water profile for a guinness clone

[daddies-beer-factory]

Hi, what is the best water profile for a guinness clone ? ie a 70/20/10 stout.

my water has 194mg/L of calcium carbonate , shall I reduce it a bit with CRS ?

I usually add 2 campden tabs, 1.5 heaped tsp gypsum, 0.5 tsp epsom salts & 1 tsp table salt (for 50 L brew)

thanks

[Eric]

Assuming that figure is of alkalinity.
Half the alkalinity for the mash, half it again for the sparge liquor.
Half a campden tablet is more than enough for even the heaviest chlornated water.
Keep out the gypsum and Epsom salts, use calcium chloride flake instead.

Good luck.

[daddies-beer-factory]

Thanks Eric,
I am assuming its alkalinity. I will aim for 100 ppm calcium chloride for mash, and 50 for sparge.

I will hope i get a mash of 5.3/5.4 . I dont have any calcium chloride flake, only the salts mentioned above so I wont add any ?

Thanks for your help

[Eric]

Don't assume it's alkalinity, measure it. Buy one of these.

If your water has alkalinity of that order, it will be one of the best investments you will ever make.

My water contains about 3 times as much sulphate as chloride. That ratio is fine for making pale hoppy beers, so to ensure nice smooth deep flavoured malts in dark beers I add chloride, as sulphate dominance can cause dark malts to taste quite harsh.

[daddies-beer-factory]

Yes I have one of those, thats where I got the 194mg/L value, I am just no good at chemistry.

I know what water hardness is, salts & acid/alkaline but that is about the limit of my chemistry ability.

I think I probably need to read a decent book on it !

Thanks again Eric

[Eric]

Yes I have one of those, thats where I got the 194mg/L value, I am just no good at chemistry.

I know what water hardness is, salts & acid/alkaline but that is about the limit of my chemistry ability.

I think I probably need to read a decent book on it !

Thanks again Eric

PM me if you find one. I'm unsure how possible it is to write one that would deal with the vast arrays of both existing waters and demanded beers. Brewers historically developed beer styles to maximise approval of and demand for their products from raw materials at their disposal. Today we are spoiled for choice and as the proverb goes, one man's meat is another man's poison.

Include some acids and calcium chloride flake in your stock and brew. No amount of chemistry will create good beer that isn't brewed properly. Who wants to be a chemist when it is more easy to be a brewer?

[mabrungard]

The water at the St James Gate brewery is RO quality water that runs off the Wicklow Mountains. Add calcium chloride to bring the calcium to about 50 ppm and then mash only the pale malt and the barley with the roast barley reserved. Add the roast barley with about 10 minutes left in the mash. The mash pH is at the normal range during most of the mash, but driven low with the roast malt addition. The combo of roast with low pH is the secret to a dry Irish stout.

Mashing water needs alkalinity when brewing most stouts and porters, but not for dry Irish stout.

[daddies-beer-factory]

Thanks Mabrungard & Eric,

I brewed it yesterday, brewday went well & it was my first all - grain stout / guinness. I took Erics advice & dropped the alkalinity down from 194 to 100mg/L for the mash & 50mg/L for the sparge. I added 2 crushed campden tablets and a tiny amount of salts.

I used the roasted barley in the mash full length, which is why mash ph was low i guess ( ph = 4.9) , I would be interested to know what difference it makes if you add the roast barley for the last 10 mins only ?

I hopped with Admiral to 45 IBU & pitched a Nottingham yeast (I will ferment for 12 days at 20 C - and crash cool for another 2 days)

[Eric]

Thanks Mabrungard & Eric,

I brewed it yesterday, brewday went well & it was my first all - grain stout / guinness. I took Erics advice & dropped the alkalinity down from 194 to 100mg/L for the mash & 50mg/L for the sparge. I added 2 crushed campden tablets and a tiny amount of salts.

I used the roasted barley in the mash full length, which is why mash ph was low i guess ( ph = 4.9) , I would be interested to know what difference it makes if you add the roast barley for the last 10 mins only ?

I hopped with Admiral to 45 IBU & pitched a Nottingham yeast (I will ferment for 12 days at 20 C - and crash cool for another 2 days)

Surprised it was that low. When and how did you measure pH?
If you mashed without the roast barley its pH would of course be a lot higher for any given alkalinity, so adjustment would be necessary. When the roasted barley is added, the pH would nose dive and I'm not sure what influence that would have to mash, boil, ferment and storage and what adjustments would be best.

I'll make comment on Martin's information shortly.

[Eric]

The water at the St James Gate brewery is RO quality water that runs off the Wicklow Mountains. Add calcium chloride to bring the calcium to about 50 ppm and then mash only the pale malt and the barley with the roast barley reserved. Add the roast barley with about 10 minutes left in the mash. The mash pH is at the normal range during most of the mash, but driven low with the roast malt addition. The combo of roast with low pH is the secret to a dry Irish stout.

Mashing water needs alkalinity when brewing most stouts and porters, but not for dry Irish stout.

