Help with Hard, Alkaline Water

Hi all,

Thanks for all of the interesting info in this forum. I've been brewing AG for about 6 months and have recently come to the conclusion that some of my mash troubles (high mash pH, low mash efficiency, occasional off-flavors) may be due to the well water I'm using. I send a sample to Ward Labs and got the following results:

pH: 7.7
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est: 398
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm: 0.66
Cations / Anions, me/L: 7.0 / 6.4

Sodium, Na: 40
Potassium, K: 4
Calcium, Ca: 63
Magnesium, Mg: 24
Total Hardness, CaCO3: 258
Nitrate, NO3-N: 3.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S: 11
Chloride, Cl: 14
Carbonate, CO3: <1
Bicarbonate, HCO3: 311
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3: 255
Fluoride, F: 0.42
Total Iron, Fe: < 0.01

As far as I can tell, I have hard, alkaline water that makes it tougher to brew the styles I like to brew, mostly pale ales and IPAs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I think the best ("technically sound") beer I've brewed since moving to AG was a Black IPA at 35 SRM. I've been disappointed in many of the IPAs and pale ales (5-12 SRM) I've brewed and it wasn't until recently that I looked to the water as a potential problem. Before that I was trying to refine my processes, etc. and wasn't seeing the kind of improvement I'd hoped for.

I think my water is probably fine as-is for darker beers (20+ SRM), but maybe not. I'm pretty sure it's not fine as is for sub-10 SRM IPAs & APAs. Given the water profile above, what should I be looking at doing to improve my beers? Sorry, I know you guys get these questions all the time.

Thanks in advance.

I buy RO water from the store, and use that with a mix of my tap water to reduce the alkalinity. For most beers, it's about 50/50 but my water is not quite as alkaline as yours.

I'm not an expert, but I have a similar water profile. High pH. High alkalinity, slightly low on Ca and sulfates. I finally threw in a tsp of gypsum and started using a pH buffer to lower the mash pH to 5.2. Seems to have helped. The biggest problem with a water profile like this is that your mash pH is going to be too high. You won't get good conversion and your beers are going to be thin with a harsh soapy taste. You're also probably losing some hop crispness due to the low sulfates.

Thanks for the quick replies!

My mash pH is too high, I don't get good conversion, my beers are often thin and I have run into that "harsh, soapy taste". I've also noticed that I'm not getting the hop bitterness/flavor that I would have expected, but I never associated that last problem with the water. You've pretty much nailed what I'm experiencing.

I figured I'd have to do some dilution with RO water, which I haven't yet done.

Playing around with the EZ Water Calculator for the first time, it looks like I could dilute 50/50 with RO and then would have to add back some calcium, sulfate, and chloride, and lower the mash pH a bit more. In a 10 gallon batch, how much is too much when adding gypsum, calcium chloride, epsom salt, lactic acid, etc.? I'll do whatever it takes to get all my minerals and pH in balance, but at what point do the water modifications start creating off-flavors of their own?

Thanks again for all of the help. I really do appreciate it.

If you haven't read Palmer's How to Brew, you should look at the chapter on mashing. It's a good intro to water chemistry for those of us who aren't chemists.

Thanks for the suggestion. I read the extract brewing relevant parts of How to Brew when I started extract brewing, but haven't gone back and thoroughly read the mashing chapter. I recall thumbing through it last year, but didn't give it a good read. I will have to do that. Thanks again!

This water is indeed hard and alkaline and would benefit greatly from decarbonation. There are few beers you could expect to brew with this water untreated and expect to hit proper mash pH. You could decarbonate it appreciably by simply boiling it for a few minutes - perhaps get the alkalinity down to 50 -100 and still leave a fair amount of calcium. As the other ions are not there is appreciable quantity this is a workable approach. RO dilution is safer and, IMO, simpler once you have a supply of RO water to hand. If you have to drive across the state to get the stuff then it isn't simpler. OTOH home RO units are now sold for a little over $100 and they have enough capacity to support 5 gallon batches of home brew (or larger if you can remember to start collecting water a few days before brew day).

To reduce the alkalinity to 1/2 of what it is now dilute 1:1, to reduce it to a third dilute 2:1 etc. The same dilution factors apply to everything else of course.

In the stickies section of this topic is a Primer which would have you dilute the water way down (9:1) and then build back up with salt additions. The guidelines there are intended to get you started - not to tell you how to treat for a north German Pils as opposed to a South German pils. You might want to have a look at that.

