slaman992003]

Much of the other posters I think have given you good advice. Keep in mind that JP's sheets are not "aimed" at a particular city's water (e.g., Pilsen / soft or Dublin/hard). They are aimed at making good beer from a reasonable water.

My advice is 'don't overcomplicate it." When I think about adding salts, I think there are only two reasons to do so :

a) to get the pH in the right range
and
b) to set the chloride to sulfate ratio properly to suit my taste and/or beer style.

Making the water hard for hard sake or soft for soft sake doesn't make sense. There should be a specific intent...e.g., soft so that you can add more hops and still get a softer bitterness.

If you have average water, your dark malts will drop the pH into the proper range. I would just be aware of them going too low and make sure I have chalk on hand to boost it. If you want to make sure, you can add a little to the mash up front, but...why add something that may not be needed.

I would focus more on b).

Note : Although I am a chemist, I am no expert in brewing water chemistry. I have recently brewed multiple beers using JP's sheets. Including both Pilsners and Dry Stouts. I would rely on JPalmer's stuff. They get you into the ballpark.

My recent Dry Stout used the following profile from distilled water to get CA: 101; Mg: 7; Na: 77, Cl: 50, SO4: 64, thus giving Alkalinity as CaCO3 of 216 and Cl/SO4 of 0.72 (bitter, but close to balanced). (added 4g chalk, 1.5 gyp,1 cacl, 1.8 eps,5 baking soda, 1.2 table salt). If I were doing it again, I might up the SO4 another 10-20ppm.

Good luck.

[BDawg]

Man, I love reading everything AJ has to say. This thread is another freaking great one.

The only thing I have to add to this conversation is that my suggestion above for adding sulfates to the PACNW's nearly mineral-free water is based on the premise that a Russian Imperial Stout has more of a London origin than a Dublin origin.

To that end, [BJCP Judge hat on] IMO, the hops should be present and assertive enough to balance all that rich malt. Put another way, one with better balance will tend to score better than one missing hops. A malt-only RIS is more like a black barleywine and it will lose to one that shows better balance, all other things equal.[/BJCP Judge hat off].

Thanks-

[Chupa LaHomebrew]

Slaman,
I understand the basics of the water spreadsheet very well, and why to use it, and why you want to have the correct RA for a particular brew to balance your mash pH.

Here are JP's instructions, partially:

"Step 5, Salt Additions: Add salts (in grams) to build the RA and flavor profile that you want for the beer. You may want to trade off between different calcium salts to balance the anion content. For example, if the sulfate level gets too high from adding gypsum, use some calcium chloride instead. If the alkalinity is not high enough for a dark beer, try adding a combination of sodium bicarbonate and calcium carbonate."


What I don't understand is how the spreadsheet is telling me that I need what seems to be an exorbitant amount of salt additions to reach my RA (this seems to be backed up by what Aj is saying). Granted, I did not take a pH reading during my brewday to see if the water calculator actually got me in the ballpark, but I will do that on future brews even if I have to go with the ColorpHast strips, which I do not trust. I simply can't afford a pH meter right now.

This is what I supposedly ended up with in the mash according to the spreadsheet:

(Effective Hardness): 117
Residual Alkalinity as CaCO3: 346
Est. SRM (Low): 34
Est. SRM (High): 38
Chloride to Sulfate Ratio: Very Malty

I emailed John Palmer on this question, namely what sort of RA he goes for when doing very dark beers, and hopefully he will respond here. I feel that there has to be some sort of common ground between the approaches that AJ and him are supporting, or maybe the spreadsheet just doesn't work for very dark beers.


Bdawg, I think you are bringing up some great points about RIS brewing in general and the need to have a hoppy supporting profile. I didn't hop the hell out of this beer because I am using small additions of smoked malt, and possibly oak in this beer and I didn't want it to get too "confused" tasting. So it's not really a traditional RIS, but for all intents and purposes for this water discussion, it is.

[ajdelange]

What I don't understand is how the spreadsheet is telling me that I need what seems to be an exorbitant amount of salt additions to reach my RA (this seems to be backed up by what Aj is saying).

