Water report help - English Mild

[oldwhiskers]

The Memphis aquifer water report doesn't appear to look to bad but this stuff is still a bit confusing to me. I am wanting to do an English Mild partial mash with my city water, I have done some extract batches that tasted OK without water treatments but I want to make it the best I can. Here is the info from the city water report attached below. According to BF calculator I would need 1gram baking soda in the mash to get a pH of 5.36 with 1.5 qt/#:

1.5# pale malt
1.5# 60L
0.38# Chocolate 450

Adding to the sparge/kettle water 1.25g gypsum and 1.5g calcium chloride.

 

[ajdelange]

More like a gram and a half but why would you want to brew a beer that is 56% high colored malt. Is that a typo? Did you mean 15 lbs pale ale malt?

 

[oldwhiskers]

I just put the grains I was mashing for pH purposes, I was also using:

3.15# of LME
1oz Fuggles bittering
1oz Fuggles aroma

with it.

 

[ajdelange]

You can't just count the mash components that have a proton surfeit - you must count the ones that have a deficit too. It will take 1.5 tsp of bicarb to neutralize the acidity of the grains you specified to the pH you specified. The LME will doubtless have a deficit so that somewhat less bicarb will be required. I have no idea what the properties of LME are in this regard so disregard my former post.

 

[oldwhiskers]

Since we don't know what the mineral levels are in the extract, this one would be an easy one to do as all grain with my setup and I have been moving that direction anyway since I have been partial mashing for awhile now. I have a couple of questions if someone could answer them.

1) Overall what does my water look like to start with?

2) I see comments that the alkalinity at the 55 ppm level should be reduced, would that hold true for the Mild?

3) Going all grain would give me the following grains for the brew:

6# pale malt
1.5# 60L
0.375# Chocolate 450

 

[ajdelange]

1) Overall what does my water look like to start with?

Low on sulfate and chloride compared to most. You'll want more of both in many beers but more chloride in most beers.

2) I see comments that the alkalinity at the 55 ppm level should be reduced, would that hold true for the Mild?

55 ppm as CaCO3 is right on the edge of where you would like it to be. That (1.1 mEq/L) is low enough that it is easily neutralized with out having to use a lot of acid

3) Going all grain would give me the following grains for the brew:

6# pale malt
1.5# 60L
0.375# Chocolate 450

You will need a small amount of acid for this grist with this water to reach pH 5.36. Were you in England I'd advise 4.9 mL of CRS as that would supply 9.5 mEq each of sulfate and chloride while simultaneously taking care of water and grist alkalinities but as you are not you will have to use a like mount of 10% phsphoric acid or 1.7 mL of 88% lactic acid or 1.6% sauermalz.

 

[oldwhiskers]

Thanks, that helps a lot.