Thanks aj. From everything I'm reading, it sounds like RO dilution (either store-bought or with a home system) is going to be the direction I go. But before I go there I've got a couple of questions.

Using the EZ Water Calculator, my water, 8 gal mash, 7 gal sparge, 27 lb grain, 3 lb crystal grain, and 5.5 SRM, it looks like I could add 3 g gypsum, 4 g CaCl2, and 10 ml of lactic acid (or 1 lb Sauermalz) to the mash and get all of the minerals and pH within the recommended ranges.

Would 10 ml of lactic acid (or 1 lb Sauermalz) contribute sour flavors in a 10 gallon batch?

Are other acid sources preferable in the needed quantity?

What makes RO dilution and subsequent modification the better way to go?

I have no problem going the RO route, just curious as to what makes that a better option than lowering the pH of my water with an acid source.

Thanks again!

HopBlooded said:

Using the EZ Water Calculator, my water, 8 gal mash, 7 gal sparge, 27 lb grain, 3 lb crystal grain, and 5.5 SRM, it looks like I could add 3 g gypsum, 4 g CaCl2, and 10 ml of lactic acid (or 1 lb Sauermalz) to the mash and get all of the minerals and pH within the recommended ranges.

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Kolbach's predicted shift relative to DI water for your water is +0.33 pH so that if your base malt DI mash pH were 5.65 you would expect 5.98 with your water. Adding 3 g gypsum and 4 g CaCl2.2H2O would only decrease the predicted pH shift by 0.07 20 +0.26 and your expected mash pH would then be 5.91. Assume the crystal knocks that back to 5.81. One pound of sauermalz is 3.3% of your grist so the rule of thumb predicts a 0.33 pH drop to about 5.48 which is acceptable but you will have over half a gram of stuff dissolved in each liter of water. This is perfectly acceptable for some styles (Burton ales are pushing a gram per liter) but not so great for others. The styles it works for are those that were developed because the original brewers had water like yours.

HopBlooded said:

Would 10 ml of lactic acid (or 1 lb Sauermalz) contribute sour flavors in a 10 gallon batch?

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1 lb of sauermalz is 1/30 = 3.3% and will probably not contribute sour flavors.

HopBlooded said:

Are other acid sources preferable in the needed quantity?

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Depends on your definition of "preferable". Whenever you decarbonate water by the use of acid you are replacing each equivalent of bicarbonate with an equivalent of the anion of the acid used. So if you "neutralize" 200 mg/L akalinity (4 mEq/L) with lactic acid you are replacing 4 mEq/L bicarbonate with 4 mEq/L lactate. Or chloride or sulfate or phosphate. In Germany they must use lactate whereas in the UK they usually use a mix of sulfuric and hydrochoric. All kill the alkalinity with the same effectiveness but one might argue that it is more authentic to do a British beer with sulfuric/hydrochloric. I do not suggest either of these to homebrewers as obtaining them in food grade is difficult and mishandled can bring the brewer to grief. Lactic has none of these problems and is readily available at the LHBS as is sauermalz.

HopBlooded said:

What makes RO dilution and subsequent modification the better way to go?

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As you start with essentially a "blank piece of paper" you can come up with any mineral profile you want. Also the paper is approximately equally blank any day of the year whereas tap water can vary appreciably with season. The calculations required to establish a given profile are quite simple as long as bicarbonate and carbonate are avoided. Putting salts into RO water is a lot easier than taking them out. In most cases the only way to "take them out" is not to take them out at all but rather dilute them with RO. It is possible to come up with any physically realizable profile from any base water as long as you first dilute every ion in the base to or below what you want in the treated water but the calculations become intricate if any bicarb is involved (not that they wouldn't be with RO but in an RO synthesis we simply don't put them in). In summary I suppose that the big appeal of RO is simplicity.

HopBlooded said:

I have no problem going the RO route, just curious as to what makes that a better option than lowering the pH of my water with an acid source.

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I'd hesitate to say it's better - perhaps simply more convenient. And of course this depends on the beers you do. I'm big on RO because the house brew is Boh. Pils which requires very soft water. If I were doing Burton ales I might be less enthusiastic about RO.

Thanks for all of the great information. I think I need to do a bit of research on RO systems (any recommendations?). I definitely like the idea of starting with a blank slate every time.

One follow-up question: what would a commercial brewery do with a native water profile like mine? Humongous RO system?

