Adding Gypsum - Water Report Calculations

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Grinder12000

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I just want to bounce this off someone who has done this before.

Basic report has

Magnesium = 11ppm
Calcium = 19ppm
Total Alkalinity = 248

So

PH3.jpg


It looks to me like my area is GREAT for dark beer - not a surprise - however if I want to make a lighter color brew, something in the 5SRM range I would need to add about 310ppm of gypsum right?

So 310 / 61.5 = 5.04 grams which is about 1.25 teaspoons of gypsum PER GALLON!!!

Is that right? Seems like a lot! Can I assume gypsum has no flavor??
 
No, gypsum does have flavor and I think adding too much is something that is noticed. This is often the complaint when people try to mimic the Burton on Trent water profile.

I ran your profile thru John Palmer's spreadsheet for water calculations from How to Brew and got something similar to your calculations. http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html

I do use this spreadsheet and recommend it. I am in Indiana with water very high in alkalinity. I always dilute at least 50% with RO water when doing a pale beer, again using the spreadsheet to help determine which dilution rate I want to use and what minerals to add back.
 
Well if this is correct how do I correct the water profile without adding flavor???? Especially in a 30 gallon batch
 
Dilute with RO (reverse osmosis) or distilled water, in order to reduce the amount of alkalinity, at 50% or more, then add gypsum (and potentially magnesium sulfate - aka epsom salts) back to achieve your desired residual alkalinity. I assume my RO water has 0 minerals, but it does have some, say 5-10% of the source water. Distilled water has 0 minerals.

Another option is to start with entirely RO or distilled, but you will then have to add some alkalinity back in with chalk (Calcium Carbonate) or baking soda (sodium carbonate) in addition to the gypsum.

Hope this helps, water treatment can be a challenging topic.
 
Dilute with RO (reverse osmosis) or distilled water, in order to reduce the amount of alkalinity, at 50% or more, then add gypsum (and potentially magnesium sulfate - aka epsom salts) back to achieve your desired residual alkalinity. I assume my RO water has 0 minerals, but it does have some, say 5-10% of the source water. Distilled water has 0 minerals.

Another option is to start with entirely RO or distilled, but you will then have to add some alkalinity back in with chalk (Calcium Carbonate) or baking soda (sodium carbonate) in addition to the gypsum.

Hope this helps, water treatment can be a challenging topic.

Exactly. With alkalinity that high, you either need to dilute with RO water (a lot) or treat by slaked lime in advance of brewing. I've been diluting lately, but will be doing slaked lime in my next brew. My alkalinity is high like yours.

The only thing incorrect in the above is "needed to add some alkalinity back in with chalk or baking soda". That's an almost never scenario and I can't even imagine that needing to occur.
 
Be very wary of using either a nomograph or program that bases its residual alkalinity recommendation on beer color. The correlation is poor and in the case of Palmer's work, the recommendation for high RA in dark beers is excessive.

To the OP, don't even think about hardening the water to the degree indicated to make the water suitable for brewing lighter beers. You'll just have an alka seltzer beer. Lime softening, RO dilution, or acidification are all better alternatives to the excessive hardening proposed. In the case of that starting water, the alkalinity may be a bit high for acidification since a significant amount of acid may be needed.

If brewing a dark beer and starting with straight RO or distilled, adding alkalinity is a desirable component to keep the mash pH from dropping too far. Given the OP's water, it appears that he would be foolish to start with straight RO water and build a water back up. Dilution of the tap water with percentages of RO water would be a good way to maintain the 'proper' level of alkalinity for a particular mash. Bru'n Water is a tool that helps a brewer how to do it properly.
 
I'm not REAL worried about MY beer as I brew 5 gallon batches but being involved with a nano brewery that is selling a barrel a day I was trying to help out with the chemistry. The main brewer has a blind spot when it comes to water.

We here obsess over brewing . . . . I'm the obsessive one in this operation. While some make beer that is "good enough" us HBT members are always striving got better.

Our city adds chlorine, fluoride and silicates. MANY people taste the chlorine in the beer. Personally I use filtered water. But he brews 30 gallon batches for sale. I feel the lighter beers taste . . . . muddy, not crisp!

So I was trying to figure out what we could do to help he hops without spending a lot of money that they don't have (only open for 2 months now . . . .the place is packed on weekends).
 
