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Matching a water profile

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x3la

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I'm trying to match "Burton Pale Ale" by using the Water tab and "Match a Target Profile".

The Adjusted Water Profiles section shows my "Bicarbonate" as 346.6ppm (range of 0-250 being optimal?) and has a little red icon next to it, presumably indicating that this isn't advisable.

Why would this be?
 
What is your base water profile?  Is your base water bicarbonate level high already?

The program balances out the minerals most likely through a least-squares optimization.  It most likely prioritizes matching Calcium, Magnesium, Sulfate, and Chloride levels above any of the other materials being added.  So if it needs to go above your target level of Bicarbonate in order to get to the Calcium level in your target profile, it will do just that.

Additionally, if you are using Chalk (Calcium Carbonate) in your minerals, I would go back and recalculate it excluding the Chalk.  Calcium carbonate has a very low solubility in water.  In fact the only way to get it to dissolve in any useful amounts is to acidify the water and bubble Carbon dioxide through it to create conditions where it will become soluble.

 
Oginme said:
What is your base water profile?  Is your base water bicarbonate level high already?

The program balances out the minerals most likely through a least-squares optimization.  It most likely prioritizes matching Calcium, Magnesium, Sulfate, and Chloride levels above any of the other materials being added.  So if it needs to go above your target level of Bicarbonate in order to get to the Calcium level in your target profile, it will do just that.

Additionally, if you are using Chalk (Calcium Carbonate) in your minerals, I would go back and recalculate it excluding the Chalk.  Calcium carbonate has a very low solubility in water.  In fact the only way to get it to dissolve in any useful amounts is to acidify the water and bubble Carbon dioxide through it to create conditions where it will become soluble.
Click to expand...

Bicarbonate for my base water is 58ppm which isn't high? The base water Calcium level is 23ppm (which looks low given the range displayed in brackets). This would support what you're suggesting is happening?

I have attached a screenshot of what I see in BeerSmith.
 

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Excluding Chalk reduces it only minimally (see attached screenshot).
 

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So the limiting factor is the Chloride contained in your water.  Because of this, the program is trying to avoid adding any more Chloride and adding Calcium and Sodium through the Calcium carbonate and Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda).  The net result is that it is adding a ton of Bicarbonate in order to get the Calcium and Sodium to match the target profile.

Your choices are to get some deionized water to dilute your tap water so that you can use Calcium Chloride to get to your profile or to remake the profile over a bit using Calcium Chloride to get your Calcium level to target and the Sodium bicarbonate to add a little more Sodium while limiting the Bicarbonate addition.

In short, play with the target profile to get close to what you want and then save that as your new target water profile. 
 
If this is the case, I wonder if I can use a Campden Tablet in order to drop the Chloride.. zero it out in the base water profile
 
Or is this actually an issue with the "Target Profile" itself? to me (see screenshot) it looks as if 366ppm of Bicarbonate is intended?
 

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First, Campden tablets only neutralize Chlorine or Chloramines, not Chloride.


Second, that is definitely one of the reasons it allows the Bicarbonate to run wild.  Again, it is up to you haw you want to tackle this.  With that level of Bicarb in the water, you will need to make an acid adjustment to keep your pH in line unless you are brewing something which calls for a lot of roasted grains.
 
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