Thanks again. This has been a helpful exercise.

HopBlooded said:

One follow-up question: what would a commercial brewery do with a native water profile like mine? Humongous RO system?

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That's certainly one option. To give you an rough idea the Titan systems are scaleable ranging from the Titan 500 which produces 500 GPD and sells for a little under 2K, through the Titan 5000 which prodiuces 5000 GPD (6.7 bbl/hr) and sells for 5 - 5.5K and the Titan 10000 (13.4 bbl/hr) which goes for around $12K. So for, example, a brewery which fills a 30 bbl fermenter could collect enough water to produce a brew filling it in 4 - 8 hrs. The technology is scalable further. RO cartridges are sold in various sizes and putting together a custom system is a matter of ganging enough cartridges with big enough prefilters and a hefty enough pump. There is more to it than just the RO skid, however. The brewery would also need an atmospheric tank to store the water produced and,if it is to be generally distributed, a means for doing that such as additional pumps or a pressure tank. Then there are controls, safety devices, plastic plumbing (as RO water is very corrosive) and other bits so while 12K may look pretty reasonable for a skid which produces over 300 bbl RO water per day the installed cost of this system installed would probably be double this or more. With water like yours the RO system would be preceded by a softener because calcium carbonate will deposit on the RO membranes but sodium carbonate won't.

Another similar option is microfiltration in which a membrane with pores larger than those in an RO system are employed. The water thus gets deionized but not to the extent that it does in RO. These are apparently becoming popular in breweries these days.

A third option would be to soften the water by treating it with lime. This is, or was, quite common in Europe.

The original option was, of course, no option. You brewed the kinds of beer you could brew with the water available and no others.

And that gets us to the final option and the one that is probably best: don't put the brewery in a location like yours. Certainly the available water should be a major consideration for anyone planning a brewery. Most breweries are located in urban or suburban areas and are, thus, served by a municipal water supply system. If a water utility got its water from wells like yours they would most likely treat it (with lime) to soften it before putting out into the mains. This is not for your benefit so much as to prevent the mains from occluding over time. Most municipal water in the US is pretty much the same but one does see some remarkable reports posted here from time to time.

As for a RO system recommendation: I have used the little 5 GPD systems made by GE and sold at home improvement stores for years. They go for a little over $100 as I recall. Being so inexpensive, one does not have to pre-soften the water but there is a limit as to how hard they want the feed water to be. That number is in the specs. They can be used for longer brews than 5 gallons, of course. One merely needs to start collecting the water a few days before the brewing session.

I now use the smallest Titan system. I haven't had it quite a year yet but have found it to be quite satisfactory up to this point. I don't know what to expect for membrane life because I have high silica (28 mg/L). It didn't jam up the GE systems and I had them for years so I hope to get a good run out of the Titan system as well.

Several guys on this and other home brewing boards are apparently aquarists and use RO systems they have obtained from suppliers to that fancy. As the heart of the system is the membrane and there are only 1 or 2 manufacturers of these all systems are pretty much the same in terms of perfomance so it comes down to packaging and bells and whistles.

I have similar water and I use lime to reduce the carbonates in my water. I let it settle overnight. I use phosphoric acid to bring the pH back down to mash levels (after draining it off the precipitated carbonate). I am quite pleased with this method as it has really smoothed out the bitterness in my beers. I don't like to have to go to the store to buy RO water when I want to brew, plus the added expense. I only use some RO water when I make bohemian pilsners.

That being said, the money I saved not buying RO water, was used instead to by a pH meter so I guess it evened out in the end. But I do have a pH meter now.

pjj2ba said:

I have similar water and I use lime to reduce the carbonates in my water. I let it settle overnight. I use phosphoric acid to bring the pH back down to mash levels (after draining it off the precipitated carbonate). I am quite pleased with this method as it has really smoothed out the bitterness in my beers. I don't like to have to go to the store to buy RO water when I want to brew, plus the added expense. I only use some RO water when I make bohemian pilsners.

That being said, the money I saved not buying RO water, was used instead to by a pH meter so I guess it evened out in the end. But I do have a pH meter now.

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When you use lime, how much? Pickling lime? You boil it, and let it settle overnight, then rack off of the particulates?

Thanks again for the suggestions. You've all been a lot of help.

