Calcium in water

[Gamby]

Howdy Brewers,

I have just watched a video with John Palmer talking about water, he says that the water used for brewing should have atleast 50PPM or higher of calcium, my water suppliers reports shows it has 4.2 PPM. Am i missing some conversion translation (US to Oz) or is my water super low in calcium?

 

[manticle]

Melbourne water is extremely soft and low in mineral content.
4ppm is possibly a mean or median average based on sampling within a period of time (probably 2 years) but it's not surprising.
You can add calcium salts to water/mash if all grain brewing. Available from good brew shops, the partnered ion/s will have a different effect depending on what they are (eg sulphate in calcium sulphate)

 

[mabrungard]

The advice for 50 ppm Ca in your brewing water is OK for ale brewing. However, lager brewing can actually benefit from less Ca in the brewing water. I've published articles in Zymurgy and The New Brewer in which I present multiple findings from peer-reviewed scientific journals that prove with no doubt that the common lore for ALWAYS having substantial Ca in our brewing water is not true. In addition, a malt wort will always provide ALL the Ca (and Mg) that the yeast need for their health, so that argument is moot.

There are two major reasons we need to have Ca in our brewing water: flocculation and oxalate reduction. We need the Ca to be above 50 ppm when brewing ales in order to have beers that clear up in a decent amount of time. We also need to have at least 40 ppm Ca in the mashing water to help precipitate calcium oxalate (beerstone) from the wort before it has a chance to wreck our equipment or kidneys.

Having less Ca in your brewing water can be an important factor when brewing lagers. Lager yeast have been proven to be sensitive and can be adversely affected when the water Ca content is high. Ca can actually screw up the health of lager yeast. So don't add Ca to your water unless you have a real need for it.

 

[rude]

Ouch kidney stones so a min for lagers 40ppm
Spose cloudy wheats would be the same
What about max levels of calcium for ales how high have you gone & why
Was it for a low floculant yeast ?
Cheers Martin

 

[dicko]

I have read on our sister forum, quite an extended contribution from AJ Delange where he advised of lowering the Calcium content of brewing water.

I took most of it on board and coupled with input and other readings from mabrungard I tried it out on my lagers.

My lagers have improved out of site as far as clean flavours are concerned since adopting this procedure.

A PH meter is essential to accurately monitor what is happening and other brewing procedures need attention such as oxidisation but get that all correct and you will be making great lagers.

To the op. Your melbourne water would need only very slight adjustments with salts to fall into the perameter for brewing beer.
The use of a water spreadsheet is invaluable when calculating salt additions.

 

[manticle]

The advice for 50 ppm Ca in your brewing water is OK for ale brewing. However, lager brewing can actually benefit from less Ca in the brewing water. I've published articles in Zymurgy and The New Brewer in which I present multiple findings from peer-reviewed scientific journals that prove with no doubt that the common lore for ALWAYS having substantial Ca in our brewing water is not true. In addition, a malt wort will always provide ALL the Ca (and Mg) that the yeast need for their health, so that argument is moot.

There are two major reasons we need to have Ca in our brewing water: flocculation and oxalate reduction. We need the Ca to be above 50 ppm when brewing ales in order to have beers that clear up in a decent amount of time. We also need to have at least 40 ppm Ca in the mashing water to help precipitate calcium oxalate (beerstone) from the wort before it has a chance to wreck our equipment or kidneys.

Having less Ca in your brewing water can be an important factor when brewing lagers. Lager yeast have been proven to be sensitive and can be adversely affected when the water Ca content is high. Ca can actually screw up the health of lager yeast. So don't add Ca to your water unless you have a real need for it.

Hi Martin,

I know you've spoken of this before but which issues of zymurgy?

I'm not a subscriber but would love to purchase and read that issue and get a good handle on the info.

Cheers.

 

[technobabble66]

...

I took most of it on board and coupled with input and other readings from mabrungard I tried it out on my lagers.

My lagers have improved out of site as far as clean flavours are concerned since adopting this procedure.

