Water Profile - Blonde Ale & American Pale

[AndrewLunt]

Hey all,

new to Home brewing and been doing some research on various areas including water profiles and I know there are some great answers around. I'm looking for some feedback on some of the profiles ive made for some upcoming brews. I've never played with water chemistry before so completely new.

I use general water, I have the water profile from the town and know I have to make adjustments.

The blonde Ale I left slightly leaning towards the SO2 as I prefer the hop flavour.
The American pale I tried to keep the chloride and Sulphate ratio around 1:2.5

Any advice or feedback would be great. Again just learning all this.

Thanks
Andrew

 

[Yooper]

I can't see the numbers there (old eyes, small screen), but I would definitely suggest not using EZ water. It's not as accurate as other choices. We have one here at Brewer's Friend that works well with you recipes, and I know there are others out there that are more accurate than EZ water.

First, forget anything you ever heard about the cl:s04 ratio. Look at the actual values. For example, 2 ppm of chloride and 4 ppm of sulfate is a 1:2 ratio, but it's definitely not the same as 200 ppm of chloride and 400 ppm of sulfate. So look at the numbers and pretend the word "ratio" doesn't exist.

Secondly, you'll want to target a mash pH of 5.3-5.5 or so.

Less is more in many cases, and even plain old RO water without any additions is better than a complete profile with too many salts.

 

[Hawkbox]

from what I gather ratios are handy but if you get over 200ppm anything you're getting into dangerous territory.