A Brewing Water Chemistry Primer

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I bought a house this summer and couldn't drink the water because it contained 300 mg/L bicarbonate. So we went to the super market and bought spring water. It wasn't much better. Bicarbonate 200 mg/L. Yuck. How can anyone drink that stuff? The message is that some bottled water contains a lot of bicarbonate. The first holding of a brewing water chemist is "bicarbonate = bad". So no, I would not brew with this water until I had measured the alkalinity.
 
Thanks for the reply. I really bought the stuff for the container, so now I'll get some $0.40/gal RO. Going to add minerals per you're original recs for baseline. If that improves the beer, then I will dig a little farther into this chemistry business!
 
would this primer work for the BIAB (brew in a bag) method? would additions remain the same? i was planning on brewing a cream ale this week, but do not have any of the required additions yet. i may have to make a run to my nearest LHBS. i have been extract brewing with water out of a natural spring close to where i live, the measured ph was 8.3, and the only other thing i know about it is the total hardness is 220ppm. with this being my first attempt at all grain, i want to make the best of it. i have a ph meter. would i be ok mixing ro water with the spring water, along with the additions mentioned in the primer?
 
Don't know anything about BIAB but as it does not apparently involve extract conversion of grain starches to sugars must be involved. Thus the principles of the Primer would apply.

If you check the Primer again you will see that the additions are only made to low ion content water such as RO water, DI water or water that is naturally low in minerals like that of the Pacific northwest. In your case you are sporting appreciable hardness and a high pH which suggests that there will be a lot of alkalinity. Thus you will need to add acid in some form to get pH low enough.

You should get an analysis of your water. Ward labs does it for, I think, $25 or something like that. The best advice I can give with what you know at this point is to dilute your water with RO water in a 1:9 ratio. This will reduce your hardness to 22 and also lower the alkalinity by the same ratio. At that point the water is considered soft enough that the Primer recommended additions apply.
 
ok, gotcha. is it worth fussing with the 1/9 ration to keep some of the hardness? interesting thread, and one of the simplest i have found yet. water chemistry is not something i (or probably most brewers) want to go greatly in depth with, so this really helps. any idea what culligan bottled water is? thanks for this thread!
 
Many people (including me) keep 10% of the tap water just to maintain "traces" of the other mineral in the tap water. It's not really necessary (because of the mineral content of the malt) but it is somehow comforting.

No idea about the Culligan water. The analysis should be either on the label or on their website or available from Culligan.
 
ok, this might be another odd question. with biab brewing, you start out with all of your boil water at once. so i would have 7.5 gallons in my brew kettle for a 60 minute boil roughly. would i add the same amount of salts and Sauermalz per the primer, or would i need to add more? would it be better to start with a lower volume for mashing, then top off with ro/di water before i start the boil? if so, would i need to treat the top off water also? does the ph matter after the mashing is complete? i hope i am not bringing this thread off topic too much.
 
If you are taking this too far off topic the moderator will move it to a new thread and that has been done in the past.

The pH does matter after the mash is complete. In general if the mash pH is correct the pH will be proper for all the other steps. For example, if mash pH is 5.3 - 5.4 the pH at the completion of the boil will probably fall between 5.1 and 5.2. If this is not the case the brewer can add acid or, in some cases, additional salts to the kettle and some do this. But these are not the KISS techniques of KISS the primer. Depending on the size of the "HLT" it is usually simplest to treat the entire volume of water to be used in the brew for whatever purpose at the outset. There is another reason for doing it this way and that is that some of the calcium added to the mash water will be precipitated in the mash and kette. If you want to carry calcium over to the fermenter (and you usually do) you would want the makeup and sparge water to contain calcium as well Conversely sulfate and chloride will be concentrated in the boil so as you can see you can make this pretty complicated if you want to. Much easiest (IMO) to treat all the water the same way at one time.
 
ok, i missed the part in the primer where it said "to each 5 gallons of water treated", sorry about that.

say i started out with the 7.5 gallons in my kettle, i would add 1.5 tsp of calcium chloride, correct? now, is the sauermalz addition 2% per 5 gallons also? would i up it to 3% to treat the entire 7.5 gallons, or would one be better off started at 2%, mash, check ph and add more if needed?
 
say i started out with the 7.5 gallons in my kettle, i would add 1.5 tsp of calcium chloride, correct?

Yes

... now, is the sauermalz addition 2% per 5 gallons also? would i up it to 3% to treat the entire 7.5 gallons, or would one be better off started at 2%, mash, check ph and add more if needed?

No. In the case of the sauermalz it it specified as a percentage of the grain bill. Thus if you are mashing 10 lbs of grain 2% means 0.2 lbs (3.2 Oz).

If you own a pH meter it is always best to add part of the acid, in whatever form, check pH and add the rest if necessary. But the problem with doing that with sauermalz is that it takes 15 - 20 min. for the pH to stabilize after dough in. Thus if you were hoping for pH 5.3 and got pH 5.4 with 2% sauermalz it is probably better to just go ahead with that rather than add the additional 1%. Next time you brew this beer add the extra 1% at mash in.
 
right, 2% of the grain, duh, my neurons are misfiring today. if one was going to go over a ph of 5.5, would adding straight lactic acid instead of sauermalz be a quicker way to lower it? if the ph was going to be under 5.1, would adding Calcium Carbonate be the answer?
 