The main brewer has a blind spot when it comes to water.

Water has historically been overlooked in brewing practice and in texts. For instance, most professional brewing texts have a rudimentary chapter on water and ions. But they provide very little guidance or training on ANYTHING further on how to assess and correct their water to fit their brewing. It should be no surprise that even professional brewers have no idea of what they should or shouldn't be doing with their water. There is no training or emphasis. That extends to the technical schools too. Palmer and Kaminski's upcoming book on brewing water will be the first text that actually provides more than a chapter to brewers. I expect it to be a seminal text on the subject. Unfortunately, its publishing has been delayed to 2013.

Our city adds chlorine, fluoride and silicates. MANY people taste the chlorine in the beer. Personally I use filtered water. But he brews 30 gallon batches for sale. I feel the lighter beers taste . . . . muddy, not crisp!

If a professional brewer is not removing chlorine from the brewing water, my apologies to the consumers of the beer. That brewer has no business being in business. It won't be too long before the Brewer's reputation is ruined and the business lost. Chlorophenols produced when chlorine is left in brewing water is an easily correctable problem and it produces a serious defect in the beer. I'm hoping that I'm just miss-understanding the quote above.

Regarding the muddy flavor in lighter beers. Given that the OP resides in the land of alkaline water, it is not really a surprise that the lighter beers have that flaw. Apparently the brewer does not understand the need to reduce alkalinity when brewing those lighter styles. The mash pH is probably too high and the flavor and crispness suffer. Again, this is typically an easily correctable flaw through the application of acidification or dilution with a low alkalinity water such as RO or distilled water.

Bru'n Water was created with both the homebrewer and craftbrewer in mind. Hopefully that brewer will take the time to learn a couple of easy improvements that can be implimented from that software.
 
Martin, thanks for posting! I was hoping you would as it seems that Indiana holds a knowledge base on brewing water treatment.

OP - Besides Martin's comments and his spreadsheet (which I am sure is very valuable, I just haven't used it), I would recommend that your Nano look into buying an RO water system. That seems to be common of breweries here. Matter of fact, I know of one that uses this model: http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-...um=Feed&utm_campaign=Product&utm_term=1255052
 
Our city adds chlorine, fluoride and silicates. MANY people taste the chlorine in the beer.

If it isn't removed just by sittiling in the HLT it isn't chlorine but rather chloramine. Homebrewers easily remove this with bisulfite but in a commercial situation you may have to be concerned about TTB permissions, sulfite allergies in the public etc.

I feel the lighter beers taste . . . . muddy, not crisp!

Those words describe beer brewed with high mash pH.


So I was trying to figure out what we could do to help he hops without spending a lot of money that they don't have (only open for 2 months now . . . .the place is packed on weekends).

GAC filtration or bisulfite (if he can use it) will take care of the chloramine (and any chlorine too).

It sounds as if an RO unit (and water softener to protect it) are in the future. This will cost some money depending on how you do it. A commercial RO skid will go a couple of K if it just dumps into the HLT (i.e. no atmospheric or pressure tanks, fancy controls etc). Homebrewers get by for much less than that by using systems intended for reef aquaria.

It's conceivable that this water could be 'fixed' by adding calcium sulfate and/or chloride and then boiling it which would drop out much of the alkalinity but the alkalinity would then just be replaced with chloride and sulfate which may already be at such levels that additional would take them to excess. Another approach would be the addition of phosphoric acid. This will remove the alkalinity but replace it with phosphates. None of these fixes will do anything for the sodium which must be pretty high given there isn't much of any other cation to balance the alkalinity. RO is the only way to deal with that.

Can you Brew with straight RO water in brewing?

No. Simple salt additions (calcium chloride for smoothness, calcium sulfate for accentuated, dry hops quality and both for calcium) are required. There is guidance on how to do this in the Primer but note that some acid will be needed for most beers.
 
Can you Brew with straight RO water in brewing?

You can, but the result is not very good. Aside from the impacts of low calcium on yeast health and flocculation, there is a blandness to the flavor in my opinion. At a minimum, brewers should add calcium salts as AJ indicates.
 
So if I wanted to make a 5G (actually 30 G but I'll convert)batch that is about 5SRM - how could I do it chemically.

