BeerBorg

I recently visited a local place; Rockmill Brewery. They just released their Belgian Style Pilsner. I talked with one of the guys there and he told me the ingredients, didn't give me the recipe, but I got a lot of info from him and have a good idea on the how to formulate my recipe. He told me that what makes it a Belgian Pilsner is pretty much the water profile, they have fairly hard water coming out of their springs. According to their website, it very close to Wallonia Belgium.

I've come up with the recipe using 100% distilled water, but in order to get the numbers close to the numbers I found on Brewers Friend for Wallonia, I've got to add some slaked lime to the mash water. Has anyone ever added slaked lime? I'm having trouble finding it, but it looks like pickling lime is the same thing, which is easy to find. Any help would be great!!

I've never had to use it to adjust beer, but I have pickling lime here and it's calcium hydroxide. I think slaked lime is also calcium hydroxide, the only "difference" might be in crystal size, but as long as you are measuring by grams and not by volume to estimate, I don't see how it matters.

That’s how I understand it also Mashani. Calcium hydroxide is calcium hydroxide no matter how you slice it. But I figured I would ask to be on the safe side.

And I will be measuring in grams. I need it to increase my calcium without increasing anything else.


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Just in concrete, or the occasional barrel, or both.

John Sand wrote:Just in concrete, or the occasional barrel, or both.

Yeah.....I guess it all depends if you're a barrel hoarder wanting to keep things close or you're more the type that wants to lose one over the rail.

Some many options, so little time...

Come on fellas, I was asking about slaked lime, not concrete and barrels!!

I’m glad Mashani stayed on topic!! [emoji12]


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I'm just happy that people have figured out that lots of European pilsners are actually not made with soft water. Lots of German pilsners are also brewed with pretty hard water. And other stuff, IE I actually hardened my already hard water to make the last Kolsch I did, because Cologne water is actually quite hard, yet I see comments all the time about using soft water for Kolsch too - but soft water really is a BoPils thing and not true at all for many other locations. And FWIW, the Kolsch might be the best beer I've made in 5 years. It's really damn good, and for sure the best Kolsch I've ever made, as in it tastes like a real one and not a "Kolsch style beer" like all the American breweries make that don't actually taste like a Kolsch at all.

I've got my water profile set. I'm almost dead on to what Brewers Friend has listed for the Wallonia water profile. The first number is the Wallonia profile, the second number is my profile:

Wallonia Mine
Ca - 52 55
Mg - 17 14
Na - 35 32
Cl - 20 21
SO4 - 107 105

My plan is to brew this in two weeks, I'll post a new thread in the recipe section when I've got everything finalized. The conversation I had with the guy at Rockmill was great. It started with me asking what made this Pilsner a Belgian Style. His answer was "the water, we've got pretty hard water here". I asked if they used any particular belgian yeast and he said no. Just a normal lager yeast. Since this water profile will accentuate the hops, I'm going back and forth in my mind what IBU I need to shoot for. But I'll bring those questions into the recipe thread when I post it.

I just brewed a Kolsch using the water profile Lorena Evans and Martin Brungard posted on HBT. I used RO water treated with 7 ppm Mg, 16 ppm Ca, 0 ppm Na, 28 ppm Cl and 26 ppm SO. I also added 11 ml of 88% lactic acid for a mash pH of 5.14. The water profile is soft~moderately hard and is a departure from my previous Kolsch water profiles. Time will tell how this new profile compares to my original.