what kind of water do you brew with?

I've just moved from the land of extract brewing and know I should learn more about the type of water to use. I've always went to the store and bought 6 gallons of Deer Parm, but was wondering if this was best for flavor ( I dont mind paying the money) or should I be doing something else?

stevestone1988 said:

I've just moved from the land of extract brewing and know I should learn more about the type of water to use. I've always went to the store and bought 6 gallons of Deer Parm, but was wondering if this was best for flavor ( I dont mind paying the money) or should I be doing something else?

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It's not the brand or supply of water as Much as the chemistry of the water and mineral content etc.

The best place to start is a water report from the company-website might have it. From there you can build up the water with the necessary additions if any are needed.

There is a water chemistry stickie in the brewing science forum posted by Yooper which is a great starting point

It depends, without knowing the mineral content of either water source it's hard to say.

Buy a charcoal filter and use your own water supply.

I use my municipal water supply (Fairfax County, Virginia) with 1/4 campden tablet per 5 gallons (to get rid of chloramine). I read the chemistry report on line and it seems pretty agreeable with brewing - and the beer tastes good afterwards.

I add lactic acid to the sparge water because I have it. I also run a lot of water through the hose, to flush flavors out, before I collect water for my beer. At some point I plan to get an RV hose.

I use bottled spring water. Never had a bad batch of beer.

Ultimately, the "kind" of water is totally style dependent. Meaning, for the most part the water in the place of the style becomes the desired water for that style. Soft for pils, hard in Burton England.

Some would rather run through a reverse osmosis (RO) unit and add back minerals. I have such a filter, they aren't super expensive, and recommended highly for water for you and your beer.

Personally I would rather not add back calcium chloride, or gypsum, although at some point going RO and adding back makes sense.

My city water is about 150 ppm hardness (TDS) and a bit alkaline which is actually good for making acidic mashes. I have a whole house filter, and can use RO in all or part as needed. Generally I just use the city water with no RO. But if a style calls for less minerals, I can add 1/2 RO and start with 75 ppm hardness, for example.

"Spring Water" is a useless term for brewers. It does not provide any indication of the water quality or its suitability for brewing. The only thing it implies is that it is a groundwater source. That is no guarantee that the water is good for brewing.

As indicated above, the Water Primer does provide good basic guidance for brewing water. Start with a water with very low mineralization and add a few salts to create an acceptable brewing liquor. Using RO or distilled water is a good starting point since you have some assurance that the water has low mineralization.

A blind assurance from anyone saying, 'just use the tap water' may or may not be good advice for you. You need to find out what your tap water quality is and how it might interact with your brewing. Some people have great brewing water out of the tap and other's may have terrible water. You can't just use any water and expect great beer.

Until a brewer has found out the concentrations of the major ions in their tap water, using the recommendations of the Primer is wise.

Brewing water chemistry is not easy. But with a little understanding of their tap water chemistry, you may be able to move to the next step in treating that water for brewing. Some tap water is hopeless, but the first step is finding out what is in the tap water and what can be done to make it suitable for brewing. Slogging through a guidance like the Water Knowledge page on the Bru'n Water website is a necessary duty if you want to use your tap water. If that doesn't appeal to you, using the recommendations of the Water Primer are for you.

I use my home tap water for brewing. I do have a filter and softener which takes out virtually all minerals. I've never had a problem. Without my softener / filter, my iron is off the charts.

I've been using a filter similar to the one from the BYO article for a while now. It works great.

eltorrente said:

Buy a charcoal filter and use your own water supply.

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Heineken said:

I use my home tap water for brewing. I do have a filter and softener which takes out virtually all minerals. I've never had a problem. Without my softener / filter, my iron is off the charts.

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A carbon filter does not remove any minerals. It simply removes chlorine/chloramiine (IF the flow rate is slow enough) and organics responsible for bad odors and taste. It WILL NOT change any of the minerals we are concerned with for brewing. There are filters designed specifically for removing iron, but it doesn't sound like that's what you are talking about.

A water softener does not "take out virtually all minerals" either. It removes calcium (what we want) and replaces it, usually, sodium (what we don't want). It also gets rid of the magnesium, but that's usually a much lower concentration and not as important unless if was too high to begin with. Definitely don't use softened water for brewing.

First figure out what actually in your water. Until then, adding minerals is futile.

Was anyone else tempted to respond to the question posed "what kind of water do you brew with?"

