Got my (houston) water report... a little help

Well I quit being cheap and just received my water report from ward labs. Its what I suspected, high bicarbonates:

pH 8.0
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est 359
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.60
Cations / Anions, me/L 6.3 / 6.4
ppm
Sodium, Na 118
Potassium, K 3
Calcium, Ca 16
Magnesium, Mg 4
Total Hardness, CaCO3 57
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 4
Chloride, Cl 47
Carbonate, CO3 6
Bicarbonate, HCO3 283
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 242

Anyhow, I have entered this into Brun'water (awesome by the way). Just playing around with my probable next brew (blue moon clone). I am diluting with 50 percent RO water and then adding 1.5 g/gallon gypsum and .4 g/gallon mgcl2 to get my mash ph to 5.5. But this is taking the sulfates way high to 220 or so. Would this be too high for a pale ale or IPA also??

Should I be diluting more or is there other nuetral ways to bring down the RA that I'm not thinking of.

Any other tips with this type of water appreciated too. thanks.

220 is pretty high. For something really hoppy I might go up to 150 or so. For a Blue Moon clone I'd try to get under 50ppm.

You could use pickling lime to reduce your alkalinity.
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Alkalinity_reduction_with_slaked_lime

That's how big breweries do it, but I don't think many homebrewers do it. I'm moving to Missouri soon, so I might need to try that myself.

thanks. yeah I just need to mess around with the different spread sheets for a week or two to get a feeling.

A couple of real questions though:

Will adding campden tablets to remove chloramine affect any of my mineral contents???

Other than reducing the mash Ph, does acid malt significantly affect the flavor... Sour flavor????

I would do this, to brew a blue moon assuming 5gal batch:
Add 3g calcium chloride and 3g of epsum salt. Your PH would be 5.54 and you would have a good amount of calcium (51) and Magnesium(17).
Then add 2ml or 2.4g of lactic acid to lower PH to 5.4.
Your sulfate would be 68.

Note.: I'm using EZ water calculator and I have a -0.2 correction factor on top of the original mash PH calculation, which I found necessary to true up the results based on real data from my batches. I do have a calibrated PH meter which I use to check mash PH.

With water such as this (high alkalinity, high sodium, low hardness) I'd probably throw up my hands and dilute 9+1 or 10+1 with RO/DI or use straight RO. In either case I'd supplement calcium with some calcium chloride and/or sulfate for hop-forward beers. pH control is very important but there are limits as to what you can do as it takes 3.5 meq of calcium to "neutralize" 1 meq of alkalinity. pH is better controlled with sauermalz (or lactic or other acid).

Yes, sauermalz will add flavor but at normal levels (2-3% of grist) the flavors will be of nuanced complexity which add to the beer in a positive way.

Yes, adding campden tablets (bisulfite) which react which chloramine result in increased chloride (good), sulfate (not good) and ammonium ion (good - yeast food). As the amounts of all of these produced is small, you need not worry about any of them.

Well, I guess I have a new use for that empty 5 gallon carbon in my closet... buying ro water. Thanks for the help. I'll see what I can do.

Hey captain, what part of Houston do you hail from?

North side. Spring. Just south of rayford sawdust. You sound like a KGB member??

I'm South Side - League City. Heard of KGB but I don't have time for any of that right now. My job is starting to get in the way of my hobby lately!

Interesting. Do you know of this is the same water supply as we use in the woodlands? I've suspected high bicarbonate, and the water out of the tap has a strong chlorine smell. So far I've just been buying 2 gal jugs of water at the H.E.B. for brewing...

I concur with the need to dilute this water. The high sodium calls for the dilution.

Nateo mentioned using lime for alkalinity reduction with this water, but its not going to work well. While I'm a fan of this process, there isn't enough calcium in the water to complete that dealkification reaction. You would actually have to add calcium in the form of gypsum or calcium chloride to provide enough calcium for the reaction to take place and the resulting calcium carbonate to precipitate out of solution.

