Water profile guide

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

50 ppm of calcium is enough in most cases, 75 max for an ipa but if all possible we want no magnesium(diarrhea) in our beer , the RA will adjust its self based on the calcium, don't worry about it unless you have very bland soft water

example of my pale ale water

Ca+2 Mg+2 Na+ Cl- SO4-2 Alkalinity ResidualAlkalinity

73.0 7.0 12.0 55.0 50.6 6.5 - 49.7

 

[gmull70]

I found a Residual Alkalinity calculator here: http://www.franklinbrew.org/tools/rac2.html. If you click the "More" button in Brewer's Friend's Recipe Builder you can see the RA range is listed among the other more advanced parameters. Plugging in the SRM of your recipe - 4.81 - the calculator tells me your RA should be -35 ppm as CaCO3. You're actually over-improving your water. Calcium decreases RA, try adding less gypsum. RA is generally given as a range, in this case the range is -64 to -5 with -35 right in the middle, a safe place to be. If you want your mash pH to be lower (more acidic), tend to the lower end of the range, that'll give a slightly tarter beer. For less tart, shoot for the high end. The critical value is your mash pH which should be in the range given above. I prefer the lower end - a tarter beer. Your call. But less calcium will increase the RA, as will less magnesium to a lesser extent.

So I looked again at the water calculator and played around with my salt additions and didn't notice much of a difference in regards to the RA. So I then took a look at the PH my source water is 9.7 PH after running grain and salts through the water calc I get a mash PH report of 5.37. I was originally going to shoot for a mash PH of 5.2 by adding phosphoric acid (about 28 ml) when I changed the target PH to 5.4 the RA dropped from -85 to -50. I think Ill try this take some notes and make adjustments if necessary.here is a link to the recipe Im making I got it from the Oct 2016 of the BYO Magazine in the step by step instructions is where they tell you to build your water profile to achieve a 100:200 PPM sulfate to chloride profile

<iframe width="100%" height="500px" src="https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/embed/487189" frameborder="0"></iframe>

 

[Nosybear]

Sounds like a plan to me!

 

[Bottom Shelf Brewery]

Not sure if this is any use to anyone else, but i have put this together from research i have done.

Thanks for all the feedback. Yes i should mention that all that some of the advice listed is for my specific water profile Melbourne, Australia, Melbourne, Caufield 15/16. Here is an updated version that covers a few more things. Sorry about the image size, i have in PDF but couldn't be bothered working out a way to upload it.

 

[GFHomebrew]

Thanks for all the feedback. Yes i should mention that all that some of the advice listed is for my specific water profile Melbourne, Australia, Melbourne, Caufield 15/16. Here is an updated version that covers a few more things. Sorry about the image size, i have in PDF but couldn't be bothered working out a way to upload it.View attachment 1490

Your a hombrewer or do you have a comercial craft brewery there bottom shelf?

BTW attachment ain't opening.

 

[Mark D Pirate]

Still a lot of Gypsum , how accurate is your water report ?