WITH "Dehydrated water, only thing I will use." .
no??
Just me? well ok then....

I've spent the last 10 hours researching and reading about water....... ..it's just ****ing water......or is it.......... it would seem water is not as simple as it seems....

The more I learn, the more I realise I don't know crap about brewing yet..

The water here is really hard, so I generally start with RO water and add calcium chloride and gypsum as needed (depending on style of beer) for my mash water and add acid malt to the mash if needed. For sparge water, top up water, etc i just use plain spring water.

GotPushrods said:

A carbon filter does not remove any minerals. It simply removes chlorine/chloramiine (IF the flow rate is slow enough) and organics responsible for bad odors and taste. It WILL NOT change any of the minerals we are concerned with for brewing. There are filters designed specifically for removing iron, but it doesn't sound like that's what you are talking about

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I'm sorry - when did I imply that charcoal removed minerals?

Get rid of the odors and chlorine/chloramine and use your own water supply and see how it tastes. If it makes the beer style you typically brew taste great, then you don't need anything else. It's easy and cheap.

If you want to get into water chemistry, then more power to you. Get your water analyzed, or go to the store and buy water, or buy an RO system for your home, and add your own specific minerals.

My charcoal filtered sink water produces excellent Pale Ales, IPA's, and Stouts - so I don't worry about it.

I thought everyone used Bud Light.

Guess I am in the minority.


(Settle down, it's a joke.)

Our homes have wells here in rural maine. Mine is a bit high in arsenic so I have a filter for that, but otherwise my water tests are pretty average in other areas. Beer turns out pretty good. The neighbors kicked one of my kegs yesterday, so it can't be too bad.

thatjonguy said:

i thought everyone used bud light.

Guess i am in the minority.


(settle down, it's a joke.)

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:d

bethebrew said:

I can imagine you don't know crap about brewing either, with that piss poor attitude. I'm kidding, sort of. My post above covered water as related to style, which is at least a starting point rather than some d*ckish "i don't know so you don't either"? comment.

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Homebrewing,, It's serious business

This thread had GOOD INFO.. I read it and many others on the subject today.. My post above was to comment that new guys are here reading and learning as well as those who asked the original question and serious internet scientist responding with serious internet information..

My posts not meeting your standards of what is allowed to be posted is serious business.. I'll take it under consideration..... Thanks for your insight and mentorship.

stevestone1988 said:

I've just moved from the land of extract brewing [...] ( I dont mind paying the money)

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Welcome to the land of all-grain brewing, where you'll need twice as much water as you did for extract brewing - so cost becomes a bigger factor.

You need the kind of water that is appropriate to the style of beer you want to make. Some styles can be made with a wide range of water. Some styles require a distinctive kind of water (for example: Pilsner Urquell requires very soft, almost distilled, water; Bass Ale (what they sell in England, not what ABIB now sells in the US) requires very hard, mineral-laden water.

Commercial breweries make the styles of beer that can be made with their local water with the minimum amount of treatment. Treatment costs money. Anheuser-Busch does NOT buy spring water at the grocery store.

So what water makes what style? If you're now doing all-grain, you should get a program like BeerSmith (www.beersmith.com) or ProMash, or whatever. These programs have water profile tools, and you can see what the water in places like Milwaukee, Dublin, Pilsen, etc. is like, as well as figure out what you would have to do to match their water.

What's my water like? If you have "city water", you can ask your city or town or county water authority for a copy of their latest water analysis (and ask whether they use chlorine or chloramine as a disinfectant).

If you have a private well, the first question is whether you have a water softener, and if so, is it an ion-exchange system or a reverse-osmosis (RO) system. If RO (for your drinking water only) you basically have distilled water. Otherwise, you'll probably take a sample and get it analyzed, but that costs a couple hundred bucks for a full analysis.

I lucked out - we have well water, no softener, and the town of Warrenton VA has a large municipal well quite near our house, so I just use their analysis figures. Not perfect, but close enough.

My water is about "medium" for everything, and tastes fairly good. I added a small charcoal canister filter to my brewing rig, and replace it once a year.

My tastes run to Pale Ales and IPAs, so I make most of my beers with straight well water. If I want to make something very light (seldom), I have to buy 50% Deer Park or other spring water. If I want to make a Guinness-style or a Bass Ale-style, I add minerals (calculated with BeerSmith) to my well water to approximate Dublin and Burton-upon-Trent waters. The minerals you add are cheap, common things like Epsom salts and gypsum. Does it really make a difference? Maybe a little bit.