To learn more about brewing water chemistry, visit my Bru'n Water site (see my signature line) and download Bru'n Water. There is a lot of practical information there. For an even more in depth understanding, you might want to visit AJ's site also. http://ajdel.wetnewf.org:81/

mabrungard said:

For an even more in depth understanding, you might want to visit AJ's site also. http://ajdel.wetnewf.org:81/

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This is where I first read about using lime to decarbonate. See section 3.4.2 Decarbonating with Lime, pg 13

Yooper said:

When you use lime, how much? Pickling lime? You boil it, and let it settle overnight, then rack off of the particulates?

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Yes, pickling lime from the supermarket. NO BOILING, that is what I like about it. It uses less energy. With some experimentation for my water, I add about 1 tsp. Actually, my measuring device is the cap off of a propane tank (torch size) that I had lying around. I keep it in the lime container rather then stealing measuring spoons from the kitchen. I just have to remember to set it up the water the day before (at least) I brew. I have pushed it with only a few hours of settling time. Much was settled out, but there was still some in suspension - but I just had to brew!

I mix up my water in my boil pot. Once the pot is about 3/4 full I add the lime and give it a vigorous stir. The precipitate begins to form immediately. I let it set overnight and then just drain it off. I finally got smart and hooked up some tubing to the outlet and used my pump to transfer the decarbonated water to my mash tun and HLT so I don't have to lift them full of water. Then I adjust my pH back down to under 6 with phosphoric acid (NB carries this) and heat to mash temps and go.

I haven't worried too much about the actual mash pH. I'd like to get a little more sophisticated about it though. I figure I've removed a good chunk of the buffering capacity of the water so as long as the water is close to where I want, the grains will bring it to where it needs to be for good conversion. When I started doing this my efficiency went up by 5%. I just bought some sauermalt to see what happens to my lagers when I mash (and then boil) at a lower pH that what I have been using.

I decided to purchase an RO system that will allow me to do 10 gallon batches with RO water if I so choose (modifying the water first of course). I'll be installing the system next week.

I'm going to brew an IPA next, but I was playing with the EZ Water Calculator and Palmer's calculator, and realized something. If I add 4.8 grams of gypsum per gallon of H20 to my water, I end up with the following in Palmer's calculator (Palmer's Burton water profile in parentheses)...


Calcium: 352 (352)
Bicarbonate: 311 (320)
Magnesium: 24 (24)
Sodium: 40 (44)
Chloride: 14 (16)
Sulfate: 727 (820)

So I'm a little low on Sulfate, but at that level I'm not sure how much difference it makes, and the rest of the ions are basically spot on. 48 grams of gypsum in 10 gallons of mash water seems like a lot and I wonder about any negative effects from it. Is my nervousness misplaced?

Secondly, how should I treat my sparge water in this case? The well water is 7.7 pH and I suspect that some of the phenolics I'm getting in my beer are coming from the end of the sparge when the pH gets too high. So my options are RO water (treated), tap water (treated or untreated), or some mix of the two. What would you all (who are much smarter than me) do?

I may do two batches, one with gypsum in my well water and one with treated RO water to see what the difference is, but I still struggle with how to treat the sparge. Thanks in advance!

Using a Burton profile is not the recipe for good beer, even when strong hop accentuation is desired. There is little advantage to employing as extreme a profile as indicated. Much lower sulfate concentrations will produce a finer finish in the beer. I just listened to the Brewing Network interview with Matt Bryneson of Firestone Walker and he specifically commented on the same recommendation above.

You are missing a lot of information about how to treat and adjust your water. Neither Palmer or EZ are going to get you there. Bru'n Water is a good coach for your brewing water questions.

I'll be bold and say that I don't think most brewers/breweries treat their sparge water any differently than their mash water. I suppose I could see advantages to doing it. For example, if you wanted lower kettle pH than your mixed runoff you could add acid to the sparge water and not only get the lower kettle pH but insure that runoff pH would be low.

So I have never treated the sparge water separately. It has always been my experience that when the runoff reaches about 3 °P the pH is below 6 and, as most of my beers are decocted and will be lagered I don't much care about phenol extraction anyway.

As to the Burton ale: I have done them with synthesized Burton water (and I mean properly synthesized i.e. chalk dissolved with CO2) and with much "softer" (lower sulfate water). Evaluators are pretty uniform in their assessment that the Burton water example is more authentic but the softer water beer is a better beer. General thesis: the lower the ion content of the water the better the beer. I don't try to shove that philosophy down peoples' throats at this point because I am mostly a lager brewer. I'd argue strongly for that POV in lagers but don't really feel I should in ales because I don't brew that many of them (though it seems to hold in the ones I do).