...
The use of a water spreadsheet is invaluable when calculating salt additions.

Hey dicko, what were your targets for Ca, Cl, SO4, Mg and pH? For lagers, that is.
Mind you, I'd be keen to see what you hit for ales also, as a comparison.

And +1 for using a spreadsheet, namely Martin's Bru'n Water spreadsheet. Excellent resource.

 

[wynnum1]

Did a brew with 33% boiled rice now do the minerals in the rice disolve into the water .

 

[dicko]

Hey dicko, what were your targets for Ca, Cl, SO4, Mg and pH? For lagers, that is.
Mind you, I'd be keen to see what you hit for ales also, as a comparison.

And +1 for using a spreadsheet, namely Martin's Bru'n Water spreadsheet. Excellent resource.

this is the last lager I did....a munich helles.
Calcium Magnesium Sodium Chloride Sulfate
(Ca ppm) (Mg ppm) (Na ppm) (Cl ppm) (SO4 ppm)
41 0 0 73 0

As per AJ Delanges posts over on HBT I am not adding any sulphates to my lager mash. I achieve these figures by adding Calcium Chloride and adjusting the mash PH with food grade phosphoric acid

I also dont add any yeast nutrient during the boil and I don't have any trouble with fermentation and attenuation.
i figure the less of extras I put into the beer the less I have to cause off flavours.

My ales get a dose of Calcium Sulphate as well as generally I may want to accentuate the hops. You can always add some salts to the boil as well without affecting mash PH.

I also generally steep any dark grains if their addition is going to lower the mash PH too much and just add them to the mash at the end.
This way I am not stuffing around with adding Chalk which tends to be very unpredictable.

Here is the link to the topic that started me down this path....

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=198460

 

[mabrungard]

The articles on calcium and magnesium in brewing water were published in The New Brewer (the Journal of the Brewers Association) in the Jul/Aug 2014 issue. It was a little more technically focused. A less technical version was published in Zymurgy in the Mar/Apr 2015 issue. I'm not sure that you can get individual articles, but becoming a member does get you access to something like 10 years of back issues. So that could be worth it. There is a decent mix of technical content in some Zymurgy issues. I do see the occasional Aussie at the American homebrewers conference, so I know that some of you are already members!

Dicko, don't be too biased by AJ's perception that sulfate is not welcome in lagers or with noble hops. Its hogwash. There are plenty of those beers made with some sulfate content. Two things to remember: Chloride improves fullness which enhances the perception of maltiness and Sulfate improves dryness which improves the perception of hops and bittering. Using only chloride may leave your beers a little too full in the finish which may ultimately leave you with a cloying or overly sweet finish. Adding a little sulfate to help dry the beer finish can be a very welcome thing to the drinker. Use sulfate as your tool for tuning the dryness of your beer finish. Zero sulfate is not typically a good goal.

 

[dicko]

From my observations / tastings over many attempts to improve my German lagers I have noticed a distinct off flavour that was always present in my beers of that style.
By adopting AJ's procedure my german lager beers improved dramatically.
You know that feeling you get when you have "nailed it"
My next step in my ongoing experiment with this style is to replace the food grade Phos acid addition with acidulated malt in the mash.

On a side note I was and still do, add sulphate to brewing water when I make Australian lagers and that "taste" is always present.
I have had two kegs side by side of beers with and without and the general concensus by a number of people at the gathering is that the beer without was the "better beer.

Of course these are only my observations and experiments and it is with respect I note your comments on the need for sulphate in brewing water but for me for now my German Lagers will not be getting any sulphate additions.

 

[manticle]

Thanks MB. I'm mostly interested in the tech version anyway so I will see if I can hunt that up.
I doubt you can get one article of zymurgy but I was going to chase the full issue.
I've no doubt it's great value but I'm just not after a ten issue subscription to anything right now.
Anyway cheers - I'll see how I go finding it all.