Here's how I'm making Rochester NY water - scroll down to the bottom


If your tap water tastes good, then use it!!!

There's no sense sending your hard-earned money overseas to Nestlé's Swiss bank account (Deer Park is owned by Nestlé, a Swiss company).

Dave

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Woodbridge city water - the Prince William County website says that your water probably comes from the Occoquan Reservoir via Fairfax Water. Here's just about everything you could possibly want to know about your water! Fairfax Water analysis

Check your water source, but I'm willing to bet that your water comes from the same treatment plant mine does in the Occoquan (my water is the Fairfax Water southern treatment plant, but they sub out water to other jurisdictions as well). It does have a relatively high chloramine level, so some Campden tablets or filter would probably be a good idea, but I've come to love the water, since it's relatively soft by brewing water standards. Too hard for most pale lagers (or other extremely pale beers), but very versatile for everything else. The one issue is really low calcium, so I usually end up adding either calcium chloride for pale/malty beers, calcium sulfate (gypsum) for pale/hoppy beers, or calcium carbonate (chalk) for dark beers.

If your water isn't from Fairfax Water, I'd still guess it's pretty close to mine.

hennesse said:

Otherwise, you'll probably take a sample and get it analyzed, but that costs a couple hundred bucks for a full analysis.

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Ward Lab out of Nebraska is around 20 bucks for the household mineral test. They are fast, accurate, and have done literally thousands of tests for home brewers.

It's interesting there are a couple of guys here from the northern VA area. I used to live in Occoquan but now am in Fairfax VA. I looked at their site and indeed the water is pretty suitable for brewing straight from the tap. I usually like to do Belgian ales, anyone with a reliable site that shows what their water chemistry is?

Great out of the tap except for the chloramine but a campden tablet (or two depending on your gear) takes care of that.

As far as Belgian profiles, if you're northern Fairfax I haven't looked at your water. If you're southern Fairfax like me, for my Belgian beers I'm usually sticking to calcium chloride and/or gypsum since calcium is always low, add a bit to the malt or hop character depending on the beer, sometimes both to keep them balanced. Maybe a little epsom salt for magnesium. Since even with darker Belgians I'm getting most of my color from candi syrup and sometimes a touch of Special B, I try to keep the alkalinity down. If my understanding is correct, most Belgian water "profiles" show a lot more alkalinity than is actually brewed with due to decarbonation by the brewers, or they're otherwise taking steps to overcome it (using food grade acid in the mash, etc), so trying to match their bicarbonate is a bad plan. I subscribe to the "match a profile's flavor ions, but ignore the calcium and bicarbonate and tailor those to your mash" philosophy. And with that in mind, our water is right in there with the Trappist brewers, at least according to what's published in Brew Like A Monk.

One thing worth pointing out is to use only pure cold from your tap
any hot mixed in from water heater will add loads of minerals.

it sounds obvious but i know people when ive went to their house they started with both faucets full open to both speed up measuring of water and speed up time in heating it to mash temps. I said speed is not part of homebrewing.

I use Cincinnati municipal water, with a .5 micron charcoal filter to remove chlorine. I know our water is used by quite a few breweries.

I've considered getting more into water chemistry by style with added salts and such.

So do you guys use one of those water testing kits from northern brewer or is there a cheaper way of checking your water once you add to it?

Huh. I didn't realize they sold that. I've just taken at face value that x grams of salt y will add z amounts of the respective ions to the water, so I've never tried to test my water after I've treated it. However, it's pretty much a mathematical certainty (for all intents and purposes at least) that if you know the composition of the water, and you know what you're adding into it, you know what you'll get out, so I wouldn't waste the money.

I would say it may be a little bit more useful for testing your groundwater pretreatment at different intervals if you don't get that information from a water report. Most water changes throughout the year. I took my water company's month to month data, plotted it all back as far as the date was available, and I go by the monthly average for my mineral additions (ie if I'm brewing in May, I'll use the average water composition for May). So if your company only gives you an annual amount, or if you would otherwise have to send it out for analysis, this might be good for getting the seasonal variations (although apparently the alkalinity indicator only has a 6 month shelf life)

"For all intensive purposes"... And lead us not into Penn Station.

Hehe

biestie said:

"For all intensive purposes"... And lead us not into Penn Station.

