dark ipa water profile

[jonny8ball]

hi im brewing a dark ipa and wondering if my water is good enough without any salts?

Enter Your Water Composition: CA:127, Mg:(dont no this one) , NA:11 , CO3:102 , SO4:27 , CL:24

entered this as a Target Liquor for a :porter

addition are minimal

1 gram gypsum
2.5 gram Calcium Chloride
common salt 14 gram

shell i for get about these and just carry on? and what Residual Alkalinity level should i go for around 100 or should i go lower?

all the best jonny

[weiht]

Cut the common salt and add more epsom salts. U've alr got high calcium in ur water, so u may wanna add epsom to bump up the sulphates for the hops. Hard to tell where u shld aim ur RA to be at depending how dark ur beer is, and where u add the roasted malts at (Alot of ppl add them when sparging for Black IPA). If everything is added at start of mash, then u would be good to shoot for RA 200 if its truly as dark as a porter/stout.

[jonny8ball]

ye i dont fancy adding that much salt, sounds just to much.. as for Residual Alkalinity iv just tested my water and it`s 171 on the test kit , so ill just leave it there then no crs to add sound ok here?

[weiht]

I dont use CRS here lol, it seems to be a british phenomenon lol. But the carbonates are actually gd for these dark beers! In fact i'd say u've got optimal water for porters n stouts, may just need a teaspoon of table salts for chlorides for maltiness. Do remember that its RA of the mash that we want to shoot for about 200, so do make adjustments if needed as the roasted and caramel malts will probably push it down.

But in this case u may want to add epsom salts to push the sulphates up so that the hops can shine. Maybe nearing 200ppm of sulphates so that the chloride/sulphates ratio dont exceed 1:9 (optimum for big hoppy beers).

Have fun!!