Treating very soft water for a stout

[Nermal]

Hi all,

I'm doing a four shades of stout brew tomorrow - the grain bill:

23 Litre Batch

3230 gms Marris Otter
500 gms Flaked Barley
250 gms Amber Malt
250 gms Chocolate Malt
200 gms Roasted Barley
200 gms Carafa special III

My water is very soft - alkalinity of around 30ppm so Calcium is around 12ppm.
Looking at this page http://www.brupaks.com/water%20treatment.htm I need CaC03 - 100 to 150 p.p.m. Calcium - 100 to 120 p.p.m

I've only got gypsum to hand to up the calcium but I'm concerned about the mash PH going a bit high because of all the dark malts. Normally I add a tsp of gypsum to the mash and one to the boil. Any advice / suggestions ?

Thanks

[WishboneBrewery]

I have very soft water here...
Here's what I added (I under-estimated things slightly with the Volumes)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3474/397 ... dbc1_o.jpg

Mash pH etc all came out good.

[Nermal]

Cheers pdtnc - did you add all that to the mash?

Could I use gypsum instead of calcium chloride - I was planning an early brew and the home brew shop doesn't open until 10 :/

[WishboneBrewery]

I added it to the water, so the mash and sparge water was pre-treated (Just double checked my brew sheet notes) and I noticed that the GW Water calc Stout profile has a distinct lack of Gypsum... I went for it as it was supposed to be. (I'd presume its trying to emulate Dublin's water?)
I think the calcium chloride brings the malt flavours out, though either that or Gypsum would provide enough Calcium for the Mash.

[Whorst]

Gypsum is going to increase your sulfates. I'd use calcium chloride only and Sodium Bicarbonate to raise your alkalinity.

[TheMumbler]

Have you used sodium bicarbonate as an addition Whorst? Anybody else? I have really soft water so I'd be interested to know how, if at all, it affects taste.

there is some discussion of soft water treatment here MashPh

Jim mentions being (or imagining being) able to taste bicarb in his beer. I believe Aleman was going to give bicarb a go but I haven't seen any posts on what happened if he did try it in the end.

[Aleman]

No Aleman has not tried it yet . . . . Actually I have an alternative method that I would like to try out first . . . I'll post again if it works, but there is no reason why it should not

[Whorst]

I have not tried it, but in theory it should work. My water has moderately high bicarbonate levels, around 110ppm expressed as CAC03 and it's high in sulfates at 212ppm. For dark beers I dilute my tap water with distilled and add calcium chloride to raise calcium and chloride levels. Accoriding to brewWater, 1/2 teaspoon in 5 US gallons of water will raise alkalinity to 69 and sodium 32. I don't think you're going to be able to taste 1/2 teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate in your finished beer, especially if you're mashing. You'd probably only need 1/4 teaspoon in the mash.