BigNastyBrew wrote:I am curious as to your statement about color not having anything to do with it. Inputting the color drives all of the target profiles in the spreadsheet. Otherwise, I am not looking for any particular water characteristics in the beer (at least I don't think I am).
Keep in mind that the effects of water on beer are not fully understood in general and this is in part caused by the fact that large changes in water composition may have minor effects on beer flavor which is further complicated by the fact that beer flavor is perceived differently by different people. Thus there are lots of opinions and approaches to handling it. What follows are my opinions and my apporach based on my experience. Others may have others. It is ultimately up to you, the individual brewer, to decide what works and doesn't work for you. Even in that you have several options. There are those who in approaching a Trippel want it to taste just like one that came out of a Trappist monastary. They insist on the same yeast strains, the same water chemistry, the same malt bill, the same hops the same kind of sugar the same fermentation conditions. There are others who only care that the beer tastes good. There are those who only want to win a ribbon in a contest. Each takes a different approach.
If there is any absolute it is that the enzymes which convert starch to sugar work best in a certain range of temperature and pH. Therefore we mash in at a certain temperature but most ignore pH because they do not own a pH meter or don't know how to use it and maintain it or interpret what it tells them. It is equally important to hit a reasonable mash pH as it is to get to a particular temperature (but no one can quite tell you what that pH is and that's because there are conflicting requirements). If you want to get the most sugar/alcohol you study enzyme temperature/pH activity profiles. If you are an authenticity buff you find out what pH the good brothers use and how they get to it and imitate them. All this is very complicated and what we hope to do as we learn more about brewing is find a way through all this complexity which gets us beer we like (or which wins contests or which causes you Belgian neighbor to say "Just like in the old country"). But we have to start somewhere. The simple approach to water chemistry says "Get the mash pH right and then salt to taste." The right mash pH is generally accepted as being 5.2 - 5.7 as measured at room temperature. Most base malts will, if mashed with distilled water, produce a pH of around 5.75 - 5.8. If the water that is being used is high in bicarbonates and low in calcium (has positive residual alkalinity), then some of the acid from the malt which goes to establish pH 5.75 in a distilled water mash goes to neutralize the bicarbonate and the mash pH comes out higher than the distilled water pH and this is higher than the desired range for good enzyme performance. Calcium (and to a lesser extent magnesium) react with malt phosphate to produce acid which can easily neutralize any bicarbonate in the water provided that there is little enough of it. Residual alkalinity is a measure of the balance between hardness and alkalinity. It is the portion of alkalinity (bicarbonate) which is not neutralized by the acid produced by the phosphate reaction given a whole bunch of assumptions about the concentrations of phosphate in water, the water to grist ratio, the amount of organic acid in the malt and so on. If all these assumptions are met then water with 0 RA will be at the same pH as a distilled water mash. If negative then the extra acid will lower mash pH somewhat. So an approach to getting proper mash pH is to keep adding calcium until the RA is highly negative. But if you do this you are also adding a lot of chloride or sulfate (which we'll get to in a minute). This is fine in British brewing but it is anathema in Germany.
So given a water report we generally first look at the residual alkalinity. If it is between -50 and +50 then we know that the water will probably behave pretty close to the way distilled water does if we don't treat it. We >expect< a pH of about 5.75 and while we know that's high we also know that we can probably get away with it. If a pH meter is available, however, we can see what pH is actually acheived with the chosen grain bill and the water in question. If we are lucky the pH might be less than 5.7. This could occur with even relatively modest amounts of malts such as Vienna, Munich, Crystal, Caramel, Carpils etc. OTOH we could find pH above 5.7 in which case we would want to think about ways to get the pH lower. Adding a calcium salt is one way (UK brewers will do this), adding some dark malt (it contains acid) is another (UK and continental brewers do this) and adding acid is a third (UK brewers will do this but German brewers can, by law, only do it if the acid is derived from malt i.e. lactic acid). If the second method is used (dark malt) then a correlation between color and RA emerges. Waters with high RA will require more dark malt than waters with lower RA but the actual color produced depends on so many things (length of the boil, for example) that the correlation is going to be pretty weak. In a trippel, which is generally brewed (I have never brewed one) with only Pilsner malt, the RA has nothing to do with the color because you would not combat high RA in a Trippel with patent malt. You would use dilution (or some other method of "decarbonation") and calcium salts (as you are thinking of doing) instead. This was the basis for my comment.
