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"Saruman":3jeafqau wrote: Nowadays we understand water chemistry so it's less important. Humans can now recreate water as we see fit. However, can the monks do that, do they have chemists/scientists to do that for them? I'm not sure they do.[/quote:3jeafqau]

The monks have made extensive use of chemists and brewing scientists for years. Their yeast management has been top notch for decades and they treat their water very seriously. For example, the monks at Rochefort have stated that they would not be able to brew their beers with Chimay's softer water. I imagine they could probably engineer a water profile to replicate their current supply quite easily, but I suspect the monks would prefer not to take the risk and they probably don't want to break what they see as a close connection to their natural environment.

"Saruman":cvv60spf wrote: Good to know thanks.

I wonder how exact water treatment is? Can you create identical water profiles to other locations? Or can you only come close.[/quote:cvv60spf]

Water treatment can be very precise but to re-create water profiles you really only need to focus on the stuff in water that affects its flavour and how it behaves in the mash. In practice, this means adjusting the carbonates and mineral content (e.g. sulphate, chloride, magnesium etc.) so that they match the target water profile in terms of overall levels and relative levels. The difficulty is always achieving a balance between all the ions. This can get quite complicated, but for the average brewer it is enough to get yourself in the right ranges and you should be fine.

So for Rochefort, they have reasonably hard water but relatively low levels of sulphate and chloride. Their profile is actually quite like the Ballymore Eustace profile except they have significantly higher levels of carbonates. If you added the correct proportion of calcium carbonate (chalk) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), you'd get pretty close. All you would then need to do is to acidify the mash slightly to mimic what the monks do and you'd have yourself the basis of a good clone. All the relevant info is in Brew Like A Monk.