What are your “go to” mineral additions for Pale Ales?

[Qualia]

Hi,

I’m looking to treat my water for an American Pale Ale—primarily to assist in pH, balance between bitterness and malt, as well as provide nutrients for the yeast.

I’m based in Melbourne, so have relatively soft water.

Burtonized water seems to be excessive in calcium (294ppm) and sulfate (801ppm), which I believe would create harsh bitterness. I’m also not aiming to replicate a historic beer.

So what are your “go to” mineral additions/targets for a balanced pale ale?

Cheers!

 

[Dan Pratt]

it all depends on the water you actually have.

There are some free downloadable options like brew ezy and brun'water which you can input the data to achieve the desired stlye.

Usually for a pale ale i target just 150-200ppm for sulphate and 50-70 for Chloride, calcium is usually 70-100ppm and using lactic acid or acidulated malt i get the pH down to 5.4

 

[manticle]

As above but I am less sulphate loving than DP. He likes the edge.

I used to live in Melbourne (tas water is just as soft where I am) so my go to was 4-8g* of gypsum, usually split between mash and boil (50/50). Needless to say I make sure calcium levels and pH are sorted before worrying about sulphate level.

Forget Burton.

*Less than 8 would usually be because I want to add chloride via calcium chloride so I'd use cacl2 to get calcium and chloride levels where I want them. Sulphate for hop, chloride for malt.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

I used to go 25% Burton as a go to but progressively getting simpler. My latest is for pale was the suggestion in the recipe for a Bronzed Brew Pale Ale. Simply for a 20lt batch is 3g Gypsum, 1g Epsom Salts, 1g Calcium Chloride. I consider my Melbourne filtered water as a blank start so that makes the profile:
Ca=52.55, Mg=6.34, Na=4.74, SO4=104.6, Cl=31.41, HCO3=0.11.
I see it as good a choice for lager as well. I only make changes to that if its in style guidelines suggestions for a specific style.
I add all minerals to the initial mash water and sparge with filtered water that is around pH6. If the sparge water is above pH6 I add tiny amounts of Phosphoric acid to drop the sparge water to close to the mash pH which is always 5.2 to 5.4.

 

[Qualia]

Thanks for the advice.

 

[rude]

The last 2 I did were R/O water
Caso4 3.68 g and Cacl2 1.16 g in the mash
Caso4 2.88 g and Cacl2 1.26 g in the kettle
Ca 62.5 ppm sulfate 89.3 ppm chloride 44.7 ppm
Got 2 different ph readings cause of the grist 5.38 and 5.24

 

[neal32]

it all depends on the water you actually have.

There are some free downloadable options like brew ezy and brun'water which you can input the data to achieve the desired stlye.

Usually for a pale ale i target just 150-200ppm for sulphate and 50-70 for Chloride, calcium is usually 70-100ppm and using lactic acid or acidulated malt i get the pH down to 5.4

That's essentially my hoppy ale template. For normal ales I might drop the sulphate to match the chloride. Usually for lagers/cream ales I'll shoot for 50-60ppm of calcium from Calcium Cholride and nothing more. Lactic to 5.4pH.

The ezy water spreadsheet (I think that's what it's called!?) is usually bang on with the pH though. I test with this and store it in solution and calibrate it as needed -> http://hannainst.com.au/hi98128-phe...MIs6f28K3n1wIV0worCh3RFQZZEAQYAiABEgK4o_D_BwE although haven't in many beers as it was always so close to the predicted value.

I'll test my next batch and edit this if there is a big discrepancy.

Now I use rainwater, tested to ~0 ppm. I used to use RO and still have the kit, although now I might sell it as I can't tell the difference between RO and rain water. I wouldn't use town water for brewing but YMMV.

Still in the many years of brewing, even with the power of hindsight, going from Perth water to RO made the biggest difference to my beers. I now live on the GC and we have soft water but I see no reason to try it.

 

[Whistledown]

That's essentially my hoppy ale template. For normal ales I might drop the sulphate to match the chloride. Usually for lagers/cream ales I'll shoot for 50-60ppm of calcium from Calcium Cholride and nothing more. Lactic to 5.4pH.

The ezy water spreadsheet (I think that's what it's called!?) is usually bang on with the pH though. I test with this and store it in solution and calibrate it as needed -> http://hannainst.com.au/hi98128-phe...MIs6f28K3n1wIV0worCh3RFQZZEAQYAiABEgK4o_D_BwE although haven't in many beers as it was always so close to the predicted value.

I'll test my next batch and edit this if there is a big discrepancy.

Now I use rainwater, tested to ~0 ppm. I used to use RO and still have the kit, although now I might sell it as I can't tell the difference between RO and rain water. I wouldn't use town water for brewing but YMMV.

Still in the many years of brewing, even with the power of hindsight, going from Perth water to RO made the biggest difference to my beers. I now live on the GC and we have soft water but I see no reason to try it.

I am also on tank water but have not had it tested. Where did you send yours for testing?

 

[neal32]

I am also on tank water but have not had it tested. Where did you send yours for testing?

I don't. I've tested it with a tds meter and it tests the same as RO water.

 

[MHB]

50-100ppm of Calcium is regarded as the minimum required to do all the jobs Ca is required for in brewing. The range is mostly affected by existing minerals in the water that we want to counter (i.e. Carbonate Bi-Carbonate...) and one people forget, the Oxalate content of the malt, you want at least 3-4 times as much Ca as Oxalate to counter beer stone formation and potential for gushing (malt is usually in the 100-200mg/kg range).
My local water has around 35ppm Ca so I tend to add about 100 (default) mostly in the form of Calcium Lactate/Lactic Acid buffer to get both the right pH and Ca content.
Some beers benefit from Sulphate (traditionally more hop forward beers) others (mellower beers) tend to do better with Chloride, so will use whichever suits the beer I'm brewing, a blend of the two is pretty common somewhere between 1:1 and 1:2 either way are all used.

A TDS meter is a good and inexpensive way to monitor your water, they do however need to be calibrated, mine is built into my pH meter and I have to calibrate against a 1380uS standard, just like the pH meter needs calibrating. For home use in distilled water it should be reading close to Zero, if not it cant be trusted (dissolved O2/CO2 will give some conductivity).
Mark