If what is wanted is today's version of the product whose sales rely more on TV advertising than its virtues, then I won't contest Martin's advice, as personally I've not drank more than the odd sip for many a year. If however the version of Guinness is what it was like when Dave Line got this hobby started in UK and that which others remember and wish to try to replicate, Martin's advice does not apply. This was before the name was owned by Diageo, a company started in 1997 and earlier when run by Ernest Saunders, one of the Guinness four who got out of jail for health reasons to then recover from incurable Alzheimer's disease.

Martin, have you read Alfred Barnard's mammoth, 4 volume, and well regarded work of "The Noted Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland"? Volume III, chapter 2, page 9 (of almost 500 in that volume alone) published in 1890 reads as follows :-

The Grand Canal is the chief source of the water used for brewing. It is the same that is now supplied to the Rathmines suburb of Dublin and is derived from filter beds at the Fifth Lock (high level) of the Grand Canal. This water is of a moderate degree of hardness hardness. The Vartry water, which is the main supply of Dublin, is used chiefly used for boilers and other purposes where a soft water is found useful.

Chapter 3 confirms that roasted grains were mixed with the other grist.

[Dave S]

I brewed my version of 'Guinness' in early October. Water was adjusted to an alkalinity of 112, (reduced from 194) No salts were added, my calcium level is around 77 and chloride 100 ish. Sulphuric acid raised the sulphate/chloride ratio to 2.4 to enhance the bitterness perception. Mash pH was 5.5 The grain bill was the classic 70-20-10 formula and I hopped with 1:2 Bullion and Northern Brewer. I compared a glass of this after 6 weeks of conditioning with a glass of off-the-shelf Guinness, and if I do say so myself was hard pushed to tell the difference. Still got a couple of gallons . I guess the point is, with the OP's water profile creating a close replication is very do-able.

[daddies-beer-factory]

Thanks Mabrungard & Eric,

I brewed it yesterday, brewday went well & it was my first all - grain stout / guinness. I took Erics advice & dropped the alkalinity down from 194 to 100mg/L for the mash & 50mg/L for the sparge. I added 2 crushed campden tablets and a tiny amount of salts.

I used the roasted barley in the mash full length, which is why mash ph was low i guess ( ph = 4.9) , I would be interested to know what difference it makes if you add the roast barley for the last 10 mins only ?

I hopped with Admiral to 45 IBU & pitched a Nottingham yeast (I will ferment for 12 days at 20 C - and crash cool for another 2 days)

Surprised it was that low. When and how did you measure pH?
If you mashed without the roast barley its pH would of course be a lot higher for any given alkalinity, so adjustment would be necessary. When the roasted barley is added, the pH would nose dive and I'm not sure what influence that would have to mash, boil, ferment and storage and what adjustments would be best.

I'll make comment on Martin's information shortly.

Hi Eric, I measured the mash tun at the start of the mash after stirring well, all the grains added - with an ebay ph meter http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Digital-Pocke ... 2334e780eb

[Eric]

I brewed my version of 'Guinness' in early October. Water was adjusted to an alkalinity of 112, (reduced from 194) No salts were added, my calcium level is around 77 and chloride 100 ish. Sulphuric acid raised the sulphate/chloride ratio to 2.4 to enhance the bitterness perception. Mash pH was 5.5 The grain bill was the classic 70-20-10 formula and I hopped with 1:2 Bullion and Northern Brewer. I compared a glass of this after 6 weeks of conditioning with a glass of off-the-shelf Guinness, and if I do say so myself was hard pushed to tell the difference. Still got a couple of gallons . I guess the point is, with the OP's water profile creating a close replication is very do-able.

That "classic" 70-20-10 formula is from Dave Line in "Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy", 7lb pale, 2lb flaked barley and 1lb . Before the list of ingredients he wrote this:-

The final part of your brewing apprenticeship is to try your hands at brewing five gallonsof Guinness which, by my reckoning, is the best beer in the world.
As with the majority of beers in this book, Guinness is based on malted barley grains and this recipe demonstrates how to brew a typical grain beer. Differences in the common mashing methods will be highlighted.

After the recipe the text is proof of how much has changed, it continued...............

Brewing this stout takes some planning because you will be using the yeast from a bottle of Guinness. Four or five days before the main brewing session take a trip down to your neglected local and purchase a pint bottle of Guinness. Try without exhausting your landlord's patience too much to select a bottle with a good ring of yeast clinging to the bottom.

The text goes on to give further advice and opinion of the yeast and then describes how to make a starter.

A more expected pH there Dave, but interesting you found similarity with your beer and today's commercial version Dave, mine doesn't. Would you try the same with a bit more calcium and biased to chloride? Having written this morning I'd only sipped the odd modern Guinness, but at lunch today in a pub I chose a bottle of:-


It wouldn't been totally authentic as it came from a chilled cabinet which would have been scarce in 1796. The first taste was that of salt followed a little bit of roasted grain. The salt wasn't obvious on frequent tastings, but after a suitable pause it was again the first and most prevailing taste to me and absolutely nothing like the Guinness Dave line would have selected.

