H2O treatment question...

Our water has:

CA - 71.3
MA - 48.3
CaCO3 - 377

Very good for dark beers, but not so good for lighter or even amber/brown. The adjust mash PH comes in at about 6.2 using Palmer's water nomograph.

What would be my best way get the mash PH lower to brew an amber/brown colored beer (SRM of around 15)? Would using distilled water for half of my total water be better than using brewing salts?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. If going the distilled water route, would I need to add Gypsum and, if so, how much should I add per gallon of water?

Thanks,

cp

CPooley4 said:

Would using distilled water for half of my total water be better than using brewing salts?


cp

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The whole point of diluting your water is to reduce the minerals. To add minerals would be the opposite of what you are trying to do. Unless you were deficient on certain minerals to begin with while others were high. For example maybe your calcium, magnesium and bicarb levels will benefit from dilution but your sodium level and sulfate are already low. By diluting the sodium and sulfate levels even further with distilled or RO water you might need to supplement them with some minerals. This is obviously a hypothetical situation as I don't know your complete water profile. Hopefully you have all the necessary mineral levels (Ca, Mg, Na, SO4, Cl and HCO3)

I would suggest using beersmith if you have it or brewater (free program). Both of these programs will allow you to enter a water profile that you want to hit such as Pilsen or whatever. Based on what you want your profile to be you can easily adjust the program by diluting the water or adding minerals to see how you can emulate that water. Very easy to use and I would not personally change my water without using either of the two. I'm new to this though.

Thanks for the reply - The only reason I asked about adding Gyspum back in is because it's listed as something to do in Palmer's book.

I'll take a look at brewater, thanks.

Gypsum is CaSO4 and from what I'm gathering you feel that you would like to reduce your calcium levels. By diluting with distilled you will reduce the calcium level but you will bring it right back up by adding gypsum. This is true as well for your sulfate (SO4) level.

I actually would need to increase my CA levels by quite a bit if all I was doing was adding brewing salts. My alkaninity is way too high for lighter colored beers (377) and I'd need to add about 279 ppm's of CA to get it to where I want it. I'm wondering if I should add back in CA if I dilute since I would have needed to add in the first place without diluting.

Probably best to reference BreWater, but if you (or anyone else) has other thoughts they'd be greatly appreciated.

There are a number of water chemistry calculators online. The one I use is at brewersfriend.com It is basically an online version of the How to Brew chapter on water.