All off my beers that are more amber in color are outstanding by just using a .5micron filter on the water supply and a little 5.2 stabilizer. The only stout I brewed turned out very well, too but it's a sweet stout so the lactose could be masking any undesirable effects of the water.
This is quite probably because darker malts were present in sufficient quantity to move mash pH into the desired range even given your relatively hefty RA of + 81. That would most certainly be the case with the stout.
Both of my Hefeweizens AND the blond I brewed were lighter colored beers and all of them had a little bitterness to them that I cannot put my finger on. After listening to the water BS shows, I have narrowed the trouble to water. If it's not the water then at least I have troubleshot through that problem.
In the case of the lighter colored beers the mash pH would probably not be what you like. When you get the meter in hand you will be able to check and you will find a whole new dimension of understanding open to you (no, I don't sell pH meters for a living). But the expected result would be lower extraction i.e. gravity less than you expected. I would guess that the bitterness results from the sulfate in your water while which it is not whopping could ruin a noble hop such as Hallertauer which is what I have always used in wheat beers. I brew them with a sulfate content comparable to yours but have to hold the hops back to around threshold in order to prevent that rough bitterness from coming through. I'd try the Hefewizen again with diluted water (get the sulfate down) or just reduced hops. What variety did you use?
The spreadsheet and the nomograph are so color dependent when looking at RA, that's all I know to look at.
I don't think they are intended to be but that seems to be how most people interpret them i.e. they start at the top of the page and work down rather than at the bottom and work up. Put in you calcium, magnesium and alkalnity and see what the RA is. Then look up at the color strip and interpret what you see there as only a very rough guide as to the colors of the beers that might be brewed with this water absent treatment. In planning a brew try to learn something about the water traditionally used to brew the style (e.g. "fairly soft" in the case of the Trippel) and tweak your water profile to get it "fairly soft" as we have been discussing (or start with DI and build it but remember the trace elements notion which, IMO, favors dilution). Then chose the malts you want for flavor (considering color), put together a mash and check the pH. If the pH is too high (likely) add more dark malt, calcium salts or acid. If it's too low (unlikely) add some chalk. After you have done a beer a couple of times you will have a good idea as to how to procede and the pH check will become just that - a check.
I can see now that with an 80% dilution (4:1) that my mineral profile looks better. But the chloride/sulfate is still way out of whack towards the chloride side (very malty). The CaCl2.2H2 puts my chloride even higher (200ppm).
Why leave the sulfates down? Keep in mind I'm not a chemist.
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The reason for keeping the sulfates down isn't explained in terms of chemistry but in terms of hops perception. In the UK it is widely held that it is not the absolute concentration of choride and sulfate that determine the way the beer tastes but the ratio. On the continent they consider the absolute levels important and that if one has a choice one should go with chloride (at least Ludwig Narziss feels this way) as it rounds, smooths, sweetens and contributes to mouthfeel. Sulfate is blamed for "dryness". I don't think the dichotomy has to do with the difference between British and German palates but rather with the hops varieties used (but that's just a pet theory of mine). In my personal experience any pale lager that I have done (and even some of the darker ones) needs to be done with water with the sulfate reduced to 10 ppm or below or the fine hops, for which I pay a premium, will come across rough with a gagging feeling in the back of the throat. I especially notice this in craft Pils in the US where they often bitter with something relatively inexpensive and then finish with Saaz (for that authentic Czech aroma and flavor). So given that Trippels are brewed with noble hops I would skip the sulfate. With noble hops the ratio rule does not appear to apply (again IMO).