Given the elevated sodium and fairly low calcium and magnesium, its possible that the water company is using large scale ion-exchange softening to knock out some of the hardness. My city does that and quite a few water companies in the Midwest do also.

Lactic acid does have taste impact at elevated concentration. Acid Malt is just another method of adding Lactic Acid. But if this water is diluted, the required acid addition is cut proportionally. Another option is to use phosphoric acid for this duty since it is more flavor-neutral.

rothj617 said:

Interesting. Do you know of this is the same water supply as we use in the woodlands?

Click to expand...

The Woodlands MUD gets their water from wells...I believe most of the other MUD's in the area do also. The City of Houston gets their water from Lake Houston.

rothj617 said:

Interesting. Do you know of this is the same water supply as we use in the woodlands? I've suspected high bicarbonate, and the water out of the tap has a strong chlorine smell. So far I've just been buying 2 gal jugs of water at the H.E.B. for brewing...

Click to expand...

I've actually been using 5 gallon refillable jugs at $1.50 for high quality super clean water, though I don't know if you are doing full boil or not.

Yeah, I'm the newest comrade of the KGB. That was an excellent crawfish boil.

I'm out in Katy we have horrible water as well I use the spring water from Heb where do you get your refillable five gallon filled at could save me a few bucks?

ouch... that's hard water ;o(

calebawilson said:

I'm out in Katy we have horrible water as well I use the spring water from Heb where do you get your refillable five gallon filled at could save me a few bucks?

Click to expand...

Most grocery stores... HEB, Kroger, Randals.... and some hardware stores like Lowes too... have a water dispenser somewhere near one of the entrances. You can also usually buy a water jug already filled, but the 5 gallon refills in a used jug are only $1.50 on average. And when you recycle the jugs at store if it leaks perhaps, you can usually get a $7 off voucher for a new filled jug.

I am in Northgate crossing MUD #2, I'm sure the woodlands water is pretty similar.

I'm going to use my 5 gallon glass carboy and get it filled at those water machines. I was under the impression that the water is Reverse Osmosis water. If not I'll buy 5 gallons to mix with 2 or so gallons of my tap water for my blue moon and mix a little salts
.
I'm actually a member of the KGB, I just haven't been to a meeting yet. I seem to work every weekend they have a meeting. ughh. See you there eventually...

Spring isn't part of the City of Houston water system as far as I can see from the city's published documents. I was under the impression that Spring had its own MUD.

http://documents.publicworks.housto...sions/utilities/water_quality_report_2008.pdf

Of course, I imagine that CoH water is no better, but I brew with it anyway. (undiluted no less)

That's better than the water in Bryan/College Station. Our water has like 200ppm sodium and 600ppm carbonate. It's absolutely worthless for everything except flushing the toilet. Doesn't make very good tea either.

Ok, so I'm ready to give this water thing a shot.

But the question is, which is the best way to go? My water is coming from Lake Houston too, and I know nothing of how to get my water analyzed and fixed. Is it better to do this, or is it easier to just go with the refillable bottle option from the grocery stores?

My beers have been good, but if this takes them to a higher level than I'm all for it

Cheers

If you don't mind paying for it and lugging it or shelling out for a system that produces it, RO is clearly the simplest and easiest way to go. You can, at first, add a couple of salts (see the Primer here) and be on the way to better beer. Or you can get as elaborate as you want by using the spreadsheets to determine salt additions to emulate a particular profile (and they furnish several profiles to choose from).

As AJ says, RO is a very good option. But, be careful with spreadsheets. If your water already has elevated levels of some ions, its easy to overdose the brewing water with excessive ion content. The best solution is DILUTION, but be sure to choose a spreadsheet that guides and warns you when you're adding too much to your brewing water.

Hate to admit it but I don't know that much about water. RO is just distilled water, right? The stuff you can buy anywhere? It's not de-ionized water I'm sure.

So what about a system? I'll pay to install one if it's worth it and I can find out what I need to look into to do it right.

Or dilution? That almost sounds too complicated to get the dilution % just right but I really don't know anything about that either.