Which water profile?

[Dr. Dextrin]

If I'm using GW's water calculator, what would be the best water profile to select for brewing a beer like Riggwelter or Theakston's OP?

[mysterio]

Mild, brown ale

Plenty of chloride and enough carbonate to support the dark malt

[Dr. Dextrin]

Thanks guys.

I couldn't decide between a bitter profile or a porter. These beers are in the bitter section of GW's book, but obviously they're much darker than most bitters. On the other hand, they don't have as much dark malt as most porters or stouts.

In the end I went for a half-way house. But I was probably wrong, because the mash pH came out rather low (off the range of my pH papers, but maybe somewhere around 4.6 I'm guessing). The beer (Riggwelter) tastes OK, but next time I'll use a porter profile.

[leedsbrew]

I use the bitter profile for my Riggwelter clone. Last batch with WLP005 is the best yet! My mash pH was spot on though

[Dr. Dextrin]

I use the bitter profile for my Riggwelter clone. Last batch with WLP005 is the best yet! My mash pH was spot on though

The pH difference could be because I tweaked GW's recipe a bit. Noticing that Riggwelter is a reddish-chestnut colour and that chocolate malt generally gives more of an amber hue, I switched a fair bit of it for black malt. That'd be more acidic in the mash, I guess.

Actually, I'm not altogether sure that either malt should be there anyway. I know chocolate is in all the recipes (they probably all stem from one source), but this article:

http://www.thestar.com/article/599924

seems to have been written with some actual knowledge and quite specifically says it gets its taste from unmalted roasted barley. I assume that's rather more roasted barley than the pointless 0.001kg that appears in some recipes.

I'll probably try that out on my next attempt.