Water chemistry question about Chloride Sulfate ratio

[Ray Floyd]

Hi. I recently started using Brewer's Friend and have been trying to get a handle on my brew water chemistry. I am a bit confused as to what to adjust for the pale ale I am brewing next and am hoping some of you can help me make sense of the brew water calculator.

My well water is high in HCO3 (103 ppm) and I am not sure I have figured out how to boil and decant properly so I am planning to use some distilled water for my next brew - about 40% of my water. I am using the "Hoppy/Bitter" profile target. Adding gypsum, calcium chloride, and magnesium chloride gets me the following numbers - the "Delta" numbers are all in green and indicate that the levels are acceptable - see numbers below copied from the calculator. However, the "Overall Water Report" near the bottom of the water calculator states that this is "Too Bitter" of a water profile and that the SO4 and Cl ratio is off. This does seem to agree with the information regarding brewing chemistry on this website that states the ratio should be 2:1 for bitter beers.

So my question is, why does the calculator indicate that my salt additions are good if the above-mentioned ratio is way off? If I adjust to get the 2:1 ratio then my clorides will be really high and sulfates will be too low. Should I just adjust down with gypsum to get the S04 level in the 150 - 200 range? Doing so lowers the Ca value and I have to add calcium chloride to get that level back in the acceptable range, which also raises my Cl level to around 40 ppm.

Thanks for your help.

Ray

Ca+2 Mg+2 Na+ Cl- SO4-2 HCO
Actual 113.3 4.6 17.8 26.1 247.9 57.241
Delta 3.3 -5.4 -2.2 6.1 -2.1 2.2

 

[LarryBrewer]

So my question is, why does the calculator indicate that my salt additions are good if the above-mentioned ratio is way off?

The Chloride to Sulfate ratio is a guideline as to the type of beer the water is suited for. There is a lot of debate online as to the utility value of this ratio, but we have to include it.

The salt additions, target levels and delta values only consider concentrations of ions as inputted. In terms of what beer style you are going after, that is up to the brewer. The "too bitter" message may be a bit heavy handed in this case, but it is reporting correctly. If you selected the hoppy bitter profile, that calls for sulfates, and the ratio would naturally be high. For an IPA that could be completely normal. For a Pale Ale, it is more of a grey area. I'd have to look at the recipe to recommend a water profile.

 

[Ray Floyd]

Thanks Larry. Do you mind reviewing the recipe?

Pale Ale - 5.25 gal batch
9 lbs 2 row
12 oz Crystal 60L
.5 oz Nugget 60 min
.5 oz Cascade 15 min
.5 oz Citra 0 min
.5 oz Citra dry hop
Nottingham yeast
Recipe builder indicates about 41 IBU's.
Est OG 1.050 based on 70% efficiency

 

[LarryBrewer]

That looks like a Pale Ale! I'd go with Balanced Profile.

Ca2+ Mg2+ Na+ Cl- SO42- HCO3-
80 5 25 75 80 100

Out of curiosity, where did you get the original Hoppy Bitter profile? That isn't on our site as far as I know.

 

[Ray Floyd]

Thanks Larry.
That profile was an option in the pull-down menu.

 

[LarryBrewer]

A few weeks ago we revised all the water profiles to match the new advanced water calculator. It must have been one of the older ones.

 

[Ray Floyd]

I set up this recipe and started playing with the water profiles several weeks ago. I think when I re-visited it yesterday it pulled up my previous session on the calculator.

Thanks for your help. I will try the balanced profile. Doing so means I don't have to dilute with distilled water.

Thanks,

Ray

 

[Kaiser]

the wording for the cl/so4 ratio is coming from John Palmer's spreadsheet verbatim. we did not put much thought into it since I think it is somewhat arbitrary. but many users are looking for cl/so4 ratio so we had to put it in.

 

[Ray Floyd]

Thanks again for all the help on this. I finally brewed my pale ale a couple of days ago and used the Balanced Profile. Can't wait to taste it and see how it turned out.