Using R/O water for brewing.

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Tmeister

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I used Reverse Osmosis water for a vienna that was lagered about 3 weeks. I'm currently drinking it now, and it does taste good. But, of course I want to improve it. It's not very crisp and the flavors don't seem to pop out very much. Is this a result of using such soft water? No brewing salts were added to this brew. Thanks for the help.
 
I used Reverse Osmosis water for a vienna that was lagered about 3 weeks. I'm currently drinking it now, and it does taste good. But, of course I want to improve it. It's not very crisp and the flavors don't seem to pop out very much. Is this a result of using such soft water? No brewing salts were added to this brew. Thanks for the help.

R/O water is not ideal for brewing. You need the mineral content for taste, perception of hop bitterness, and even for pH balance of the mash.

If you want to build your water to your specification, it can be great. Otherwise, I wouldn't use it. It will leave your beer more lifeless than you will really be happy with.
 
+1 RO water is ideal if you want to build your water up from scratch because you always know exactly where your starting point is. Using RO water straight up for your beer will not give you an ideal beer however. The darker the beer, the further from ideal RO water is. On top of no PH buffering capability, and no ability to make the hops or malt "pop" more in the finished beer, there are also several minerals in standard water that are beneficial to yeast health that will not be present in RO water.
 
I think RO or distilled water can work fine for an extract batch. I'm assuming this was an all grain batch?

No doubt. Mineral content will still have an effect on the perceptibility of hop characteristics, but in terms of mash pH and characteristics, the extract manufacturer has already taken that into account. For my AG batches (and specifically my pale ales, bitters, and IPAs) I cut my tap water on a 4/7 ratio with RO (distilled water). That is specific to my tap water and will need to be adjusted for yours...then, I add the appropriate mineral additions to hit my target water profile (in this case, Mosher's Ideal Pale Ale profile). Water profile CANNOT be stressed enough. It is the #1 ingredient in ANY beer. For excellent beer, it needs to be right. I learned the hard way.
 
thanks for the replys, yes it is an all grain batch and I have it in a keg right now. And I'm assuming that adding brewing salts to the keg at this point is a bad idea ha ha?
 
It would be awesome if there was a reference chart listing what needs to be added to R/O water to meet the water profile of specific styles.
 
It would be awesome if there was a reference chart listing what needs to be added to R/O water to meet the water profile of specific styles.

I second that, my water is so bad I almost need to strain it before drinking, if there was a list to refer to for building R/O water I would do a little happy dance for the brew gods
 
It would be awesome if there was a reference chart listing what needs to be added to R/O water to meet the water profile of specific styles.

this was mentioned in another thread. i would totally donate some money to someone who came up with this chart.

it blows my mind there isn't one already.
 
We have enough brain power here on HBT to pull this off. I would be more than happy to devote some time to it. It would be ideal if someone with a chemistry background could supervise the project.

Here is a couple ideas:

Identify which styles to cover. Decide on the ideal water profile for each style. Decide on baseline R/O profile. Layout a spreadsheet with "styles" in the rows and "additives" in the columns. From there it's just doing the legwork to fill in the chart.

Maybe those who want to help on the project are given 3 styles to profile. Multiple people working on the same style would help reduce errors.


Just thinking out loud...
 
We have enough brain power here on HBT to pull this off. I would be more than happy to devote some time to it. It would be ideal if someone with a chemistry background could supervise the project.

Here is a couple ideas:

Identify which styles to cover. Decide on the ideal water profile for each style. Decide on baseline R/O profile. Layout a spreadsheet with "styles" in the rows and "additives" in the columns. From there it's just doing the legwork to fill in the chart.

Maybe those who want to help on the project are given 3 styles to profile. Multiple people working on the same style would help reduce errors.


Just thinking out loud...

This is a great idea. I wish I could help but I've only dipped my pinky toe in the pool of water chemistry. It would definately help out tons of people, i'm sure.
 
You may want to group styles by their color as the roast of the malt affects pH which affects the mash conversion. You also have the sulphur/bitterness link, but that is another issue, although less important than pH.

There are several water chemistry tools available that will build your water from any starting point (including RO) to any particular profile you want. I have one posted in the forum (link) and I know there are several others as well in the software forum. You can also find the water profiles for famous brewing cities throughout the world in several places on the web. Targeting the water of a specific city and knowing what style beer that city is famous for is a good place to start in creating brew water for a specific style.
 