I would suggest you do what I did. Brew the beer 2 ways. Then you (or a taste panel or competition judges if you prefer) decide whether you want authenticity or the taste of softer water beer (or something in between).

Thanks for the info guys. I think my questions are answered. Someday I may try to brew a beer with the Burton water profile, but it sounds like it's a bit extreme. I'll go ahead with RO water and treating the mash and sparge water the same. Thanks again. This forum is always extremely helpful. Cheers!

AJ, don't you brew with RO water? Your sparge water would therefore naturally have low alkalinity. As per my investigations, its not so much the pH of the sparge water that matters, its the alkalinity. I guess that is in line with your very valid recommendation that brewers not worry about their tap or brewing water pH prior to the mash. Its the alkalinity that matters and then the resulting mash pH.

When I incorporated an alkalinity calculation in the Sparge Acidification sheet of Bru'n Water, it helped identify to me that its less about pH than alkalinity for sparge water. It also helped explain why there is a typical range of pH's quoted as targets for sparge water acidification (5.5 to 6.0) Depending upon the water's starting alkalinity, the ending pH will define what the ending alkalinity will be. At this point, I've proposed that a good target ALKALINITY for sparge water is around 20 ppm as CaCO3 or less. For an RO water, there may not be any need for pH adjustment to achieve that alkalinity. For a high alkalinity water, a pH target of 6 may leave the ending alkalinity still too high and the pH target may need to be further reduced to 5.5 or less to end up with an acceptable alkalinity.

I suppose that pH targets for sparging water are only a relatively easily measured allegory for an alkalinity reduction. But, its the ending alkalinity that really matters.

Just some food for thought!

mabrungard said:

AJ, don't you brew with RO water?

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Yes, I do but I treat all the water I use (for mash, sparge, makeup, hops sparge) the same. A full HLT contains water to a depth of about 36 inches. I weigh out all the salts (nearly always exclusively calcium chloride) twice and dissolve the two portions in water making up to 36 mL total in each portion. One gets dumped into the HLT and gets mixed in. The other portion is held out. When the HLT needs topping up if I add x inches of water to it I also add x mL of the salt solution.

mabrungard said:

Your sparge water would therefore naturally have low alkalinity.

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Yes. It is basically determined by the amount of calcium hydroxide in the "calcium chloride" I use which is 0 if I use lab grade dihydrate and not much for the LHBS CaCl2.?H20 I buy from the LHBS.

mabrungard said:

As per my investigations, its not so much the pH of the sparge water that matters, its the alkalinity. I guess that is in line with your very valid recommendation that brewers not worry about their tap or brewing water pH prior to the mash. Its the alkalinity that matters and then the resulting mash pH.

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Spot on WRT mash. Alkalinity is a good metric here because at mash pH most of the bicarbonate is converted to CO2 and alkalinity is a measure of how much acid it takes to do that. With the sparge we are not moving to pH values in the low 5's and alkalinity is not so good a measure of the buffering capacity. We should be more concerned with the buffering capacity local to the pH of the sparge water. Clearly with the sparge water the pH does count as it's plain that runoff using sparge water with pH < 6 is never going to rise above 6 while with sparge water with pH > 6 clearly will eventually. Thus even sparging with distilled water (approximately 0 alkalinity) will result in pH > 6 when enough of the mash solubles have been washed out. Note that the amount of acid required to shift the pH of a particular sample from whatever it comes to you at to < 6 depends on both pH and alkalinity. It is clear, however, that the greater the alkalinity the more acid will be needed. One might be tempted to say that this is not true if using well water with healthy alkalinity but a pH of < 6. However this water is not at equilibrium with the atmosphere and will quickly come to pH > 6 (and hefty alkalinity) as CO2 is driven off in the HLT. Thus all in all I think alkalinity is a pretty good indicator of the suitability of sparge water. The lower the better.

mabrungard said:

At this point, I've proposed that a good target ALKALINITY for sparge water is around 20 ppm as CaCO3 or less. For an RO water, there may not be any need for pH adjustment to achieve that alkalinity. For a high alkalinity water, a pH target of 6 may leave the ending alkalinity still too high and the pH target may need to be further reduced to 5.5 or less to end up with an acceptable alkalinity.

