Czech Dark Lager Water Profile?

[jdauria]

Hoping someone can help me, planning on brewing a Czech Dark Lager this weekend and was trying to dial in my water profile for Bru'n Water.

My grain bill is for a 5 gallon batch is:
5.65 lbs Floor Malted Bohemian Pils 2L
3.28 lbs Munich II 8.5L
0.75 lbs Caramunich II 63L
0.53 lbs Carafa Special II 488L

Lovibond numbers are just Beersmith estimates. That gives me a 25.6 SRM beer.

Doing BIAB, no sparge, using RO water. 7.81 gallons in mash.

Based on my SRM, I chose Brown Full profile in Bru'n Water and was planning on the following additions:

Gypsum 2 grams
Cal Chloride 1.9 grams
Epsom Salt 0.9 grams
Salt 0.8 grams
Chalk 1.1 grams

This gives me a pH of 5.54 and gives me a water profile of:
Ca 50
Mg 3
Na 18
SO4 50
CL 61

HCO3 (mash) 61

Does this look good, or anyone have any suggestions for changes to the water additions? Thanks!

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Getting chalk to dissolve without CO2 is highly problematic. And even if added directly to the mash it will not act ideally as your software may assume. You might consider trying this alternative.

2.5 g. Baking Soda
2.0 g. Gypsum
3.75 g. CaCl2 (as the dihydrate form)
0.9 g. Epsom Salt

This should give you close to the same analyticals.

***Do you know the hydration level of your CaCl2 pellets? If they are from a fresh and unopened bottle, they may be closer to anhydrous, and for that case I would suggest that you use 3.0 grams.***

 

[jdauria]

Thanks! Will give that a try.

No, unfortunately I don't know the hydration level of my CaCl2 pellets.

 

[ajdelange]

One thing to keep in mind is that the Wyermann floor pils is quite a bit more alkaline than their regular pils malt to the point that you may well not need any added alkalinity at all or very little when using it. Be sure your program can account for this Your conclusion that you need 22 mEq of alkalinity suggests that it does not and is doing calculations for something more like the pneumatic pils. Some of the programs can be 'faked' into changing malt alkalinity by changing the color of the malt. Some allow you to specify DI mash pH (for the floor pils it is 5.84 and for the pneumatic it is 5.62. This is obviously a case where a test mash is very good idea.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

As to CaCl2, the dihydrate form is about 75.5% CaCl2 by weight, and new/fresh stuff (from my measurement of a few bottles of LD Carlson, admittedly not all inclusive by any means) clusters at around 94% by weight CaCl2.

75.5/94 = 0.8 (rounded)

3.75 grams x 0.80 = 3.0 grams

This is how/why I suggested using 3 grams of CaCl2 if it is new/fresh/unopened, and 3.75 grams if your bottle has been opened and exposed to humidity several times.

The bottom line is that even a new and never before opened bottle of CaCl2 is not (in my experience) quite up to being considered fully anhydrous. Perhaps you can come closer to anhydrous by drying it at some rather high oven temperature (400 degrees F., ??) for a some specified (??) period of time. I do not know the exact requirement here.

 

[ajdelange]

There is a sticky at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=501377 that goes into this subject at considerable length. It shows how you can measure out CaCl2 accurately regardless of the water of hydration it has picked up. It also gives the temperature required to bake off this water (leaving the anhydrous form),

 

[Paulaner]

That is a similar recipe to what I make for my Czech Dark Lager, 77% Floor Malted Bohemian Pils, 10% munich type 2, 10% Cara-Munich type 2, and 3% Carafa special type 3 which comes out to 49.6 EBC's, but in the glass it appears much darker than that. As for water profile I shoot for 22 Ca, 7 Na, So4 ends up being 12, but I don't add gypsum this is simply from treating my water with Antitoxin SBT (I would prefer zero for So4), Cl 35 and I shoot for a Mash PH of 5.3, I also need to add a little pickling lime to get to this PH. For hops 100% Saaz don't let people sell you on bittering with another variety once you've drank enough good pale/dark lagers in the Czech you can spot a beer that was bittered with another variety in a heart beat. Also, shoot for a higher IBU to avoid having a sweet beer I do FWH @ 20 IBU's and 30 min addition @ 14 IBU's, but find out what works for you.