Lactic acid reacts (AFAIK - I don't use it) faster than sauermalz and that is it's principal advantage. With sauermalz it's easier to compute the dose, easier to measure it out and easier to handle it plus the sauermalz adds delicate flavor complexities which work well with lagers.

If mash pH measures below 5.1 then yes, calcium carbonate is the traditional alkali used to raise it (though other alkali such as lime may actually be better for this purpose).
 
hmm lime, eh? i will have to do some reading on that. well, we should get to brew via this method on friday. hopefully all goes well, i will be watching the ph to see how this all works. i will let you know how it goes, thanks again for this thread, and the help aj, its been great!
 
With chalk H+ gets sucked up by, first

H+ + CaCO3 --> HCO3- + Ca++

and then

H+ + Ca++ + HCO3- --> CO2 + H2O + Ca++

At pH 5.2 almost 5% of the total moles of CaCO3 remain in the solution as bicarbonate. This doesn't taste very good. In addition, chalk dissolves very slowly at brewing pH and so between this and the residual bicarb one does not get the total amount of neutralizing power one expects.

With (slaked) lime it's

2H+ + Ca(OH)2 --> 2H2O + Ca++

This happens faster and the only neutralization product is water. The problem here is that it's easy to overshoot i.e. raise the pH too much. Proceed with care.
 
I noticed on TH's Spreadsheet (ver. 3.0.1) the following disclaimer:

Calculations for chalk's true affect on pH are very complex and may require an acid to fully dissolve. This spreadsheet uses half of chalk's full potential based on experimental data w/o acid addition. Results may vary.

Is this correct? One can expect up to 1/2 the buffering capacity of chalk without dissolving in carbonic acid? I'm aware that it depends greatly on the makeup of the water used, but I was under the impression that nearly all the chalk remained in suspension without dissolving in acid.
 
A liter of water to which 100 mg of chalk has been added and through which CO2 has been bubbled to dissolve the chalk and bring the pH to 7 has an alkalinity of 102. If the chalk has been dissolved by and the pH adjusted to 7 with a strong acid such as HCl the alkalinity is 40.5. If phosphoric acid is used to do the same thing the alkalinity will be 57. So yes, it is a bit tricky to calculate the alkalinity due to a chalk addition accurately except when CO2 is used i.e. the method of nature but hardly the method of choice for home brewers. With CO2 the alkalinity is the number of mg/L CaCO3 plus a small number like 2. pH dependence isn't that great. With the other acids the alkalinity is more strongly dependent on the pH and is about half the amount of chalk per liter. Hence this approximation in the spreadsheets which:
1) Do not allow the use of CO2 as an acid
2) Do not ask about the pH's of the source and treated water.
(AFAIK)

If one does not use any acid then nearly all the chalk will remain in suspension. But chalk in suspension does contribute to the alkalinity and does have a pH raising effect on mash.
 
A liter of water to which 100 mg of chalk has been added and through which CO2 has been bubbled to dissolve the chalk and bring the pH to 7 has an alkalinity of 102. If the chalk has been dissolved by and the pH adjusted to 7 with a strong acid such as HCl the alkalinity is 40.5. If phosphoric acid is used to do the same thing the alkalinity will be 57. So yes, it is a bit tricky to calculate the alkalinity due to a chalk addition accurately except when CO2 is used i.e. the method of nature but hardly the method of choice for home brewers. With CO2 the alkalinity is the number of mg/L CaCO3 plus a small number like 2. pH dependence isn't that great. With the other acids the alkalinity is more strongly dependent on the pH and is about half the amount of chalk per liter. Hence this approximation in the spreadsheets which:
1) Do not allow the use of CO2 as an acid
2) Do not ask about the pH's of the source and treated water.
(AFAIK)

If one does not use any acid then nearly all the chalk will remain in suspension. But chalk in suspension does contribute to the alkalinity and does have a pH raising effect on mash.

Thanks AJ. That answers my question.
 
AJ, I have read through this Primer and have some summery observations that I would appreciate confirmed if you could along with a few questions.

Your “Baseline Water” is defined to be of low mineral content (< 20 ppm Ca, Cl, SO4, Na) and low alkalinity (<35 HCO3 as CaCO3) acquired via RO, distilled, and/or dilution. To this one adds CaCl2 to increase both the Ca and Cl and sauermalz to reduce alkalinity. Depending on style of beer brewed the amount of added CaCl2 and sauermalz increases. And, again depending on style, CaSO4 (gypsum) may also be added. Principally, the goal of these salt and malt additions is to create a mash pH, measured at RT, ranging from 5.1 to 5.5. But ideally, 5.3 to 5.4. The secondary effects of the added Cl and SO4 are to move the water profiles to accent malt or hops respectively. Correct?

