Water Profile for a Sour?

[fendersrule]

Not a whole lot out there on this. I'm looking for a water profile for a kettle sour I'm making that will have fruit additions later.

Some say water profile is pretty much meaningless for a sour. Add acid to hit your PH level, make sure chlorine/chlorimines are removed and let it rip.

Is this the common thinking for a kettle sour?

 

[fendersrule]

Anyone? I'm brewing tomorrow, so I need to start calculating now....

 

[RPh_Guy]

Water profile is very much personal preference; there's no "right way" to set the ion levels for pretty much any style of beer (except of particularly "minerally" styles like gose).

I tend to lean more heavily toward chloride.
50-80ppm chloride
0-50ppm sulfate
40-50ppm calcium
10-40ppm magnesium
0-30ppm sodium

If you want the beer to be more sour, buffering helps, especially if starting with RO. You can add potassium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate and use lactic or phosphoric acid to fix the pH.
Increasing the sulfate will also increase the perception of sourness.

You're welcome to tag me on sour beer questions.

 

[fendersrule]

Awesome, thanks RpH. I'm assuming that 80ppg for sulfate should be fine, if need be.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Awesome, thanks RpH. I'm assuming that 80ppg for sulfate should be fine, if need be.

For my taste, if I had 80ppm sulfate, I would aim for closer to 100-110ppm chloride.

Otherwise if you generally don't mind high sulfate levels in beer, it'll surely be fine.

 

[fendersrule]

Easy enough. How's this look @RPh_Guy

 

[RPh_Guy]

That'll be good.

 

[mabrungard]

Okay. I'm not a fan of much sulfate in a sour since the acidity is doing the same thing as the sulfate is...countering the malt. I would use only a minor sulfate content, which the profile shown above, does.

The other consideration for a sour is the amount of alkalinity in the water. High alkalinity will require more acid production to bring the beer pH down. That could be a good or bad thing. If you want more of the acid's anions (flavors) in the beer, then some alkalinity is OK. If you want to assure that your beer's pH will drop into a desirable range, then low alkalinity is desirable. If the alkalinity is too high, the souring organisms may run out of food before reaching a desirable beer pH. I think that alkalinity in the 150 ppm as CaCO3 range can work, but it depends on the organisms.

 

[RPh_Guy]

If the alkalinity is too high, the souring organisms may run out of food before reaching a desirable beer pH.

Certainly not when kettle souring, and demonstrably not when co-souring or post-souring.

Even if that were true, I'm sure you'd agree the amount of acid produced would be roughly the same and the the beer would taste equally sour regardless of the final pH

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I feel the need at this juncture to remind everyone that there are no Lactobacillus present within commercial Lactic Acid. If sour is taken to mean low pH only, then indeed use Lactic Acid, but if sour connotes something (most likely to be flavor driven) in addition to low pH, take note of this advice.

 

[RPh_Guy]

@Silver_Is_Money
OP is using a "kettle sour" process -- souring the wort with Lactobacillus in the kettle, following by boiling and fermentation.