My water report from Ward Labs

[Banjo-guy]

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Here is the report. I notice that the calcium is lower than the amount recommended in John Palmer's water book.
I am brewing a stout tomorrow and am wondering if I should make any additions.

[MadBrewer]

Ill first ask you this...do you have a ph meter or at least some ph test strips? If not than dont bother with any additions because you have no way of checking the ph of the mash if you do make adjustments. Your water is very nice water to work with. Its low in Alkalinity and Bicarbonate which are the two factors that really hurt brewing water when trying to brew lighter color styles. Although low in Calcium you have good water flavor ion wise to produce a rich malty smooth flavorful Stout. The problem is you are correct you are low in Calcium but you might have to add Alkalinity or at least check mash ph when brewing a dark beer with this water. The mash ph might end up too low with this water and that hurts a dark beer like a Stout.

Your two options are to brew this beer as is and see how you like it and see what the mash ph turns out to be. Or you can add some Baking Soda to get the Alkalinity up a bit for proper mash ph. Your Chloride and Sodium content in your water favor brewing a great Porter or Stout. But you will probably need to get both Calcium and Alkalinity up to do so for darker beers. You can add Calcium with Gypsum and Cal Chloride but you will also need to bring up the Alkalinity. Adding hardness with Calcium will also drive alkalinity back down slightly. Also when adding Calcium you are bringing with it either sodium or sulfates. When adding baking soda you will also bring more sodium and chloride to the mix. You have a unique sitiation with with your water. Do you use a water calculator for adding salts...that and a ph meter will be a must because you can not adjust water blindly. The water calculators and checking your mash ph are a big help to get a feel for all this.I could enter your data later if you give me your ingredients and water amounts for mash and sparge and I could come up with what I MYSELF would do if that would help since your brewing this tomorrow.

[Banjo-guy]

Thanks for looking at my water report. I didn't use any water additions. I need to understand what I am doing before jumping in.

I did use a ph strip to check the mash. I took a small sample and cooled it down to room temperature and It showed greater that 4 and less than 6.
I took the reading at the end of the mash.
I biab and used 4.60 gallons of water.
Here is my recipe for a 2.5 gallon batch: This is Midwest Supplies " Peace Coffee Java Stout"
Pale Malt 4 lbs , 8 oz 78.6%
Roasted Barley 8.2 oz 9 %
Chocolate Malt 7.2 oz 7.9 %
Carmel 60 2.1 oz 2.3%
Flaked Barley 2.0 oz 2.2 %

I added cacao and coffee to the wort and used US-05

[MadBrewer]

Banjo Guy, sorry I didn't notice I was a day late on this. But, since it's already brewed I won't run the numbers but if you ever want to look for suggestions for the next recipe, just make a post. As you see the strips will give you and idea, but if you want to continue with water treatment you will need a meter. You can get a decent ph meter for about $35, some are more but that's a start. Best thing to do now is just see how the beer comes out, and take notes of what you taste, what you don't taste and what YOU might like to change about it. Would you like it maltier, sweeter, would you like more hop presence, less bitterness. Did the beer clear well, does it have a rich flavorful malt character or is it kind of dull, acrid and one dimentional. Do you taste all the malts, the Caramel, the Roasted malts...etc. All these factors are effected by your water treatment.

In the meatime, once this batch is done maybe you will have a ph meter. Check the final beer ph before bottling or kegging, once the beer is done and ready. It should be 4.0-4.5 if so, your mash was probably right were it needed to be. If the beer is higher than 4.5 at room temp it will be dull tasting, not as crisp and flavorful. And of course, lower than 4.0 and the beer will be sour. You can also play with some tiny additions of beer salts to see if the beer improves. Get some Gypsum and Calcium Chloride from the LHBS and when you taste the final beer after it's carbed up and ready to drink sprinkle a tiny bit of either one in your beer, stir gently and drink it, try the beers side by side. A tiny pinch of Cal Chloride will add some sweetness and roundness, fullness to the beer. It will be maltier and richer. Add some Gypsum and the hop character will POP, it wont' be bitter you will just notice the hops more. The beer will be crisper and maybe finish drier. This is a great way to learn about the water additons and things you can do next time.

A couple things to consider are dont' chase a "certain profile" for every beer. Just get thins in the ballpark and you'll be fine. The water profile doesn't mean anything if it doesn't get the ph in the right range. There's a magical thing that happens when the ph is in the correct range for all beers, it's just that thing that makes the beer. You'll see. I highly recommend checking out EZ Water Calculator 3.0 it's so easy to use and it's very accurate and reliable. Also when entering in your data to any water calculator, Ward Labs uses a different Calculation. Your Sulfate level for EZ water calculator will have to be multiplied by 3, so your So4 level is actually 29ppm.

Good luck, let us know how that Stout turns out.