My puzzlement is that the Baseline water alkalinity is already very low and the sauermalz along with the Ca reduce its influence further. It appears you are seeking to hammer alkalinity. I don’t fully understand the reasoning.

I agree with your view that since correct mash pH is the principle goal of all this water chemistry let’s measurement it directly with a meter instead of inferring it with dogma augmented with mathematics of uncertain accuracy. The math is needed to get one into the right general regime, but the measurement provides the necessary tuning and confirmation.

I read your two Alkalinity papers of a number of years ago. It was/is excellent work in both scope and depth. I’m sure in the intervening years your knowledge has increased. In those papers you addressed Residual Alkalinity (RA) so it must have been important, at least at the time. You made no linkage then to SRM and allowable/desired RA as is done today. In your current view, is such a linkage needed or even exist with mathematical certitude?

Your baseline water and its plused-up variations never have the brewer adding alkalinity (via say CaCO3) as SRM increases with the style brewed. It appears that the baseline water, and its variations, will have negative RA. Thus would only be appropriate to styles of low SRM. It seems rational that if one sought a style of high SRM, say 20 or greater, the darker/roasted malts would drop the mash pH below 5.1 (measured at RT). Do you have an unstated view that this doesn’t happen? Or are you indirectly stating let’s make the mash, measure its pH, and add CaCO3 based on results?

Separately, much is made of distilled water mash pH of light colored base malt. In your second Alkalinity paper you indicated this should result in a pH around 5.7 to 5.8 (measured at RT I assume). I have seen this number reported elsewhere. Yet we seek a mash pH of around 5.3 to 5.4. As there is no Alkalinity in distilled water to buffer the pH drop, is the lack of a drop due to a lack of Ca? As a test, I did a distilled water mini-mash (only German Pils malt, 1.5 qt mash water to 1 lb grain, 155F). Using a pH meter well calibrated at RT I measured the pH at RT to be 5.6. Close to a 5.75 mid-point, yet low and well above the desired 5.3.
 
Your “Baseline Water” is defined to be of low mineral content (< 20 ppm Ca, Cl, SO4, Na) and low alkalinity (<35 HCO3 as CaCO3) acquired via RO, distilled, and/or dilution. To this one adds CaCl2 to increase both the Ca and Cl and sauermalz to reduce alkalinity. Depending on style of beer brewed the amount of added CaCl2 and sauermalz increases. And, again depending on style, CaSO4 (gypsum) may also be added. Principally, the goal of these salt and malt additions is to create a mash pH, measured at RT, ranging from 5.1 to 5.5. But ideally, 5.3 to 5.4. The secondary effects of the added Cl and SO4 are to move the water profiles to accent malt or hops respectively. Correct?
Correct

My puzzlement is that the Baseline water alkalinity is already very low and the sauermalz along with the Ca reduce its influence further. It appears you are seeking to hammer alkalinity. I don’t fully understand the reasoning.

Correct again. The general philosophy is to remove everything from the water and then put back what you need. Whereas you almost always want some calcium and chloride and often want some sulfate you seldom want alkalinity because it raises mash pH. In fact in most beers 0 alkalinity is too much which means that in addition to removing all the alkalinity (or as much as you can) you usually need to add acid (negative alkakinity), In the cases where alkalinity is required in making a particular beer then you simply add it back in - but to the mash as you can check mash pH (which is what you are trying to control) as you go.

I agree with your view that since correct mash pH is the principle goal of all this water chemistry let’s measurement it directly with a meter instead of inferring it with dogma augmented with mathematics of uncertain accuracy. The math is needed to get one into the right general regime, but the measurement provides the necessary tuning and confirmation.

Roger that.

I read your two Alkalinity papers of a number of years ago. It was/is excellent work in both scope and depth. I’m sure in the intervening years your knowledge has increased. In those papers you addressed Residual Alkalinity (RA) so it must have been important, at least at the time.

I am, I hope, a bit wiser now than I was then. I just reread those papers yesterday and they should be re - written. Yes I put lots of emphasis on RA then because it seemed a straw worth grasping at. I note that several that came along after me have come to the same conclusion and I have to allow that I may be, at least in part, responsible for that. There is nothing wrong with RA when it is used for he purpose for which it was intended: comparing waters. I'm not really on board with using it for much more than that. If you could hang more on it that that it would be great but I don't feel that you can. This is where I differ with some of the other water types.

You made no linkage then to SRM and allowable/desired RA as is done today. In your current view, is such a linkage needed or even exist with mathematical certitude?

I think I can say with mathematical certitude that there is a correlation between RA and SRM but that it is so weak (Pearson's r is small) that there is little justification for using color to determine a "required" RA. John Palmer, who came up with the idea, says the same thing but no one seems to want to acknowledge this.

Your baseline water and its plused-up variations never have the brewer adding alkalinity (via say CaCO3) as SRM increases with the style brewed.
No, because as noted earlier, it is seldom required and I don't know how to predict that it is using a process anywhere near as simple as taking a pH measurement of the mash. So that's what I advocate doing. Measure mash pH. If it is too low, add alkali until it isn't.

