# Calcium Sulphate/Darker beers



## manticle (14/9/13)

Texts like Principles of Brewing Science suggest that gypsum and dark beers are not a good marriage with unpleasant and harsh flavours resulting.

I know at least one brewer who has personal experience of this.

However with the prevalence of darker, more hop forward beers like BIPAs and US browns, is this still a blanket rule/rule of thumb? Does the hop/gypsum combo cancel out the dark malt/gypsum combo?

Anyone got any clear info one way or the other?

Cheers


----------



## dent (14/9/13)

I put a healthy amount of gypsum in my last 9% black imperial IPA - it certainly was an excellent beer, I couldn't fault it on any water related issue.


----------



## QldKev (14/9/13)

It would depend on your level / ppm you are talking about. I think as long as you keep the sulphate under say 100 with 150ppm as the extreme upper limit I find it ok.


----------



## manticle (15/9/13)

Cheers dent. Might have to have a crack at a US brown soon - one with and one without maybe. I'm not super sold on BIPAs but my first ever AG was a US brown and I'd like to try it again.

Kev - I never push sulphate beyond 150ppm in any beer I make. For me that is the absolute upper limit.


----------



## slash22000 (15/9/13)

If it helps I used the following when I made Punkin's black IPA clone:

Calcium: 65
Magnesium: 15
Sodium: 30
Sulfate: 140
Chloride: 10
Carbonate: 165

You can chuck it into a water calculator but it's properly ion balanced. High sulfates for the bitterness but still high residual alkalinity for the dark grains. You could always steep the dark grain after the mash though and not worry about it. Beer came out great, didn't notice anything weird from the water.


----------



## Mardoo (15/9/13)

manticle said:


> ...I'm not super sold on BIPAs....
> .


 Me either but the Cascadian dark ales are another story. Had a few extraordinary ones. (That one at the MB dinner was the bomb fresh into the glass.) I'll be having a go at one of those soon. Good looking recipe in the recent fresh hop issue of BYO.

Thanks for the advice guys, and Slash for the mineral formula. Might give that a whirl.


----------



## syl (15/9/13)

Mardoo said:


> Me either but the Cascadian dark ales are another story. Had a few extraordinary ones. (That one at the MB dinner was the bomb fresh into the glass.) I'll be having a go at one of those soon. Good looking recipe in the recent fresh hop issue of BYO.
> 
> Thanks for the advice guys, and Slash for the mineral formula. Might give that a whirl.


Mate - can you PM me that recipe? I really want to go at one of those!!!


----------



## Mardoo (15/9/13)

syl said:


> Mate - can you PM me that recipe? I really want to go at one of those!!!


Happy to. Won't be home til late tonight but will do it then.


----------



## micblair (15/9/13)

I grabbed runners up in the Beervana homebrew comp in NZ with a stout (20L batch size) using 10g of gypsum in the mash. I wouldn't normally use this much but didn't have CaCl2 at the time. Subsequent batches have called for 1:1 CaSO4/CaCl2. This was this 1% black malt and 6% choccie malt, if you're interested.


----------



## manticle (15/9/13)

I'm interested in anyone's real life experience with this for sure.

Cheers for the responses people.


----------



## mabrungard (16/9/13)

I use 300 ppm sulfate in my pale ales and IPAs all the time. I'm also a fan of hoppy American Brown Ales. In my ABAs, I do not take the sulfate level to that high end that I enjoy in the APAs and IPAs. I keep sulfate much more modest at around 70 to 80 ppm. My ABAs do have a substantial chocolate note, but obviously not much black or roast barley. But I have to agree that keeping the sulfate level in this modest range is appropriate for dark styles. Sulfate is helpful in drying the beer finish, but you don't want to go overboard when you are also adding those very drying roast grains.


----------



## manticle (16/9/13)

Cheers Martin


----------

