Please point me the to right thread. RO treatment.

Sorry for the band width. Please help me weed through the millions (so it seems) of threads on water treatment. I have such hard water that I have to go with grocery store RO water.

Please point me toward the appropriate thread which can get me adding the right ingredients to the water for, say, a generic APA. I can take it a bit further from there for Burton salts, etc. Just help me with a baseline.

Thanks,

Dave

All grain or extract? Big difference. It's more foolproof to build your water from scratch, but it's obviously the most expensive. If you get yourself a good water test done like from wardlab.com, you can cut your water with RO at some percentage so you don't have to use tons of salts.

I really like the spreadsheet discussed here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/ez-water-adjustment-spreadsheet-135095/

AG.

I had the report from my water dept., though I can't find it now (something like 400 hardness as I recall). Didn't have all the info I've read about, and didn't feel like having it tested further as the hardness of my local water is so high, it wasn't even worth looking at (so I thought). Didn't think about dilution.

Can you point me at something basic for complete RO treatment? Water is .99 for 2.5gal here. Don't mind paying a little to get it right.

Edit: Found part of the water report:

Tap water report from my local water guys:
Total Hardness (avg): 401
Iron AS FE mg/l: 0.1
Ph: 7.45-7.58
Total Alakalinity as CaCO3 (mg/l): 256
They didn't give me much else. PhosphateXortho=1.1

Thanks,

Dave

I've been using the recommendations at the top of this thread; seems to work.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/reverse-osmosis-water-users-108230/index2.html

The basic idea when starting with RO is to set the starting profile to all zeros and build up to whatever profile you want. It depends on what you want to brew.

Randy Mosher's "ideal" pale ale profile looks like:
110 18 17 50 350 70
Calcium Magnesium Sodium Chloride Sulfate Alkalinity
(Ca ppm) (Mg ppm) (Na ppm) (Cl ppm) (SO4 ppm) (CaCO3 ppm)

Something like this would be good for a pale ale on the copper end of the scale:

Starting Water:
Ca: 0 ppm
Mg: 0 ppm
Na: 0 ppm
Cl: 0 ppm
SO4: 0 ppm
HCO3: 0 ppm

Mash Vol: 5 gal
Dilution Rate: 0%

Adjustments:
CaCO3: 2 grams
CaSO4: 2 grams
CaCl2: 2 grams
MgSO4: 2 grams
NaHCO3: 1 grams
NaCl: 0 grams
HCL Acid: 0 ml
Lactic Acid: 0 ml

Results:
Ca: 95 ppm
Mg: 10 ppm
Na: 14 ppm
Cl: 51 ppm
SO4: 100 ppm
CaCO3: 83 ppm

RA: 10 (6 to 11 SRM)
Cl to SO4: 0.51 (Bitter)

I'm basing it just on meeting the typical minimums on Ca and Mg while keeping the CL/So4 ratio towards bitter.

jpalarchio said:

I've been using the recommendations at the top of this thread; seems to work.

Pelikan said:

I use RO water for the control it affords. Add the following:

-Buffer 5.2 = Verifies mash pH is in order.
-1 gram Epsom Salts, 2.5 grams Gypsum, 2 grams Calcium Chloride = Good "all around" water profile (unless you're brewing some seriously light styles). Calcium 60 ppm, Sulfates 94 ppm, Magnesium 5 ppm, Chloride 51 ppm.

The above assumes ~ 5.25 gallons (or thereabouts) volume out of the brew pot (after the boil/into the primary).

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Bobby_M said:

The basic idea when starting with RO is to set the starting profile to all zeros and build up to whatever profile you want. It depends on what you want to brew.

Randy Mosher's "ideal" pale ale profile looks like:
110 18 17 50 350 70
Calcium Magnesium Sodium Chloride Sulfate Alkalinity
(Ca ppm) (Mg ppm) (Na ppm) (Cl ppm) (SO4 ppm) (CaCO3 ppm)
[clip]
Adjustments:
CaCO3: 2 grams
CaSO4: 2 grams
CaCl2: 2 grams
MgSO4: 2 grams
NaHCO3: 1 grams
NaCl: 0 grams
[clip]
I'm basing it just on meeting the typical minimums on Ca and Mg while keeping the CL/So4 ratio towards bitter.

Click to expand...

Those are exactly what I've been looking for!:rockin: Thanks! Now, I'm trying to figure out the volume in tsp of 2 grams of (insert various additives here).

Thanks again.

Dave

I think the brewersfriend tool has it both in grams and volumetric. Obviously by weight is preferred but only if you have a really accurate scale.

Chalk CaCO3 grams
add 0.56 tsp
Baking Soda NaHCO3 grams
add 0.23 tsp
Gypsum CaSO4 grams
add 0.25 tsp
Calcium Chloride CaCl2 grams
add 0.29 tsp
Epsom Salt MgSO4 grams
add 0.22 tsp
Canning Salt NaCl grams
add 0.17 tsp

So,......

Do I put this in my strike water, sparge water, or boil kettle. Just thinking about it, I'd put 1/2 of this into the strike, 1/2 into the sparge, and call it good. Would that be right?

Thanks!

up in post #2 I linked to that spreadsheet. It has entries for how much strike you're using and what the sparge volume is (even though that portion of additions is made directly to the boil kettle). You have to add the salts proportionally so that you don't screw up your mash pH. The boil kettle additions are mostly the flavor components and not pH based. In any case, it will show you what to add directly into the mash and then the amount that goes into the BK.

Ok. I REALLY like this.

Now can we take this a bit further into the science part? There are a few styles listed in this spreadsheet:

Does anyone have a listing of styles or recommended water profiles beyond Mosher they would like to share?

Perhaps we could set up a water makeup database by style - Amer Blondes, English vs. American PA (including variations), porters, stouts, Belgians, etc.

That would be COOL! :fro:

Dave

There are so many opinions on idea profiles. Some books are really vague about it. I know that the well respected Ray Daniels "Designing Great Beers" gets into a few specifics but not to the point of listing exact numbers.