It appears that the baseline water, and its variations, will have negative RA.

Yes.


Thus would only be appropriate to styles of low SRM.

That would be true if there were a strong correlation between color and RA but there isn't.

It seems rational that if one sought a style of high SRM, say 20 or greater, the darker/roasted malts would drop the mash pH below 5.1 (measured at RT).

That's the problem with it. It seems so logical and it is to some extent. The mash pH will be lower when dark malts are present - just not to the extent that the popular spreadsheets and calculators predict. And they are better now than they used to be by a long shot. Some dark beers actually need acid (the stout I brewed last week) even though they are quite dark. Adding alkali would obviously move the pH of these beers in the wrong direction.

Do you have an unstated view that this doesn’t happen?

It's hardly unstated. I yell this as loud as I can anywhere I think people may be listening.

Or are you indirectly stating let’s make the mash, measure its pH, and add CaCO3 based on results?

Again I so 'no' and again it is because I state this as plainly as I can at every opportunity. A measurement (properly made) is always better than a prediction or the guidance of a set of rules of thumb.

Separately, much is made of distilled water mash pH of light colored base malt. In your second Alkalinity paper you indicated this should result in a pH around 5.7 to 5.8 (measured at RT I assume). I have seen this number reported elsewhere. Yet we seek a mash pH of around 5.3 to 5.4. As there is no Alkalinity in distilled water to buffer the pH drop, is the lack of a drop due to a lack of Ca? As a test, I did a distilled water mini-mash (only German Pils malt, 1.5 qt mash water to 1 lb grain, 155F). Using a pH meter well calibrated at RT I measured the pH at RT to be 5.6. Close to a 5.75 mid-point, yet low and well above the desired 5.3.

Which malt? That's pretty low for a German malt. Some of the British Pale Ale malts read that low as a matter of course but the German Pilsner malts generally come in at around 5.75 or higher. But you are right - we want lower and we can get part of the way there by adding calcium. Problem is that calcium doesn't take you very far and is not an option if you want a soft water beer. This is where acid comes in. If you added 3% sauermalz to the test mash you made your pH would be about 5.3 without increasing calcium at all (but some calcium relative to DI water is doubtless a good idea).
 
AJ thanks for the detailed reply.

I'm hearing the message. Measure Measure Measure Therein lies truth.

I too saw the RA straw, and being mathematically inclined latched on to it. That and chemical equilibrium equations and solubility constants are kinda fun to play with. But I was troubled by the effectively large error bars for SRM that bracketed a given RA. I was never able to find the original work behind it and thus accepted the relationship as truth. Many were repeating it and it was widely published. Yet my instinct was nagging me, how is 4 oz of black patent and say 3 lbs of crystal equivalent in Alkalinity reduction. A 12 fold increase in acidity on a per weight basis just due to higher kiln temperature didn't seem right.

I'm also hearing something else in your reply, something I have not heard elsewhere (or at least have not been able to internalize). That is one should meaningfully bias the mash water downward from neutrality (pH=7). I don't use sauermalz, I add acid to mash and sparge water pryer to the addition of grain. Thus in this case, one is seeking to not only drive Alkalinity to zero (on a log scale it never really gets there), but to also purposefully drive pH below 7 before grains are added.

As a distilled water mash truly has zero Alkalinity and a pH=7, I was troubled by its mash pH being higher than the desired 5.3. I never thought in terms of moving/aiding pH on its journey to 5.3. I had always thought in terms of stepping on HCO3. So I not longer see the inconsistency between a distilled water mash of 5.7/5.8 and a desired mash pH of 5.3/5.4. The distilled water mash is just a convenient reproducible measurement in the lab. Its result is a number, not a mash that makes good beer. For that one seeks a pH of 5.3 and water (prior to grain addition) that initially may have a pH much lower then 7. Measurement of actual mash pH will aid me in how low that pH should be.

Lastly, the grain used in my distilled water mash experiment was Durst, at least that is what was marked on the bin at my local HB shop.

Thanks much, you have clarified my thinking a great deal.
 
I'm hearing the message. Measure Measure Measure Therein lies truth.
Amen.

I too saw the RA straw, and being mathematically inclined latched on to it. That and chemical equilibrium equations and solubility constants are kinda fun to play with.

You certainly aren't the only technical guy who has felt that way (including me). Hence the proliferation of spreadsheets, calculators, nomographs and iPhone apps. I certainly don't want to discourage that. One can learn a great deal from working those things up. The downside is when these tools are taken up by people with little or no technical training who take the results they produce as gospel.

Yet my instinct was nagging me, how is 4 oz of black patent and say 3 lbs of crystal equivalent in Alkalinity reduction. A 12 fold increase in acidity on a per weight basis just due to higher kiln temperature didn't seem right.

