Need help plugging in water to Bru'n

[Chrispy92]

hey all,

Apologies if this should be in the water section but I'm new to this forum and just wanted to make sure I posted this somewhere i could get some help!

Long story short I'm brewing a big beer (12%) this weekend and wanted to also do my first beer with a manipulated water profile. I've downloaded bru'n water and have started to play around with it but I can't seem to understand how or where I get my bicarbonate and carbonate values from my Sydney water profile. FYI this is my water data : http://www.sydneywater.com.au/web/g...ments/document/zgrf/mdq0/~edisp/dd_044731.pdf

If anyone could help me that would be great! I want to make sure I have my water in correctly before I start planning my salt additions!

Thanks in advance

 

[mtb]

Bru'n Water 1.18 has an Alkalinity Conversion Calculator on the Water Adjustment sheet. It allows you to enter Total Alkalinity to project bicarbonate and carbonates. That water report you linked to states Alkalinity is 29-39mg/L. Averaging that to 34mg/L and plugging into the calculator gives you 41.2ppm bicarbonate concentration and 0.1ppm carbonates

 

[Chrispy92]

Legend thanks so much mtb! That's exactly what I needed

I'm aiming for a relatively balanced chloride/ suflide ratio. However I'm expecting a pretty high FG. Should I aim more heavily on the suflide side to try and dry out the perception of the beer?

 

[mtb]

No worries mate. AFAIK sulfate/chloride ratio is mostly independent of FG, keep it balanced regardless.

 

[mtb]

Actually.. I'm not so sure. A higher FG would mean a higher malt sweetness, which would be accentuated by chloride, so to balance that out one could argue that higher sulfates are appropriate. Hopefully someone knowledgeable in the area can chime in.

 

[manticle]

If high fg is a result of dextrins (high/short mash temp), body may be full but it won't necessarily be super sweet. Sweetness is more likely a result of unfermented maltose or similar (either stalled ferment or abv higher than yeast tolerance).

Sulphate accentuates hop bitterness and crisp/dry character so it may work to balance but it is really seasoning/tweaking. Best get everything working as you intend, then tweak. Don't rely on something like gypsum to balance the unbalanced.

 

[manticle]

And sulphate often not recommended for dark beers (some may disagree)