[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Ken and I went out for beers the other night and all I have done for the past week is think about our conversation on water. We live close by, and we have the same water.[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Calcium 34, Magnesium 12, Sodium 13, Chloride 21, Sulfate 27 (which is 9x3 because it’s expressed as SO4-S) and bicarbonate or HCO3 which is 138.[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]I would like to brew an IPA (Pliny type of clone).[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]I hear everyone gets boners over the Bru'N profile for Pale Ale/IPA. That profile is the following:[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"][color=rgb(0,0,0);]ca 140 [/color][color=rgb(0,0,0);]mg 18 [/color][color=rgb(0,0,0);]na 25 [/color][color=rgb(0,0,0);]sulfate 300 [/color][color=rgb(0,0,0);]chloride 55[/color][/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]To achieve these #'s using the EZ Water spreadsheet it looks like I'll have to add the following to my mash water:[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]13.5 grams of gypsum, 1 gram of calcium chloride, 1.8 grams of epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) and .9 grams of non-iodized salt (to our source water) and then water numbers would be:[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]So......here are my questions.[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]1. Do you guys just treat the Mash water?[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]2. Just neutralize the PH on the sparge water? [/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Here is what I'm envisioning....[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Mash with roughly 4 gallons of water and add my salts/etc to that water.[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Mash for 1 hour[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Batch sparge with the rest of the water and just use lactic acid to lower the pH[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Boil as normal[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Cool as normal[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Ferment as normal[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Does this make sense?[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Ken has my brain spinning and I just need to talk/type through this. Does this make sense?[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]I've never really done much with my water. All I usually do is mix distilled water in the mash because we have such hi BiCarbonate and then add a few grams of gypsum back to the water. I've never been happy with my IPA's and really looking to get to that next level.[/font]
[font="tahoma, geneva, sans-serif;"]Thoughts? Concerns?[/font]