To me the most important aspect of this is that someone finally said "Whoa, this doesn't look right!" and started asking questions. I wish more people would do that (and not just about absurdly high RA - but don't get me started).

I simply can't afford a pH meter right now.

You have to set priorities. Winter is almost over. The kids really don't need shoes to make it through to spring. On a more serious note I remember when I first lusted for a pH meter. The meters (with ATC) cost hundreds $ and the electrodes hundreds more (1980's $ at that). The electrodes only lasted a year. Today's $90 (and that's 2009 $) meters (with electrode) are, by comparison, a real bargain.

Bdawg, I think you are bringing up some great points about RIS brewing in general and the need to have a hoppy supporting profile. I didn't hop the hell out of this beer because I am using small additions of smoked malt, and possibly oak in this beer and I didn't want it to get too "confused" tasting. So it's not really a traditional RIS, but for all intents and purposes for this water discussion, it is.

I didn't mean to try to "sell" the Dublin profile - I just used it as an example mostly because it was the first one listed in Lewis's book. I only advocate attempting to match the water of a given city if you want to emulate the beer brewed in that city as opposed to another city. I do advocate researching the kind(s) of water a beer, e.g. stout, is brewed with to get the general characteristics that go with the style. I mentioned London and Dublin because they are well known for their stouts but I've also had Guiness brewed in Mauritius. Stout is brewed with a wide variety of waters. If you want to tweak to get closer to one city than another or just to make the beer more to your liking then by all means do so. For example, you can add more sulfate if you want to emphasize hops but keep in mind that to add sulfate you must add calcium sulfate or magnesium sulfate each of which will cause lowering of mash pH which could lead to the necessity of adding chalk to keep it from going too low.

Perhaps a quotation from the Chapter in (Michael) Lewis's book written by Ashton Lewis is pertinent: "Remember that the goal of all this water adjustment is to obtain a range of 5.2 - 5.4 mash pH. If mash pH is too low increase carbonate levels in subsequent brews; if it is too high decrease carbonate levels." The only thing I would add to that is that you shouldn't wait until the next brew if pH is off. Fix it by adding chalk or acid now. Then add the same amount of chalk next time you brew.

[Chupa LaHomebrew]

Thanks again AJ. I think once the beer is done fermenting, I will at least take a sample to see what my final pH is.

I used the water spreadsheet for a porter I did about a month ago. That was very dark, maybe 35 SRM, and I got up to the RA it was suggesting, which I think was 300+, and the beer turned out really well. Again, I didn't check the pH at any time, but at least the beer tastes good and I can't detect anything off flavors, saltiness, chalkiness, or "flatness" in the final product. Also the mash efficiency was fine and consistent with my usual efficiency before doing water adjustments.

Looks like I'll have to pawn something soon and buck up for a pH meter!

[Junket]

Somehow I missed this thread during the holiday season. I'm researching water profiles as I prepare to brew my first RO+minerals based stout, and now I come across this... Thought I'd bump it for everyone who might have missed it like me.

[Chupa LaHomebrew]

Junket,
Depending on when you are brewing, I might have my RIS racked over to a corny by then and at least tell you how mine came out flavor-wise.
IMO, I don't see any reason to go up as high as the RA suggested by Palmer's spreadsheet. I really think AJ has the right idea of mashing in to see where you are at pH wise and then adjusting gradually with tiny additions of Chalk. I do think however that a little baking soda in there might be nice too as a way to adjust the RA and pH up if necessary, even though AJ suggested never using it. I like the idea of a little sodium to increase the fullness of the beer, within reason of course. Best of luck.

[ajdelange]

I shouldn't say never use it. I should say never use it unless you understand the consequences. Just today someone asked about burtonizing very low mineral content water. If you add to such a water enough gypsum to produce the 700 or so ppm SO4 that is typical for Burton the RA will be around -200. Here a bit of of sodium bicarbonate is appropriate because Burton water contains a fair amount of sodium and it's RA isn't nearly that low. I'm really more hard over on wanton addition of calcium carbonate but even there it can be appropriate if you know what you are doing. I use calcium carbonate in formulating Burton - like water if I'm shooting for max authenticity. This, in itself, of course, does not prove that I know what I am doing but the water does come out with the properties I'm shooting for.