English Special Bitter and Summer Ale Water Profile

[jbaker9]

Hi fellow AHBers,

Can you give me some guidance on water profile that I should aim for for these two brews that I will do on the weekend? I just purchased an Road filter, so I will be designing water from scratch.

A lot of sites have water profiles for areas, but I found little for specific beer styles.

Regards
James

 

[manticle]

Basically calcium levels to at least 50ppm.
Sulphate to push hops, chloride to push malt. Get mash pH to the right point, first using grist, salts to appropriate levels, then acid if need be. I doubt you'll have too low mash pH with these beers - if you do, forget the acid and look at slaked lime or cold steeping roast malts.
Some zinc somewhere (probably in the form of yeast nutrient but zinc salts exist as well).
Don't overdo the salts.

 

[Beersuit]

I second Manticle on not over doing the salts. Your initial ph should come before any water salts. Correct mash ph will give you a better beer than just adding random salts for flavour.