IPA water profile?

[watHop]

Hi All

I was looking to brew a hoppy IPA and for the first time I was going to add a few minerals to my RO water to achieve a water profile. I don’t know what way to go. I have BrunWater and it’s hoppy Pale Ale profile has a higher sulfate level to what some people recommend or do I just start out lower in the ppm of sulfate to start with. Does anyone use BrunWater profiles and recommend any. The below are the two profiles I’m thinking of starting with.

Beer Smith. (Resilience IPA)
Calcium 48.6. Magnesium 3. Sodium 6.4. Sulfate 97.8. Chloride 32.7. Bicarbonate 0

BrunWater
Calcium 140. Magnesium 18. Sodium 25 Sulfate 300. Chloride 55. Bicarbonate 110

Thanks.

 

[MHB]

Calcium usually has a recommended minimum of 50-100ppm, for a bunch of reasons (lowers mash pH, protects some Amylase from heat (a bit), helps hot break form, improves yeast flocculation...).
Generally Sulphate makes hops taste more pronounced (harsher), Chloride makes beer taste mellower, so a blend of the two gives a good balance, for an IPA biasing a bit toward the Sulphate is customary.
Somewhere around 2Sulphate : 1Chloride would be a good start and enough to bring your Calcium up to at least 100pmm
(personally I would bring it up to about 150ppm)
A touch of Magnesium and Zinc wouldn't go astray, if you added a bit of yeast food to the mash you should get most of what you need in the way of trace elements.
One of the few downsides of using RO water is that you are relying on your malt to supply all the trace elements, some are only needed in low ppb (1/1000 of a ppm) quantities but they are still necessary, Zinc is of particular concern if you are using Australian malt, most Oz malt is very low in Zn.

No one in their right mind would be adding any Carbonate (in any form) (well except maybe in a very big stout - then its still a maybe for me). A large fraction of why we add salts to a mash is to get the pH down to the ideal for enzyme activity (5.2-5.5pH) carbonate raises the pH so I cant see why anyone would think of adding any, even in distilled or RO water its nearly imposable to get down far enough with just salts (use acid/acid malt), anything that makes that harder is just silly.

Mark

 

[watHop]

Hi Mark

Thanks for that information I make u few adjustments from your recommendations. I’m still trying to get my head around this water profile stuff and if I’m correct and I’m probably not but I’m just following brunwater and same in beer smith and I will only be adding gypsum,epsom salt, calcium chloride, magnesium to the water and 88%acid to the mash. When you talk about carbonate I take it you mean sodium carbonate and it does not look like I add any as I think it depends on your grain bill when you put it into the software. Like you said because of the mash PH. I might be going down the wrong path and happy to be corrected if that is a wrong.

Thanks.

 

[MHB]

Sodium Carbonate or Bi-Carbonate, either will increase the pH, then you add acid to take it away, sort of counter productive. I would never add any (except possibly in a really big stout).
Magnesium is an important trace element and you need some, but there is usually enough in the malt to supply metabolic needs (for enzymes and yeast), some people like adding Magnesium (Epsom's Salts - Magnesium Sulphate) I'm not such a big fan, as a general rule anything Mg can do Ca can do better.

Trying to make up water profiles to match known water is a bit of a oddity, you often end up adding stuff you don't want or need then taking steps to get rid of or to manage what you have added. Most of the information on the great brewing waters of the world is pretty iffy if you go back more than 50 years, outright dodgy for older supplies. We often don't even know what the breweries were doing to the water before using it but we do know that water was being treated for a long time.
Better to take a functional approach, add salts to achieve outcomes.
Sulphate makes hops more pronounced, often harsher gives beer a certain dryness at higher levels.
Chloride has a mellowing effect, gets salty at higher levels.
Make sure you have enough of each or either to achieve what you want in terms of taste.
Make sure you have enough Calcium to do all the things Ca does in the brew.
Check the pH and adjust to make the enzymes happy...
Mark