 

[Bribie G]

Great advice from manbrugard.
I have a RO water kit that I only use for lagers but always sort of felt sorry for the mash and put a small amount of Calcium in anyway as Gypsum.
I had been under the mistaken impression that no added calcium for a lager would affect the efficiency of the mash.
I'm going back into comp brewing in 2016 and a couple of lagers are on the cards.

Cheers

 

[dicko]

Hi Bribie
What AJ Delange was suggesting in his posts in the link above is that you need calcium as a necessity in the mash but he suggests that you dont need suphate in those delicate light coloured lagers.
His suggestion is to add calcium as calcium chloride in small amounts and forget the cakcium sulphate in light lagers.
Martin disagrees with that outlook and that is fine.
My recent experiments to me at least, indicate that there is no problem leaving the sulphate out as long as the mash PH is within limits.

 

[manticle]

Bribie - 40ppm in mashing water so your ro water may still need a small hit.

 

[Gamby]

Thanks guys, amazing amount of information here, Appreciate all your responses. Seems my water is super soft surface water and seeing i am brewing an all grain Ale i will be using Calcium Chloride to lift the Calcium PPM. Now if i can just convert John Palmers volumes from Imperial to metric, damn i wish the world embraced would metric system. No offence to my US counterparts.

 

[wobbly]

I have read and tried to absorb/understand the content in the HBT - "Brewing Water Chemistry Primer" by AJ deLange referenced by Dicko in post #9 above. This is the link http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=198460

Throughout the 121 pages ajdelange offers many comments/advice (as does Martin Brungard) about brewing salt additions to "soft water" (RO/Distilled/Rain Water etc.) (with particular emphasis on the need to use a pH meter capable of reading to 2 decimal places (0.01) to check/adjust mash pH)

His basic philosophy is to start with low levels (ppm) of brewing salts additions (Calcium Chloride or Calcium Sulfate and a percentage of acid malt depending on style) and brew a beer and if it's not to your taste to add small amounts of either Calcium Chloride or Calcium Sulfate to a pint of your fermented/carbonated beer until the "taste" matches your preference for that style of beer and then "scale" up that addition to work out how much of either of those salts to add to future mash and sparg water.

However - No where in the 121 pages could I see (not saying it wasn't there) a procedure of how to do this!!

• Are the salts dissolved in water
• At what strength/concentration (grams per liter or ppm)
• What amounts of the "prepared" salt mixture is added to the "pint" (mls and/or ppm)
• How is the addition (ppm) back calculated to equal the additional amount to be added to a future mash

Do/have any members used this practice/method and if so how have they done it

Cheers

Wobbly

 

[dicko]

hi wobbly,

i just use EZ Water spreadsheet or there are others available as well.
Martin has one as does brewers Friend and Beersmith.

As far as I know they all give you a reading of PPM in your water as you add the various salts into the spreadsheet.

By using one of these spreadsheets you can build any water profile you want.

 

[wobbly]

Hi Dicko

Thanks for that. I have both EZ Water and Martin's Bru'n spread sheets and understand the basics of building the profile you are after in my case using basically 90% rain water and 10% tap water.

My question(s) above related to AJ Delange's comments about starting with the basic water profile with 1 teaspoon (5g?) each of Cacium Chloride, Calcium Sulphate and 2% acid malt per 5 US gallons (19lts) added to RO water and brew you beer as per normal.

He then talks about (somewhere in about the middle of the 121 plus pages) if the beer profile isn't to your taste preference WRT to "Maltyness or Dryness" etc he talks about adding small amounts of a mixture of either Calcium Chloride or Calcium Sulphate to a pint of beer until it meets your taste preference and then back calculate to work out how much to add to your brewing water the next time you make that particular beer

So:-

• Are the salts dissolved in water
• At what strength/concentration (grams per liter or ppm)
• What amounts of the "prepared" salt mixture is added to the "pint" (mls and/or ppm)
• How is the addition (ppm) back calculated to equal the additional amount to be added to a future mash

Cheers

Wobbly

 

[dicko]

Apology for misunderstanding mate.
I have never done that so I cant personally help.
If doing that I would imagine the adjustment amounts would be very small in a glass size adjustment