British brown ale water profile

TiltBlack

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I am going to brew a British brown ale and not sure which target water profile to choose. I guessed and put in the Buron On Trent (historical and decarbonated) style.
I wish the target water profiles would just tell you what beers they are good for instead of stating the cities water.
 
go up the to menu bar, click tools > water profiles. and then do a find on page for anything you might be looking for.

Brun Water has Brown balanced as the following:

Ca: 60, Mg: 10, Na: 10, Cl: 60, SO4: 65
 
I don't try to recreate historical beers so I tend to avoid the historical or regional water profiles. Even if I did there's a lot of discussion of whether the historical or regional profiles are that useful as many of the breweries treat(ed) their water prior to brewing.

So, as I'm not trying to recreate an old beer I just use the generic profiles, malty, hoppy, balanced, etc. Much simpler. So for a brown I'd just use balanced profie II.

If you are trying to recreate something the Burton on Trent breweries certainly would have brewed browns, but the London profile would be just as relevant.
 
Most British Brown Ales were bottled Mild Ale, with exceptions from the larger brewers, like Whitbread, which brewed brown ale single gyle to a distinct recipe. Newcastle brown is an oddball in the category.

This is my target liquor profile for brown ale (the same as mild ale) ;)
Calcium Ca - 150
Magnesium Mg- 10
Sodium Na - 50
Carbonate CO3 - 10
Sulphate SO4 - 179
Cloride Cl - 229

The above might not fit into the BF water thingy as is (I don't use it as its a bit alien to my English perspective)
 
Most British Brown Ales were bottled Mild Ale, with exceptions from the larger brewers, like Whitbread, which brewed brown ale single gyle to a distinct recipe. Newcastle brown is an oddball in the category.

This is my target liquor profile for brown ale (the same as mild ale) ;)
Calcium Ca - 150
Magnesium Mg- 10
Sodium Na - 50
Carbonate CO3 - 10
Sulphate SO4 - 179
Cloride Cl - 229

The above might not fit into the BF water thingy as is (I don't use it as its a bit alien to my English perspective)
Actually not to far off the balanced profile II listed on BF.
 
When you create a beer on any software, and choose a style, the software will show, for example, the OG of an American Amber ale is between 1.045 to 1.056 and the ABV is 4.50% to 5.70%. So why cant they show the Water profile as between lets say CA = 55 - 60 ppm and Mg from 5-8 ppm for an example (don't really know what it should be) instead of making us guess at what it should be. wouldn't that be better than showing what the water profile is for lets say "Dortmun Germany" or "Dublin Ireland"? We all know that the brewer adds salts to this water to create their beer but we a left to guess what they used.
Am I showing my lack of understanding of these things. I have tried to study from some of the water calculators and got really confused with Palmers water book because it was too deep for my little mind, they help out because I have seen my beers get better, but it always seems to just be a guess.
Am I overthinking this stuff?
 
Making beer is cooking food. Water agents are essentially seasonings. Every cook has different tastes, and will season their food/beer to their taste. I have been studying what ions affect which aspect of finished beer, and applying that as I go. I understand your question/frustration but it is something that you will have to learn from experience. Unfortunately there is no broad brush stroke that can be applied. Keep asking questions, keep on learning, and keep on brewing. The good and experienced folks here are more than happy to help along the way.

Hope this helps, cheers,
Craigerrr
 
ok guys I just downloaded an app called "Palmers brewing water adjustment app" and it has just want I am looking for when I select a style. A Northern English ale is
Calcuim PPm 50-75
Magnisium ...0-30
Alkalinity as of CaCo3 80-150
Sufate ppm 50-150
Chloride ppm 50-100
Sodium ppm <100
Residual Alkalinity 30-90
Color 12-22
so I chose the middle of most of these, added 2 ml of lacitc acid and got a nice sulfate to chloride ratio of .8 and a adjusted residual alkalinity of 101 for the final adjusted water.

Tell me what you think of this?
 
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This is what mine looks like for a brown ale my make up, can't really remember where I got this profile but I think it was from Liverpool

Ca+2 ......80
Mg+2 ......10
Na+..........15
Cl- ...........50
SO4-2 ......100
HCO..........45
 
Since it's a brown and there aren't enough ions in there to make a difference in flavor, adjust your salts and acids to get a mash pH of 5.4 +/- 0.2 (generally a bit higher for browns) and minimum 50 ppm of Ca++ and call it good.
 

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