We have enough brain power here on HBT to pull this off. I would be more than happy to devote some time to it. It would be ideal if someone with a chemistry background could supervise the project.

Here is a couple ideas:

Identify which styles to cover. Decide on the ideal water profile for each style. Decide on baseline R/O profile. Layout a spreadsheet with "styles" in the rows and "additives" in the columns. From there it's just doing the legwork to fill in the chart.

Maybe those who want to help on the project are given 3 styles to profile. Multiple people working on the same style would help reduce errors.


Just thinking out loud...

I would be more than willing to help out with some water profiles. Just let me know via PM or whatever if you figure out a tentative plan.
 
What a lot of us I think would like is a basic chart with additions to brew different styles based on R/O water building. the tools I have looked at seem good for getting the additions needed to make a profile that is known to the builder, a lot of us dont know much more than the style, let alone the base profile to build up to. if I wanted to build water for an APA using a water tool, I feel like I would need to find the water profile for a brewery like say Sierra Nevadas water, then try to build from there entering all the minerals ect. if a chart was compiled it would be like a "waterbuilding for dummies" book. it doesnt need to be super detailed, just a jumping off point for those of us who are just getting into water science, to get us started in the right direction, then we can tweak using a water tool once confident enough to do so.
 
This is a great idea. Water chemisty is aggregating to me. I now use brewing salt additions to my beer, but they are not precise. the salt additions on this potential chart will have to be in scale with a batch size. Like for a 5.5 gal or a 11 gal batch. I would be in for picking up a couple styles to research. Thing is how to we organize something like this? arturo7 maybe ill pm you and we can talk about this. Would anyone else want to contribute?
 
Ya that would work. make the additions for only one gallon. We have 5 water salts we should include: Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Chloride, Sodium Chloride, Magnesium Sulfate, Calcium Carbonate. If we list these on the top of a graph horizontally and then list beer styles vertically on the left we can create our graph. But I would prefer if we didn't just list the mineral concentrations needed for that style, but go the extra mile and figure out per gram, how much of each water salt is needed to acheve the closest mineral concentrations for that style.
We are going to have to assume an average city water profile, and a R/O system that will filter out...I think most R/O systems filter out about 90-95% of everything.
 
I think we can assume that all R/O water is the same, regardless of the input source. Anyone want to confirm or refute that?
 
We have 5 water salts we should include: Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Chloride, Sodium Chloride, Magnesium Sulfate, Calcium Carbonate.

Going by Beersmith, there are 6 salts to be considered. Those listed above plus sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), aka baking soda.

Again, anyone want to confirm or refute that?

Are there other salts/minerals that should be considered?
 
I think we can assume that all R/O water is the same, regardless of the input source. Anyone want to confirm or refute that?

Thats a reasonably safe assumption. RO strips about 95% of everything, so if your water is reasonable, it should be pretty similar across the board (sorry phoenix and your 1500ppm tds)
 
Thats a reasonably safe assumption. RO strips about 95% of everything, so if your water is reasonable, it should be pretty similar across the board (sorry phoenix and your 1500ppm tds)

Maricopas well water also has Arsenic and Uranium! so would that mean that if I had an in home RO system, that my filters would be classified as hazardous waste? :rockin:
 
I think we can assume that all R/O water is the same, regardless of the input source. Anyone want to confirm or refute that?

I will refute. RO is system dependent and thus will only filter out what that system is capable of when you install fresh filters. Then it degrades in performance until you replace filters. At some point the membranes also need replacing. Not all RO systems are created equal. RO systems also require the correct water pressure to get the most filtering performance.

Therefore I would bet that RO water is rather varied.
 
samc, after doing a bit of searching today, I think I will agree with you.

Very few of the bottled water suppliers have their WQR online. Still fewer give a detailed report that lists the ions we're interested in as brewers.

The levels of these salts are consistently lower than tap water but the levels aren't that consistent from report to report. In addition, the range of values given within these reports can be so wide they render the entire report useless.
 
samc, after doing a bit of searching today, I think I will agree with you.

Very few of the bottled water suppliers have their WQR online. Still fewer give a detailed report that lists the ions we're interested in as brewers.

The levels of these salts are consistently lower than tap water but the levels aren't that consistent from report to report. In addition, the range of values given within these reports can be so wide they render the entire report useless.

A well maintained RO will strip 95% of pretty much everything. A well maintained RO/DI will strip pretty much everything.
 