That can be the case. The answer lies in titration curves. Alkalinity is the number of milliequivalents of acid required to move 1 L of water from whatever pH it comes to the analyst at to pH 4.3. At that pH 99% of the bicarbonate has been converted to carbonic. It takes less acid to get to mash pH (call it 5.3) because at that pH only 92% of the bicarbonate has been converted to carbonic. But that's still most of it. Titrating dark malts works in the other direction. Dark malts in distilled water come to pH's less than 5.3. The titratable acidity of those malts to pH 5.3 is the amount of alkali it takes to raise the pH of a DI mash of those malts to 5.3. It is feasible that a roast malt might take 11 times more alkali than a crystal malt to reach 5.3. It depends on the malts which vary quite a bit in titratable acidity with color but also from batch to batch, maltster to malstster and cultivar to cultivar. This is why it is so hard to predict accurately,

I'm also hearing something else in your reply, something I have not heard elsewhere (or at least have not been able to internalize). That is one should meaningfully bias the mash water downward from neutrality (pH=7). I don't use sauermalz, I add acid to mash and sparge water pryer to the addition of grain. Thus in this case, one is seeking to not only drive Alkalinity to zero (on a log scale it never really gets there), but to also purposefully drive pH below 7 before grains are added.

I'm not quite following here. One really doesn't care much about the water pH before the grains are added. He only cares about the mash pH after they are added. Whatever the source water pH it usually takes some acid to lower the pH to the desired 5.3 because malt naturally tends to buffer in the 5.6 - 5.8 region. If one wants to calculate the alkalinity of the water as it would be effected if the acid were added to the water rather than the mash (and it can be) one can do so. Even distilled water has finite alkalinity as it takes a finite amount of acid to lower the pH of distilled water to 4.3 (at which pH the H+ ion concentration is 0.05 mmol/L whereas at pH 7 is it 0.0001 mol per liter).

As a distilled water mash truly has zero Alkalinity and a pH=7,

It doesn't have 0 alkalinity (though it is small - 2.5 ppm as CaCO3). What it has is 0 bicarbonate.

I was troubled by its mash pH being higher than the desired 5.3. I never thought in terms of moving/aiding pH on its journey to 5.3. I had always thought in terms of stepping on HCO3.

The malt itself contains partially dissociated acid (phosphoric, amino) that form buffering systems even in DI water. These buffer in the 5.6 - 5.8 range. The acid the brewer adds is there to overcome the buffering capacity of those systems. If the water is alkaline, enough acid must be added to overcome the buffering of the carbo system as well.

So I not longer see the inconsistency between a distilled water mash of 5.7/5.8 and a desired mash pH of 5.3/5.4. The distilled water mash is just a convenient reproducible measurement in the lab. Its result is a number, not a mash that makes good beer.

That's right but it is a very useful number. It's likely that a malt that produces a DI water mash pH of 5.6 will require less acid to get to pH 5.3 than one which has a DI pH of 5.8. But it really depends on the actual titration curve.

For that one seeks a pH of 5.3 and water (prior to grain addition) that initially may have a pH much lower then 7. Measurement of actual mash pH will aid me in how low that pH should be.

Mash pH is, ultimately, what it's all about.
 
My approach to Alkalinity and mash pH has always been open loop. I would make detailed measurements of brewing minerals and HCO3 via titration for my water prior to each mash. Minerals were added to reach locale profile goals (profiles which I realize are highly dubious). Acid was added to reach HCO3 levels I thought "appropriate" to style (which I based largely on general color desired). This is the reason I cared about mash water pH. I then mashed and measured the pH. It has generally been in the 5.3/5.4 range at RT. At times higher, and at times lower. Its the outliers that I'm looking to fix. I see now that equations for RA and SRM are not the solution. I need to close the loop by making direct additions (acid or CaCO3) to the mash. This is something new for me and should be interesting.

An aside, I live in Denver and there are a great number of micro and medium size breweries along the front range and into the mountains. I have toured a number of them and asked detailed questions of the brewers about water adjustments and pH. They seem to universally use activated carbon filters and add mineral salts. But when pressed on pH measurement (forget about adjustment) they seems to look down at their shoes. One brewer said they recently purchased a meter, but no one really knows how to use it.

These breweries generally make ales from pale to dark. A few make lagers which never turn out that great (I always assumed they never lagered long enough but now it may be something else). Within the same brewery, some ales are great, others much less so. I wonder if the hit or miss nature of their resulting mash pH is the reason. The profile of their available water combined with a chosen grain selection aligns to yield a proper mash pH and out pops a great ale. Misalignment creates the less great ales.
 
I know what you mean about "looking down at the shoes". I even gave a pH meter to a local pro but I'll bet he never used it and I don't have the heart to ask him - he's busy enough without having to listen to AJ's thoughts on how he might make his beer better (and he did get a gold at GABF this year). The larger organizations, like Gordon Biersch, do monitor and control pH and that's why their lagers are good (there's a bit more to it than that, of course, the branch brew master has to be good). The interesting part is, of course, that once they get the pH dialed in (i.e. know how much sauermalz to add) they don't have to check pH every brew any more. Occasional spot checks suffice.
 
I just finished working my way through all 19 pages of this thread. Although the vast majority of the science went over my head I've learned a ton. (for example how a pH meter is #1 on my Christmas list) Thanks.