Hi Eric, I measured the mash tun at the start of the mash after stirring well, all the grains added - with an ebay ph meter http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Digital-Pocke ... 2334e780eb

That should do the job OK, I bought a spare probe for just £3 odd from China recently and it calibrated very acceptably, amazing how things have changed.
I'm thinking of giving up measuring early mash pH with a meter. The time taken for calibrated added to that to cool a sample which by then I am finding has drifted too high to be relevent, but yours is low. Dave's is more like I would expect.

[Dave S]

I brewed my version of 'Guinness' in early October. Water was adjusted to an alkalinity of 112, (reduced from 194) No salts were added, my calcium level is around 77 and chloride 100 ish. Sulphuric acid raised the sulphate/chloride ratio to 2.4 to enhance the bitterness perception. Mash pH was 5.5 The grain bill was the classic 70-20-10 formula and I hopped with 1:2 Bullion and Northern Brewer. I compared a glass of this after 6 weeks of conditioning with a glass of off-the-shelf Guinness, and if I do say so myself was hard pushed to tell the difference. Still got a couple of gallons . I guess the point is, with the OP's water profile creating a close replication is very do-able.

That "classic" 70-20-10 formula is from Dave Line in "Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy", 7lb pale, 2lb flaked barley and 1lb . Before the list of ingredients he wrote this:-

The final part of your brewing apprenticeship is to try your hands at brewing five gallonsof Guinness which, by my reckoning, is the best beer in the world.
As with the majority of beers in this book, Guinness is based on malted barley grains and this recipe demonstrates how to brew a typical grain beer. Differences in the common mashing methods will be highlighted.

After the recipe the text is proof of how much has changed, it continued...............

Brewing this stout takes some planning because you will be using the yeast from a bottle of Guinness. Four or five days before the main brewing session take a trip down to your neglected local and purchase a pint bottle of Guinness. Try without exhausting your landlord's patience too much to select a bottle with a good ring of yeast clinging to the bottom.

The text goes on to give further advice and opinion of the yeast and then describes how to make a starter.

A more expected pH there Dave, but interesting you found similarity with your beer and today's commercial version Dave, mine doesn't. Would you try the same with a bit more calcium and biased to chloride? Having written this morning I'd only sipped the odd modern Guinness, but at lunch today in a pub I chose a bottle of:-


It wouldn't been totally authentic as it came from a chilled cabinet which would have been scarce in 1796. The first taste was that of salt followed a little bit of roasted grain. The salt wasn't obvious on frequent tastings, but after a suitable pause it was again the first and most prevailing taste to me and absolutely nothing like the Guinness Dave line would have selected.

Hi Eric, I measured the mash tun at the start of the mash after stirring well, all the grains added - with an ebay ph meter http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Digital-Pocke ... 2334e780eb

That should do the job OK, I bought a spare probe for just £3 odd from China recently and it calibrated very acceptably, amazing how things have changed.
I'm thinking of giving up measuring early mash pH with a meter. The time taken for calibrated added to that to cool a sample which by then I am finding has drifted too high to be relevent, but yours is low. Dave's is more like I would expect.

Yes it is interesting that it compared well with modern Guinness. I remember that Guinness of yesteryear tasting a lot grainier - rougher even and definitely bottle-conditioned. I think that ceased to be in the early 90s - what a shame.

My stated Sulphate/chloride ratio of 2.4 is likely to be lower than that as I noticed that the calculation was based on averages from my WA's figures, before I had it tested by WB. The actual ratio was likely to be nearer 2:1. With the previous batch I did, over a year ago I cocked up the additions and ended up with a ratio of 0.5. That was definitely weighted too far towards chloride and definitely not to my taste. I might experiment next time though and aim for 1-1.5 and see how that compares. It will be as good opportunity to try out additions of hydrochloric, which I think I would need to do with my water profile. Might order a bottle from that eBay link you provided the OP with. Do you know what units the 33% is in?

EDIT: Sorry, that link was in the Brewing Liquor forum.

[Eric]

Oh goodness! I can't remember. Looking for my notes but it can't be V by anything as in its pure state it is a gas.
Mine was 37% , 12 molar I think. 1 mole weighs (1 + 35.5) = 36.5g, so 12 molar is 438g pure acid in 1 litre solution. So it must be W/W as it doesn't appear to be W/V.
1ml would neutralise 600mg CaCO3 when it was tested after it arrived.

I've written 18% on the diluted bottle which is manageable if treated with caution. 1ml of that will knock out about 280mg CaCO3 if my memory serves me right.

Interesting you prefered the sulphate biased version.

By the way, hydrochloric acid is handy for other purposes. Last year I pointed the front of the garage above the door and I'm not good at that. Using it more diluted with a paint brush onto the brick faces when the cement had dried, then hosing down the area with a fine spray resulted in a job I could be proud of.