Beer Forum

Given the same ratio of sulphate & chloride with two of the same recipes what is the effect of different volumes (low to high) of those salts (other ions left aside for the sake of the exercise).

Thanks

Strength or ppm. You want certain salts in certain ranges.

Ozwald wrote:Strength or ppm. You want certain salts in certain ranges.

But if you keep them at the same ratio but different strengths for the same recipe and within acceptable brewing ranges & without changes to other ions, what is the singular effect of the change in their strengths.

Put another way, if I can better achieve a desired ratio given in a recipe at different strengths ie., without resorting to 100% RO water, what is the effect on the beer profile with lower/greater salt strengths at that same ratio?

Am I answering my own question by thinking that in using non-recipe strengths that I may be making it increasingly difficult to achieve the desired balance for other ions?

butterman wrote:

Ozwald wrote:Strength or ppm. You want certain salts in certain ranges.

Am I answering my own question by thinking that in using non-recipe strengths that I may be making it increasingly difficult to achieve the desired balance for other ions?

I think you may be. While you do want to keep ratios (specifically the sulfate to chloride you mention) in check for certain styles, you also must pay attention to the overall ppm of each compound.
You can maintain a 1.5:1 ratio for a malty beer, but if there are a pound of each MgSO4 and Calcium Chloride in the 5 gallon recipe to maintain this ratio, your beer is going to taste like dog ass.

The ratio is almost meaningless. It is only the total concentrations of either ion that matter. The ratio only has validity when the chloride concentration is between 25 and 100 ppm. Beyond those limits, the total concentrations are either too low to notice or too high and overbearing.

You also pick up some ions from the malt. I calculated a recipe to have ~100ppm each of sulfate and chloride and when I measured a wort sample at work I got ~350 ppm of each.

On a side note Calcium and Zinc stayed the same and I picked up ~100ppm of Magnesium.

Were these measurements taken after the boil? Where were the salts added? What level was the calcium and was it mostly from your water or from additions? I've never heard of someone actually measuring these ions in the wort, thanks for sharing.

The calculated pre mash water was:
29 ppm Na
38 ppm Ca
2 ppm Mg
110 ppm Cl
105 ppm SO4
0.5 ppm Zn

The post boil pre fermentation numbers were
35 ppm Ca
104 ppm Mg
66 ppm Na
350ppm Cl
315 ppm SO4
.5 ppm Zn

I have measured my water numbers and compared them to the city report and they were really close.