I suffer from amazing stout water here. My stouts are always killer, I would take mine over so many mass produced stouts it would make your head spin. But when I try to make an IPA or really any beer the mouthfeel always seems really thick, everything seems to come out rather sweet. I know our water has a pH of 8 (according to a lab test at the local university a few months ago that is)
I was planning a Two Hearted Ale clone tomorrow with intentions on improving my water for the job at hand. I was just going to do a 9:1 Ratio of distilled water and water from the tap. As I don't have access to acidulated malt until the next time I order something online. Would you still consider this dilution advisable/beneficial?
 
Without knowing any more than I do at this point about your water it is hard to say whether it might be responsible in whole or in part for the sweetness/full body you get in all your beers besides stout. The only thing in water that is associated with sweetness and body is chloride ion but there are other things which can cause it too like the use of a lot of caramel malt (or indeed just a lot of malt), high saccharification temperature and incomplete (low attenuation) fermentation. Those things should be checked too.

If you dilute 9:1 you will knock everything down by a factor of 10 including chloride but if you follow the Primer's recommendations you will be putting the chloride back up to a level that most people find good but that level may be too high for you. So try using 1/2 tsp each of calcium chloride and calcium sulfate and see how the beer comes out. But be sure to check on fermentation and grain bill a potential causes.
 
Since Thunder touts his Stouts and laments his IPAs, I'm inclined to say the primary problem is his water's elevated alkalinity. The stouts have the acidity to counter the alkalinity while lighter colored beers with less color or crystal don't. Having moved from Tallahassee a few years ago, I'm familiar with brewing with modest alkalinity water that is probably similar to this Ga brewer. (Tallahassee is the southernmost town in Ga).

Yes, the recommendations for dilution from the Primer will improve the prospects for that 2-Hearted clone, even without having acid malt. So go ahead and do that. The elevated mash pH for those previous light beers caused the reduced fermentability created by the reduced enzymatic activity.

The more important quest that this brewer should really be pursuing is finding out what his existing tap water profile is. Its entirely possible that the only thing needed for this brewer to brew great lighter colored beers is some acid and the knowledge of how to use it. Either call the water company or send a sample off to Ward Labs to figure out the profile. If the water is only excessively alkaline, then acid will take care of the problem. Bru'n Water will provide the tool needed to figure out how to use it.

Enjoy!
 
Talking with the water company is a good start. But I have found that the results have a wide range for any given ion. As an example, Ca may be reported as 20 - 45 ppm or Alkalinity as 42 -81 ppm. The range accounts for seasonal variations (for me snow melt in the spring vs. bottom of the reservoirs in the fall) and how the water is distributed in the system (did one get the mountain water, river water, or the well water).

A lab test provides excellent results, but only for the single brew made from the water tested.

If one has a moderate amount of technical ability one can measure each of the important ions (Ca, Mg, Cl, Na, SO4, Alkalinity) to a fair degree of accuracy using Test Kits from LaMotte. The kits include all the equipment necessary to make the measurement. I have used these kits for years and measure my water profile prior to each mash.

LaMotte has a Test Kit for measuring Sodium (Na), #7791-DR-01. This kit has highly useful intermediate measures that must be made to provide the result for Na. The intermediates yield Alkalinity, Hardness (which is the combination of Ca and Mg) and the sum of Cl and SO4. If one also purchases LaMotte's Chloride Test Kit, #7247, one has a direct measurement of Cl. Knowing Cl one can easily determine SO4 from the Na test kit's third intermediate measurement. These kits last for years.

If one also purchases LaMotte's Test Kit #3268, one will have a direct measurement of Ca. Mg can then be determined from the first intermediate measurement in the Na Kit. But I have always used that first intermediate measurement and the approximation that Ca is generally 4 times Mg (both measured in ppm) to disentangle the two.

I purchased the kits a very long time ago and don't know how much they cost today. But I don't think any given kit was over $40.
 
I have always advocated self testing for home brewers but I have never known one personally willing to do it.

The Lamotte approach is, I think, rather clever. Not terribly accurate perhaps but (propagation of errors from titration to titration, interferences from potassium, etc) but surely accurate enough for home brewing and there really is no practical (reasonable cost for home brewers) alternative for sodium or sulfate.
 
Accuracy of the LaMotte Kits is okay. If one is willing to take a deeper dive, and spend another $50 or so, accuracy can be improved by purchasing a volumetric flask, calibrated pipets of various volumes, and acid of calibrated normality. I can't speak to the chemistry behind the method(s) used in the test kits, but at least the volumes of sample water used by the kits can be accurately dialed in.

I too was concerned about the propagation of errors, but this mainly affected the result for Na. An ion which has at best 2nd order influence on brewing chemistry / flavor. The titrations for Hardness (Ca+Mg) and Cl+SO4 are direct.

The kit's measurement for Alkalinity can be greatly improved by instead titrating (with those pipets) a separate water sample (using that volumetric flask) with acid (of calibrated normality) and employing that handy pH meter.

But again, this may be a deep drive for most home brewers.
 