I can let the water sit overnight - that will help the bicarbonates right?
 
So if I wanted to make a 5G (actually 30 G but I'll convert)batch that is about 5SRM - how could I do it chemically.

Your potential problems are with high alkalinity which is not accompanied by high hardness i.e. your water is essentially a solution of sodium bicarbonate. There are chemical methods you could use to remove the bicarbonate which I mentioned in #14 but, as I said in that post, those methods won't touch the sodium.

Clearly your best bet here is to dilute the water with RO or to pass it through an RO system, then put back enough calcium as the chloride or sulfate depending on style. This is all spelled out in the Primer.

The SRM of the beer has little to do with it.

I can let the water sit overnight - that will help the bicarbonates right?
No. If your water were hard and alkaline then it would be supersaturated with respect to calcium carbonate which would precipitate but that won't happen here because sodium bicarbonate is very soluble.
 
ahhh!!! Thanks - I'll look at the Primer again - a few days ago it was a little much but I've learned more since that last try!
 
I also have hard alkaline water and have a question for anyone who can chip in and help me out and would also love to hear AJ's opinion on it:

Ca - 39
Mg - 30
Na - 46
Sulfate - 77
Cl - 21
Bicarb - 282
Alkalinity - 231

I want to brew a light colored beer (all base malts) and would like my RA in the -50 range. I could use slaked lime to achieve my alkalinity reduction (or part of my reduction) but I don't think I really need to since my Mg is slightly high but probably ok so I don't need to drop Mg. Also, I would have to add even more calcium than I would need to if not using lime and I risk getting my Cl and Sulfate levels too high. Beyond that, I would have to deal with removal of the precipitate and lag time for it to settle out. My questions is this ....would it be possible to use phosphoric as my only method of alkalinity reduction (besides the slight alkalinity reduction from my calcium additions)? I obviously would need a good amount (~300ml of 85% for 12HL of water). Other than the higher price of the phosphoric when compared to lime is there any detriment to achieving my desired water profile by only adding phosphoric? (plus the calcium salts to achieve the desired Ca, Cl and sulfate levels). Thanks in advance for your input!

P.S. I want to stay away from RO because of cost and water waste.
 
Yes, you can use phosphoric acid. Were you to, for example. add it to the water until the pH was lowered to 5.5 you could then be assured that mash pH will be somewhere in that region. The down side will be that you will have a lot of phosphate. Assuming your water was originally at pH 7 and that your lab titrates to pH 4.3 in determining alkalinity it would take 3.8 mmol of phosphoric acid per liter (404 mg/L). This amounts to 485 mL 85% to treat the 12 hL. You would have residual phosphate in the liquor at about 400 mg/L. That's a lot of phosphate so the questions are as to how that would taste and whether you have any regulatory authority that has set limits. This is apparently less than the amount in a typical soda but I would certainly want to do a taste test before I started brewing 12 hL batches using this approach.

As it turns out you will be right on the edge of saturation WRT apatite at this level of phosphate with the amount of calcium you are carrying. Thus any supplemental calcium would likely just precipitate out.
 
Thanks for your reply AJ, I hadn't noticed it until now. I can certainly try it out in a 5 gallon batch and see what happens to the taste but what mostly concerns me is your comment about Calcium. Do you think I wouldn't be able to hold any calcium in solution? I am looking for 100ppm. Having no calcium is a major concern as it will affect the yeast. Would you treat the water with just phosphoric like I am proposing or would you recommend a different approach, if so what exactly?

P.S. My water's initial pH is 6.8
 
If you were to deal with the alkalinity entirely by the use of phosphoric acid the solution would be saturated with respect to apatite at a level of 39 mg/L Ca++ and any additional calcium you added would likely precipitate - theoretically. If you want to add more calcium then you will need to use another acid to deal with some of the alkalinity. Hydrochloric will obviously increase your chloride and sulfuric your sulfate which may work towards or against your goals with respect to those two ions. Lactic is a popular choice but has a distinctive flavor above threshold which, while pleasant and an important part of the flavor profile of some beers would be inappropriate for others.

Given that it is apparently a commercial operation I would probably invest in the RO equipment or try to adapt lime softening to your needs. Modern RO systems aren't that expensive ($2500 for a 40 hL/da system) and can be set up for recoveries of better than 50%.
 
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