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I guess I don't see why one would care what the alkalinity is as long as the pH is < whatever one wants the highest runoff pH to be. I note that at 170 °F and pH 6 the maximum alkalinity in a carbonate system at equilibrium with the atmosphere is 2.61 ppm as CaCO3 as compared to 2.47 for distilled water. For alkalinity of 20 ppm as CaCO3 CO2 in the water would be over 100 times above saturation. These are, of course, theoretical numbers.

mabrungard said:

I suppose that pH targets for sparging water are only a relatively easily measured allegory for an alkalinity reduction. But, its the ending alkalinity that really matters.

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We may be saying the same thing in different ways. I need to think about it a bit more.

AJ, could you elaborate on the "rule of thumb" you refured to for sauermalz effect on mash pH? You said something like 3.3% sauermalz would shift pH.33 So would 2.2% shift -.22? I've never used it before and I'd like to be able to measure my mash PH and be able to have a good handle on how much to add if I know how much shift I need.

Yes, that is the rule of thumb. 0.1 pH drop for each 1% of grist composition. It can be found on the Weyermann website and seems to hold pretty well but as it is no more than a rule of thumb there will be cases where it won't hold so well. That's what a pH meter is for.

I always use my pH meter. These kind of tips are helpfull when you are off on the meter and want to figure out how to proceed.Thanks

I have this exact problem and am wondering if it's the pH or the CaCO3 (calcium carbonate). I can't believe I've actually read about high carbonates actually helping with hoppy ales. Or maybe it is just pH.

I brewed 12 years in Portland, OR, which has very soft water. Sometimes less than 10 ppm...total everything (neutral pH, obviously). There I was able to brew mighty 100 IBU IPAs with little trouble at all. Portland joke: "I once had to add salts to the mash to brew a pilsner!"

Now I'm in an area with 120 ppm of CaCO3 and a pH over 8. I used 6 ounces in a 5 gallon batch when I first moved here and prepared it as I would have for a very high IBU IPA in Portland. Zero. Nada. Other than normal (30 IBU) bittering there wasn't a clue they were there.

If it's just pH I'm an idiot because I have food grade phosphoric acid and could adjust that quite directly. The CaCO3 really requires distillation to get rid of and I don't want to run a home distiller or haul it from a grocery (I refuse to own a car) or pay for it. So, has anyone tried high CaCO3, low pH water before?

You are confusing 'CaCO3' with 'alkalinity as CaCO3'. When a water report says the alkalinity is 120 ppm as CaCO3 at a pH of 8 there is very little calcium carbonate dissolved in the water but there is a lot of calcium bicarbonate. When you add enough acid to lower the pH to 6 (and certainly below) the bicarbonate converts to carbonic acid and then breaks apart into CO2 (which escapes) and water. There is very little bicarbonate left to fight the acid in your mash and, consequently, the pH is unlikely to be hurt.

Thanks for that. I had not appreciated the difference. I'm doing a Tsing Tao clone now and I'll try that with some nice, crisp flavoring hops and see how it turns out. If it works, I can tell you my next batch will be a proper IPA!

Reading more about those that talk about RO... I've seen RO set-ups in chemical plants that were the size of a house. The maintenance is horrid, what with all the salt build-up. So, just how practical are they? How much, besides the initial purchase cost, is spent in replacing filters, cleaning, etc.

Great discussion! This is not something you can just find someone to talk over with every day.

Aggedor said:

I've seen RO set-ups in chemical plants that were the size of a house. The maintenance is horrid, what with all the salt build-up. So, just how practical are they? How much, besides the initial purchase cost, is spent in replacing filters, cleaning, etc.

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I've been using RO for years and have yet to replace a cartridge or filter. Most guys buy small under the sink units and use them only for brewing. If you do this then they don't get used much and don't require much maintenance. I have a larger system so that I can get water fast (I used to walk into the brewery on brew day only to realize that I had forgotten to collect the water I needed over the preceding few days as is necessary with a 5 gpd system). The system I have now is being run at a liter per minute and has been up and running for 4 or 5 years now but there are only 240 hrs on it which means I have run about 20,400 litres through it. That's the equivalent of 11 days of operation at its full capacity. Even though I have high silicate (28 mg/L) which tends to gum things up I haven't had that problem (though there's about a 5 psi drop across the pre filters so its probably time to change those out).

And if somebody does the math, no, I don't brew 1000 gal of beer a year. I also use RO in the lab, give some to other brewers etc.