Oh I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that I need to get real measurements of my water. I'd love to learn to be able to do my own tests, but have almost no clue where to begin beyond your recommendation of test kits. (and what to do with the information once I have it)
I understand the massive number of variables in the brewing process, but I'm confident in my thermometer's accuracy and saccharification rest temps, I'd like to think I use no more or less roast malts than the average brewer. I also let all my beers get at least a month in primary with generally aggressive fermenting strains of yeast. I have access to citric acid at my LHBS but that's about it, though I dare not use enough to fix the problem completely could it be used in small amounts to bring my water closer to the 5.2 mark?

With dreams of one day going pro I have every intention of dialing in my water by being able to measure water composition on every brew. So I'm not intimidated by the dedication limitations of the average homebrewer. I'd love to be pointed in the direction of proper lab equipment and guides on what to do with it. (looking for equipment that warrants its purchase in a 7bbl brewhouse...i.e. I dont need a $20k lab for a system that small)
 
I am sure they are quite accurate enough for home brewing purposes but note that the precision (not accuracy) of 10, 10 and 4 for the three titrations. As you've noted higher accuracy is not necessary for sodium but I work with waters with alkalinities that vary from 10 - 80 ppm and thus wouldn't find ±10 ppm for alkalinity acceptable.

The chemistries for alkalinity and hardness seems to be the standard chemistries i.e. calmagite, EDTA, sulfuric acid, Bromcresol green/methyl red. The novelty is in estimating total anions by swapping cations for hydrogen and estimating the hyrdrogen ion content from pH the estimating calcium + magnesium, subtracting and assuming whatever is left over is sodium. Clearly anything which isn't calcium, magnesium or sodium is thus an interference e.g. strontium, iron, potassium, manganese, aluminum etc but these should all be present in small amounts.

Improvement in accuracy can be had by using a "digital titrator" (Hach, Hanna) at considerable extra expense for harndess (still subject to error from strontium, iron etc), alkalinity (use pH meter rather than idicator as suggested) and chloride but sulfate requires a turbidimetric method (photometer or nephelometer) and perhaps the most practical means for sodium, short of AAS or ICP, is an ISE which is quite expensive and a real PITA to use.
 
Actually the kit's precision is not quite as low as 10, 10 and 4. But can be improved with a minor modification.

While the graduated syringes used to add the titratant are marked at these intervals, quantization error exists. The quanta is droplet size of the titratant. So I generally count drops, look at the reading on the syringe, and then divide. Example: With an as provided syringe 10 drops of titratant reads 250 ppm (of the ion measured) on the syringe. So each drop is equivalent to 25ppm. If the sample changed color on the 10th drop, I would call the measurement 237.7ppm +/- 12.5ppm (I included the extra significant figures just to show the math).

If one adds a separately obtained hypodermic needle to the syringe droplet size is significantly reduced. Now 10 drops reads 60 ppm on the syringe. Precision now becomes +/- 3ppm. I have thought of doubling the water sample size to bring precision to +/- 1.5 ppm.

I'm not a chemist, but my experience is that once one refines one aspect of an experiment another source of error pops out of the mud. You have identified one (interference ions). So I'm doubting the ability to achieve precision of +/- 1.5 ppm. But does +/-3ppm seem reasonable (which I would also like to state as accuracy)? I have eliminated the static offset (was the syringe really zeroed at the start or was it -4ppm or +3ppm) by counting observable drops.

Separately... To your knowledge, is the rule of thumb that Ca and Mg are generally in a 4:1 ratio a reasonably accurate assumption? Let's assume that we are only addressing water samples of Total Hardness <100 ppm (as CaCO3).
 
just wanted to say thanks for this thread again, we brewed a cream ale a few days ago, and measured mash ph at 5.25 with the 2% sauermalz and 1 tsp of calcium chloride. this was with brew in a bag method, about 7.5 gallons of water total. this was all from distilled water, i hope it turns out?

we plan to brew an american brown ale today, (northern brewer caribou slobber) do you have any pointers for this one? i have distilled water, and of course my michigan tap water that has a faint sulfery smell to it...should we use the di water with 1tsp of calcium chloride, skip the sauermalz? we have gypsum on hand, along with other salts, etc. should we be adding anything else? any help would be appreciated, thanks!
 
While the graduated syringes used to add the titratant are marked at these intervals, quantization error exists. The quanta is droplet size of the titratant. So I generally count drops, look at the reading on the syringe, and then divide. Example: With an as provided syringe 10 drops of titratant reads 250 ppm (of the ion measured) on the syringe. So each drop is equivalent to 25ppm. If the sample changed color on the 10th drop, I would call the measurement 237.7ppm +/- 12.5ppm (I included the extra significant figures just to show the math).

If one adds a separately obtained hypodermic needle to the syringe droplet size is significantly reduced. Now 10 drops reads 60 ppm on the syringe. Precision now becomes +/- 3ppm.

Certainly the principles are correct. But are the drop sizes the same? How well can you detect the color change? In particular, how well can you measure pH. In the alkalinity and Cl/SO4 measurement that has a large effect as pH is lograithmic. An 0.05 error in what you determine as end point reflects as a 12% error in hydrogen ion concentration (an as cation content in that measurement). What about the effects of hydroxyl allkalinity (shouldn't really expect to see much effect from that if water is decent).

