Grinder12000

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mabrungard - agree 100% . . . sadly. :-(

__________________
Grinders Island Brewery - Pipeline (Batch #)

Secondary Kentucky Common(83)
Primary #1 Scottish Ale 70(84)
Primary #2 The Black Pearl Porter(85)

PlainJay

Recipes 

Martin, thanks for posting! I was hoping you would as it seems that Indiana holds a knowledge base on brewing water treatment.

OP - Besides Martin's comments and his spreadsheet (which I am sure is very valuable, I just haven't used it), I would recommend that your Nano look into buying an RO water system. That seems to be common of breweries here. Matter of fact, I know of one that uses this model: http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-1562-ge-merlin-720-gpd-tankless-ro-system.aspx?affiliateid=10050&qid=0&utm_source=Goo glebase&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Product&utm_t erm=1255052

Grinder12000

Recipes 

Can you Brew with straight RO water in brewing?

__________________
Grinders Island Brewery - Pipeline (Batch #)

Secondary Kentucky Common(83)
Primary #1 Scottish Ale 70(84)
Primary #2 The Black Pearl Porter(85)

ajdelange

Recipes 

If it isn't removed just by sittiling in the HLT it isn't chlorine but rather chloramine. Homebrewers easily remove this with bisulfite but in a commercial situation you may have to be concerned about TTB permissions, sulfite allergies in the public etc.

Those words describe beer brewed with high mash pH.


GAC filtration or bisulfite (if he can use it) will take care of the chloramine (and any chlorine too).

It sounds as if an RO unit (and water softener to protect it) are in the future. This will cost some money depending on how you do it. A commercial RO skid will go a couple of K if it just dumps into the HLT (i.e. no atmospheric or pressure tanks, fancy controls etc). Homebrewers get by for much less than that by using systems intended for reef aquaria.

It's conceivable that this water could be 'fixed' by adding calcium sulfate and/or chloride and then boiling it which would drop out much of the alkalinity but the alkalinity would then just be replaced with chloride and sulfate which may already be at such levels that additional would take them to excess. Another approach would be the addition of phosphoric acid. This will remove the alkalinity but replace it with phosphates. None of these fixes will do anything for the sodium which must be pretty high given there isn't much of any other cation to balance the alkalinity. RO is the only way to deal with that.

No. Simple salt additions (calcium chloride for smoothness, calcium sulfate for accentuated, dry hops quality and both for calcium) are required. There is guidance on how to do this in the Primer but note that some acid will be needed for most beers.

mabrungard

Recipes 

You can, but the result is not very good. Aside from the impacts of low calcium on yeast health and flocculation, there is a blandness to the flavor in my opinion. At a minimum, brewers should add calcium salts as AJ indicates.

__________________
Martin Brungard, P.E. D.WRE
Carmel, IN
BJCP National
Foam Blowers of Indiana (FBI)
Brewing Water Information at:
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/

Grinder12000

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Sodium is at 106ppm I'll look into the Primer

__________________
Grinders Island Brewery - Pipeline (Batch #)

Secondary Kentucky Common(83)
Primary #1 Scottish Ale 70(84)
Primary #2 The Black Pearl Porter(85)

mabrungard

Recipes 

Sodium at 106 ppm is too high. You'll need to dilute with RO to bring that concentration into a 'nicer' range.

__________________
Martin Brungard, P.E. D.WRE
Carmel, IN
BJCP National
Foam Blowers of Indiana (FBI)
Brewing Water Information at:
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/

Grinder12000

Recipes 

So if I wanted to make a 5G (actually 30 G but I'll convert)batch that is about 5SRM - how could I do it chemically.

I can let the water sit overnight - that will help the bicarbonates right?

ajdelange

Recipes 

Your potential problems are with high alkalinity which is not accompanied by high hardness i.e. your water is essentially a solution of sodium bicarbonate. There are chemical methods you could use to remove the bicarbonate which I mentioned in #14 but, as I said in that post, those methods won't touch the sodium.

Clearly your best bet here is to dilute the water with RO or to pass it through an RO system, then put back enough calcium as the chloride or sulfate depending on style. This is all spelled out in the Primer.

The SRM of the beer has little to do with it.

No. If your water were hard and alkaline then it would be supersaturated with respect to calcium carbonate which would precipitate but that won't happen here because sodium bicarbonate is very soluble.

Grinder12000

Recipes 

ahhh!!! Thanks - I'll look at the Primer again - a few days ago it was a little much but I've learned more since that last try!