Doing some more homework this morning. The more I read the more I realize how limited my knowledge is on this subject. I imagine those that know WTF goes on with all of this chemistry are sitting on the sidelines getting a good chuckle out of this thread.
 
I'm new to this whole beer making process...but it sure disappoints me to go back to purchasing drinking water at the store when I invested in the water softener and RO system. My knowledge to is very limited on this subject but I would love to have such a table...
 
is there any way to get Mg without overloading SO4?

to emulate, say, milwaukee water (47ppm Mg, 26ppm SO4) you need relatively high Mg and relatively low SO4.

Is epsom salt the only way to get Mg? It has too high levels SO4....
 
Subscribed.. im just starting to dabble with water chemistry. I also recently purchased a 5 stage RO system so I can start to collect my brewing water. It would be awsome if that spreadsheet exists so I can do quick reference.

I still want to study the ions and figure out additions on my own but Id like to be able to check it.
 
there are several programs out there that do all of the calculations for you

http://home.roadrunner.com/~brewbeer/index.html#Software

is one, and its pretty good, and those that say they only know styles and not water profiles, well if you know a style you know where it was that made it famous right? whammo thats you water profile to use, and you can get your water profile from your locat utility

About the Mg, and SO4 for Milwaukee water, the only issue I have with most brewing salts calculators is that they dont take other minerals into the equation, i.e. iron, sometimes you just cant balance the water without additional ions/cations, and using other salts (if you can get them) can help with this, as far as the pH is concerned beersmith is terrible at salts calculations because it doesnt take this into account, it just blindly assumes that it will be dissolved and in the form you want
 
So which styles do we want to cover?

If possible, put your suggestion in the form of a water profile. Don't worry about duplication and/or conflicting profiles. We can hash out the details as we progress.

(I'll come back with a couple later today)
 
is there any way to get Mg without overloading SO4?

to emulate, say, milwaukee water (47ppm Mg, 26ppm SO4) you need relatively high Mg and relatively low SO4.

Is epsom salt the only way to get Mg? It has too high levels SO4....

MgCl2 would be another Mg source, but it's use would depend on your chloride levels. A pharmacy or a health food store should stock magnesium chloride supplements (Magnacaps or Uro-Mag). I can't find a product sheet for these supplements, so I don't know if there is any filler that's compressed into the tablet.
 
I imagine those that know WTF goes on with all of this chemistry are sitting on the sidelines getting a good chuckle out of this thread.

chuckle chuckle...

j/k. I wouldn't consider myself an expert but I will suggest that even though I think you have a good idea here, I would keep in mind that each style has quite a range of colors, IBU's, etc. and I'm not sure that one-size-fits-all profiles will work so well for each style. For example, IPA's can have an SRM of 6, or an SRM of 15. I would likely adjust my water (particularly Residual Alkalinity) differently in each of those two cases.

I'm not saying to give up, keep working it out and maybe something will come from this that I can incorporate my spreadsheet (see sig). I'll try to help out too along the way...
 
Just a thought...


Could this be as easy as using a mash pH stabilizer and adjusting the chloride to sulfate ratio to meet the desired SRM?
 
When adjusting your water you are really trying to do these 3 things at once:

#1. Get the Residual Alkalinity (RA) of your water to a level that coincides with the color (SRM) of your recipe. This is to ensure that your mash will be at the proper pH.

#2. Get the Cloride to Sulfate ratio within a range that corresponds to the style you are brewing (ie. bitter, balanced, malty). This is will enhance flavor.

#3. Get the individual minerals (Ca, Mg, Na, Cl, SO4) to acceptable (or even desirable) levels. Keep in mind that by the time you accomplish items #1 and #2, it becomes difficult to manipulate these much anymore, except for maybe as a whole or groups. I personally shoot for Palmer's recommended ranges. Some try to match city profiles or I suppose you could try to come up with profiles by style, but like I said you probably won't have the freedom to do much other than get within Palmer's ranges. Palmer discusses mineral levels here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-1.html scroll down some.

Check out my spreadsheet at www.ezwatercalculator.com if you haven't already and play around with it.
 
I use RO water, and after doing a little research, I am making water profiles in beersmith for Cream ales, pale ales, amber, brown, IPA, and stout. I just make the profiles based on other reviews/recommendations I find. I am not sure how to tweek them myself yet. They all taste pretty good so far.
 

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