Water modification for extract brews?

Is it something I should consider? If I'm not doing AG does the water PH really matter? My tap water is actually very good, sourced mostly from glacial runoff.

Is there a good guide to what makes "acceptable brewing water"?

I see a lot of gypsum and burton water salts in some recipes and wonder if I need to alter my water to avoid astringency or the "extract tang" I sometimes hear about. A couple of my brews have been a little astringent but most are great.

A little gypsum (like half a gram per gallon) makes hoppy beers brighter and sharper. The yeast will appreciate the calcium, too.

Aside from the above, with extract you don't need to worry about anything. If your water is good to drink you're good to go.

With Extract, I use RO water. So I will steep with my tap water, then top up to 7 gallons with RO water and add the extract.

Extract has all the minerals & salts it needs.

RO water?

Really Organic?
Ripe Orange?
Rank Orangutan?
Repulsively Opaque?
Richly Ossified?

Throw the new guy a bone?

reverse osmosis

Thanks!

Is that a filtration process for home or do I have to go/do somewhere/something "special"?

carbon111 said:

Thanks!

Is that a filtration process for home or do I have to go/do somewhere/something "special"?

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Yes.

I get mine at the Glacier Water dispenser at my local grocery store for $0.35 a gallon.

Thanks.

The local grocer has some sort of dispenser for water though I never really took a close look at it - as I said, our water is generally very good. I did some googling and found a RO system for home at about $300.

What exactly is the benefit of RO?

BTW - about to brew your Apfelwein. :rockin:

carbon111 said:

What exactly is the benefit of RO?

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It makes water nearly as pure as distilled. It's a waste for you in the PNW with your super-soft water - all you need to do to your tap water is remove the chlorine or chloramine with a carbon filter, campden tabs, or both.

944play said:

all you need to do to your tap water is remove the chlorine or chloramine with a carbon filter, campden tabs, or both.

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Or just pay 35 cents a gallon for Glacier RO water.

Ya'll have to get a RO filter from filterdirect.com (on ebay only I think) they rule! I brew as well as have a large aquarium and it has saved me a lot of money. It was very easy to hook up and only $90 or so for a 50 gallon per day unit. I have no affilliation whatsoever with this company, I just got tired of going to the store for water. My water is like 400 ppm and stinks of sulfer so I really needed it. Nestle pure life water is good too, nice mineral content for meads and stuff that needs salts.

Thanks everybody!

I live in Montana and have brewed five batches in the last three months. I just use tap water and add two teaspoons of gypsum. My beers have been nothing short of delicious (except for one batch that sucked, but that wasn't because of the water, and it still had alcohol in it ).

You should be able to get the info on your local water makeup from the internet (do a search for your water treatment plant or city water annual evaluation) which would help determine how much gypsum you'd need to add.

I get my water from a well. We have a lot of limestone, so the water is hard with high alkalinity (420 ppm) and high pH (7.8). I noticed a while back that my beers had an astringent taste (like sucking on a tea bag). After reading Palmer, where he talks about high pH & high alkalinity water extracting tannins during the steeping and sparging of the specialty grains, I started to add lactic acid to lower the pH remove a lot of the alkalinity of my steeping and sparging water.

It made a huge difference in the taste of my beers. The astringency was gone.