I have thought of doubling the water sample size to bring precision to +/- 1.5 ppm.

That's certainly a good way to go. Whatever the coefficient of variation may be doubling the sample will halve it.

I'm not a chemist,

Neither am I.

but my experience is that once one refines one aspect of an experiment another source of error pops out of the mud.

That's also been my experience. It's a constant battle to refine and I expect real chemists experience it the same way. In my (non chemistry) career I took lots and lots of measurements and that was certainly the case for the things I did measure (gain, delay, temperature, symbol error rate, location, time....)


You have identified one (interference ions). So I'm doubting the ability to achieve precision of +/- 1.5 ppm. But does +/-3ppm seem reasonable (which I would also like to state as accuracy)? I have eliminated the static offset (was the syringe really zeroed at the start or was it -4ppm or +3ppm) by counting observable drops.

At this point I suspect that the interference ions' contributions to the error budget would be small compared to the error induced by incorrectly identifying the end points of the titrations. Using a pH meter for the two that involve acid/base would doubtless drop those errors greatly.

The real answer to the question would come by doing a collaborative study. Samples of know composition would be parceled out to a number of investigators who would analyze the samples using the kits and statistics accumulated. The manufacturer could then supply the usual inter and intra laboratory CVs. The fact that no accuracy or precision data is stated in the instructions does create some suspicion.

Second best would be a careful error analysis in which we figure out exactly how the errors propagate and what the effects of things like a couple ppm potassium and/or strontium might be. My gut says that 10% would be about as good as you could get using this combination of measurements. But that is gut and bear in mind that 10% should be more than adequate for this application.

Separately... To your knowledge, is the rule of thumb that Ca and Mg are generally in a 4:1 ratio a reasonably accurate assumption? Let's assume that we are only addressing water samples of Total Hardness <100 ppm (as CaCO3).

My own calcium hardness usually runs around 60 and my magnesium around 50 for a 1.2:1 ratio in terms of ppm as CaCO3. Those numbers correspond to 24 and 12.15 mg/L for an approximately 2:1 ratio in those terms. I don't know if that's typical or an outlier. You could go back over the archives here where lots of people have posted their water reports and get an idea from those reports. You could also buy a total/calcium hardness kit and measure the two (or rather obtain the 2 from total and calcium measurements).
 
just wanted to say thanks for this thread again, we brewed a cream ale a few days ago, and measured mash ph at 5.25 with the 2% sauermalz and 1 tsp of calcium chloride. this was with brew in a bag method, about 7.5 gallons of water total. this was all from distilled water, i hope it turns out?

Was that measured with a pH meter or strips? If with a pH meter reduce the sauermalz to 1% next time. If strips, get a pH meter.

we plan to brew an american brown ale today, (northern brewer caribou slobber) do you have any pointers for this one? i have distilled water, and of course my michigan tap water that has a faint sulfery smell to it...should we use the di water with 1tsp of calcium chloride, skip the sauermalz? we have gypsum on hand, along with other salts, etc. should we be adding anything else? any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Try pouring the water back and forth between buckets or, perhaps simpler, draw your brewing water by spraying through one of those sprayers that goes on a garden hose. This should get rid of the sufidic smell. Or you could try stripping the insulation of several pieces of copper wire (the stuff used to wire houses is fine) and throwing those pieces of stripped wire into a pot full of the water. Take them out and clean them (rinse thoroughly afterwards) when they turn dark.

As for the mineral adjustments. I'd say use the same additions (after dilution and sulfide treatment). Enough dilution should be used to get the water down to the low mineral levels discussed in the Primer.
 
measured with a ph meter. is 5.3 the magic number? interesting bit about the copper wire...will try this.
 
AJ

I think the drops are of uniform size as the hypo needle is cut square to its axis (i.e. not sharp) with no burrs inside or out so surface tension should enforce consistency.

The color changes are sharp and rapid. I also was under the impression that these indicators had very consistent pH transitions points.

The collaborative study is interesting, but one would need to be somewhat assured that all investigators had consistently good experimental technique.

I guess the cleanest method would be for me to carefully measure a water sample (multiple times to observe my own variation) and then have the same sample measured by an outside lab that would provide error bars about their measurements.

As to the Ca/Mg ratio, your results indicate the 4:1 rule is at least suspect. So instead of being lazy I'll use the Ca Test Kit I also have.
 
measured with a ph meter. is 5.3 the magic number? interesting bit about the copper wire...will try this.

You'll get as many answers as people you ask. I generally shoot for 5.4 - 5.5. Generally you get an 0.1 pH drop for each % sauermalz so if you got 5.35 with 2% you should get 5.35 with 1% and 5.45% with none. Curious as to what you base malt is and what its DI water mash pH might be.

The copper wire trick is borrowed from vintners who often transfer their wine through a copper chute whose job it is to pick up sulfides. Others dose the wine with copper sulfate (ick!) or use copper wire.
 
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