In pale ales, I normally have a water profile with about 175 Sulfate to 50 Chloride. Beers seem to turn out nice with assertive bitterness, but not harsh or thin bodies. Ratio is 3.5 Sulfate to 1 Chloride. I've noticed other brewers are within ratios like this: McDole's Ideal pale ale profile is 350 sulfate to 50 chloride - 5 to 1 ratio. Firestone is 100 Sulfate to 100 chloride - 1 to 1.

Reason I ask, is I'm thinking my last two beers are suffering from overdone Sulfates. I got them up to 250 Sulfate, 12 Chloride, or a ratio of 20 to 1. I think that must be WAY to extreme. Body is thin, Malt is muted, Hops are too harsh.

How much is overdoing it with the sulfates when chloride doesn't keep pace?

Forget about ratios. Chloride and sulfate are not antagonistic i.e. you can't "neutralize" sulfate with chloride or conversely. Does it make any sense to you that a beer made with 1 ppm sulfate and 1 ppm chloride would be anything like 500 ppm sulfate and 500 ppm chloride? That is, of course, an absurd example but the basic idea stands. The two have separate, indepndent effects and you should learn what they are.

The real answer to the question "how much is too much?" is the amount that causes your beer to exhibit sulfate related properties you don't like. I recommend brewing a simple ale recipe with RO water at 50 ppm with calcium chloride and then brewing it subsequent times with differing levels of sulftate adding more until you reach to "too much" point. After that you can experiment with changing the calcium level again increasing or decreasing until no further improvement is found.

Thanks for the brewing suggestions. I think I will do an R.O. water experiment with just calcium Chloride, and see how it works on a simple ale.

"The real answer to the question "how much is too much?" is the amount that causes your beer to exhibit sulfate related properties you don't like."

Funny, I had the opposite experience, I originally had too much Chloride, or so I thought. Beers were too rounded out, too malty, big mouthfeel, lack of crispness, Hops weren't popping, which lead me to keep cranking sulfates until I think I now have too much sulfate related properties (harsh bitterness, thin body, lack of malt roundness, suffering mouthfeel).

I'm not suggesting that one mineral neutralizes the other - I'm saying, somewhere I lost track of the balance between them, and just wondering if it's possible that something that builds maltiness and mouthfeel (chloride)
needs to be present in at least some basic minimal degree or order to stand up to (not neutralize) sulfate related properties.

I agree that the sulfate/chloride is one of the least of a brewer's concern, but I'm not sure about AJ's use of the word 'antagonistic' for these two ions. I think he is thinking along the same lines as me, but it comes across poorly. I think that sulfate and chloride are antagonistic in that if one is high, the other one should not be. I think we both agree that keeping both of these ions within reason is a very good way to avoid 'creating' problems with your water chemistry.

If your starting water already has elevated chloride and you tack on a bunch of sulfate, the result may not be very pleasant. Let's look at the examples cited for water profiles. Mike's Pale profile has moderately high sulfates, but the chlorides are quite restrained. FW's sulfates are not very high, but the chlorides are somewhat high. Both are perfect examples of the give and take that a brewer has to provide in order to avoid mineral water.

In the case of these last brews, there is very little chance that chloride or sulfate levels could EVER affect body or malt or attenuation. Many of the symptoms point to those problems...a lack of body that may be a result of overattenuation or low starting gravity. Both could also contribute to a lack of malt flavor and the imbalance in the bittering.

A closer look at other brewing mechanics may be in order. I can assure you that a sulfate level of 300 ppm is not a problem if the chloride level is around 50 ppm. I've been brewing American styles with that profile for many years and its included in Bru'n Water. That level of sulfate is not really noticable as its own contribution. It does seem to help express the bitterness though.

Since you didn't mention what your water's starting chloride content was, that could be one source of your issues. But the chloride would need to be over 100 ppm. 100 ppm Cl is about the max I recommend for good brewing. I notice that there are resources that say that 250 ppm Cl is the limit but I can positively say that this level is FAR too high and should NEVER be used or even approached. High sodium can also create problems. If your starting water has high sodium or chloride, then moving to dilution or replacement with RO is a wise step.

Entirely possible. There is a lot of personal taste involved here. If you think high chloride is a problem then start with 50 ppm calcium from the sulfate and then experiment with chloride levels.

Unfortunately, the only way to get the answer you are seeking is to explore the whole chloride - sulfate space. And it has to be dependent on the hops cultivar as well. Lots of brewing and lots of drinking to be done.

I probably should have started this discussion by adding the mineral profile of my tap water, as measured by Ward Lab:

Calcium: 38
Magnesium: 9
Sodium: 4
Chloride: 12
Sulfate: 6
water pH: 7.1

My water is low in all these ions/minerals. If I brew with the water as is, my beers taste good, but they tend to be on the maltier side, lack hop forwardness, and are not particularly crisp. Over the years I'd brew pale ales and IPA, gradually increasing the sulfates, and I always added a bit of Calcium Chloride, just because I thought "I should" no particular reason other then one of these old "homebrewing hangups" So in nearly all of my previous beers, my chloride levels have been increased to at least 50 ppm, regardless of what the sulfates have been. So then I started to bump the sulfates, batch after batch, after batch. Beers got crisper, hops started to sing a bit louder, and at one point I thought I had hit a nice balance where sulfates where 175 -200, and chloride was 50.

So after nearly 100 batches of pale ale / IPA over the years, I finally started to conclude that the more sulfates I added, the better the beer seemed to turn out, so these last 2 batches of IPA that I brewed back to back, I decided to push the beers to 250 ppm Sulfate, but this time, and this time only DID NOT ADD ANY CALCIUM CHLORIDE, so while Sulfates in these beers are now @ 250 ppm, my Chloride levels are still at my "stock" tap water level of 12 ppm. Obviously, this is a big change in the ratio of sulfates to chloride, and it's the thing that's got me thinking could be the problem with these beers. I'm hitting all my gravities, temps, rest times, boil-off volume, sanitation, pitching rate, fermentation temps, o2 - I feel very confident with my process and have a track record with these recipes because I've brewed them both before many times, they only variable that has changed as far as I know, is that I completely stopped adding Calcium Chloride, and cranked the sulfates to a level higher then I have ever done.

So that's what I'm asking - I probably should have titled this post something else - "assuming your tap water is generally low in all ions/minerals, what is largest ratio between Chloride and Sulfate you can go before things start to taste bad" Obviously, you can have loads of sulfates in beer and it will be delicious, but my latest thought is that if chloride is not present at some minimum level, then something isn't right. Maybe it's a ratio, maybe not. Wish there was a way to quantify it, and if anyone knows, please let me know.

I think you are on the right track but as I said in my last post the only way to get where you want to be is brew with differing levels of each of sulfate and chloride. They may not be completely orthogonal but they certainly aren't antipodal so I'd really think you'd want to forget about ratios and look at how much sulfate and how much chloride give you what you are seeking. I suggested earlier starting with one low and raising the other till things stop getting better, then increasing the other. At that point you might wish to consider decreasing (or increasing) the first to see if there is further improvement. Remember that commercial brewers brew the same recipe time and time again and thus have ample opportunity to evetually arrive at the optimum level for each. You must do the same. There is no easy way.

adelange,

thanks for your continued replies to this thread, I have been searching a lot of your posts, and you obviously know what you're talking about.

I shall continue to toil away, batch after batch, until I find an idea level of both chloride and sulfate, I labor not to think of them in terms of "ratios" to one another, and to just adjust to taste, as I see fit.

Thanks