Water profile for ESB

[logdrum]

What should I be targeting for an ESB?

 

[clickondan]

Just tapped an ESB yesterday that I brewed with the following profile and personally I think it was dead on for the style and the recipe. Mash pH was adjusted to 5.5.

Ca 80
Mg 8
Na 30
Cl 70
SO4 100
RA 0

 

[logdrum]

Thanks for the quick reply! Looks to be do able w my water. Although I'll have to acidify to get to 0 RA

Na: 20 ppm
Ca: 38 ppm
Mg: 10 ppm
SO4: 10 ppm
Cl:31 ppm
HCO3: 105 ppm
CaCO3: 86 ppm

 

[clickondan]

Nice. The low levels of Cl and SO4 would probably have a barely perceptible impact on the finished beer over zeros, but I'd never fault anyone for being conservative with water chemistry. At the very least it will give you a great starting point if you want to tweak them up when you brew it again. I usually cut with distilled but actually used full tap as my source water on this ESB and used about 3mL of 88% lactic acid to bring my mash pH down, which brought my RA to 0. My RA is usually in the negative for most brews so I don't usually pay much attention to it.

All that said, you might consider bringing your SO4 up to somewhere around 100 to dry the beer a touch and give a little bump to the perceived bitterness that complements this style. The mash temp, the sodium level and (obviously) the recipe itself can be used to bring the malt character forward at the same time.

 

[logdrum]

Cool, I'm brewing this next-I've got a lager going ATM so I might be a bit...


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