Tasting my liquor

[SiHoltye]

Filtered / Filtered RA to 23 & DWB / Filtered RA to 23 & BnW


I think I've got my head round inputting into BnW and think I will enjoy using it.

Not sure if I was trying to prove anything with this other than getting up closer to what I'm doing when making beer. The left sample is water drawn through my charcoal filter. Yum, tastes very hollow and refreshing with no aftertaste as such. Like from a commercial water cooler. The other two have been treated as follows, and boiled for 5 mins and cooled. The middle sample has been dosed with CRS to reduce alkalinity to 23ppm CaCO3 and has DWB as per Murphy's recommendation for my water for pale ales/bitters. It's cloudy, tastes minerally in the mouth and aftertaste. Tastes like water, but screwed around with water. The one on the right has again been acidified to reduce alkalinity to 23ppm CaCO3, I went with Bnw's suggestion for yellow balanced which was a tiny addition of CaCl. Tastes close to the plain filtered water but more body somehow. Much nicer than the middle one. I'd happily down glass of this but not happily the middle one.

My Murphys additions are designed get Calcium to 188, Sulphate to 305, Chloride to 170.
My BnW additions are designed get Calcium to 61, Sulphate to 75, Chloride to 57. (Aiming for a yellow coloured balanced beer - hoppy golden ale, crowd pleaser @ 4%)

More pondering followed and net searching too.

Brupaks Water Treatment says a typical bitter REQUIRES 180-220ppm Calcium which looks inline with what Murphys are shooting for. BnW says calcium >50 OK, why this difference?

More searching.

In the area of sulphate hoppy dry bitter/chloride malty fullness of palate, It is the ratio of these two that creates the flavour impression, not the quantity. So Murphy's has I think got my Calcium up to 188ppm through adding salts that also contribute Sulphate and Chloride, done in such a way as to create a 2:1 balance which is the archetypal bitter ratio.

I suppose all this boils down to is what's the minimum ppm Calcium required?

[Eric]

I suppose all this boils down to is what's the minimum ppm Calcium required?

That will largely depend upon the subsequent processes.
You can use extremely low calcium levels very successfully with pale grains and/or a yeast capable of performing well in low mineral worts. In the same environment more kilned grains fermented with yeast evolved in high mineral worts will make a beer, but quite different to the same ingredients with more mineral content.

Water treatment shouldn't be thought of as a process separate from the rest of the brew, it is done to match the object of that process. Not quite, but getting it wrong might be seen a bit like wearing ice skates to play tennis or spikes to play football.