Hehe

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Hah. Leave me alone. I've been drinking. Lemme go ahead and fix that...

Wichita nasty tasting tap water most of the time .

I used to use my tap water, when I lived farther out from the city in newer construction. Now that I live closer to downtown in a house that is almost 100 years old, I use Primo bottled water (ph 7.8 w/minerals) balanced with 5.2

I'm sure people will jump in and argue a bunch of points of whatever, but seriously, if you just jumped out of extract, there are a lot more important things to worry about than water quality. Namely: temp control. And starter size. Worry about those first.


Sidenote: if you've already got those taken care of, ok. I'm just saying because most people jump from extract-store-bought into ag and start picking the nits without focusing on the most important thing ever for homebrewing--temp control.

I use tap water from a well... since its softened, I add some calcium chloride or sulfate (gypsum) depending on the style I'm shooting for.

Cathedral, you are correct that there are more important components to a brewer's progress than worrying about the water. However, your inclusion of 5.2 isn't helping your water. If you are in Toledo and they are getting their water out of Lake Erie, it probably doesn't need much to make it better suited for brewing.

Brewchem, if your well water has little calcium and magnesium and the softening process is primarily to take out iron and manganese, then it might be OK to brew with that softened water. But for most people with ion-exchange softeners, brewing with that water is the worst thing you could do. The softening process does several things that make it less suitable for brewing.

mabrungard said:

Cathedral, you are correct that there are more important components to a brewer's progress than worrying about the water. However, your inclusion of 5.2 isn't helping your water. If you are in Toledo and they are getting their water out of Lake Erie, it probably doesn't need much to make it better suited for brewing.

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We have great tap water here that I used to always use. Since I moved into a new house, however, my concern is about the piping in my house. I'd rather not use it, which is why I use Primo bottled water with 5.2 to acidify the mash-Primo is neutral at 7.8 according to the information they make available.

mabrungard said:

Cathedral, you are correct that there are more important components to a brewer's progress than worrying about the water. However, your inclusion of 5.2 isn't helping your water. If you are in Toledo and they are getting their water out of Lake Erie, it probably doesn't need much to make it better suited for brewing.

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We have great tap water here that I used to always use. Since I moved into a new house, however, my concern is about the piping in my house. I'd rather not use it, which is why I use Primo bottled water with 5.2 to acidify the mash-Primo is neutral at 7.8 according to the information they make available.

I use my tap water. It's good, I live in rural area. If I do an extract batch I boil the 2 gallons that go into the carboy and cool it. Boiling water takes care of bacteria and chlorine, but you have to let it cool and aerate the hell out of it since boiling also drives out the oxygen. I say aerate the hell out of it because I just shake it around while I'm letting it cool and boiling the wort.

Check the bottled water you use, because if it says 'bottled at a municipal source', then it is tap water that just comes out of the ground like everyone's does. Not all bottled water is spring or source water.

I use tap water with a campden tablet added for the chloramine. I got mineral numbers from Denver Water (we actually have three sources, so I use an average of the mineral content from each source, which is probably not a great way to go, but gets me in the ballpark). From there, I usually follow the instructions from the brewing water primer, in conjunction with Palmer's water spreadsheet (which I think he has slightly disavowed after doing research for the water book, although he seems to think that it will get you in the ballpark). Our mineral content is a little low for hoppy beers, so I usually add some gypsum, and it results in a mash that is slightly too basic for pale beers, so I will usually add some sour malt if I am doing a Wit or a Saison. So far, so good.

mabrungard said:

Cathedral, you are correct that there are more important components to a brewer's progress than worrying about the water. However, your inclusion of 5.2 isn't helping your water. If you are in Toledo and they are getting their water out of Lake Erie, it probably doesn't need much to make it better suited for brewing.

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I live near Cleveland & get Lake Erie water & according to their water report, it is quite Alkaline:

Chloride: 22
TDS: 160
Magnesium: 7.1
Calcium: 33
pH: 7.0-7.6
Alkalinity: 81
Hardness (as CaCO3): 120
Sodium: 10.7
Total Organic Carbon: 1.9

logdrum said:

I live near Cleveland & get Lake Erie water & according to their water report, it is quite Alkaline:

Chloride: 22
TDS: 160
Magnesium: 7.1
Calcium: 33
pH: 7.0-7.6
Alkalinity: 81
Hardness (as CaCO3): 120
Sodium: 10.7
Total Organic Carbon: 1.9

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Tee hee. You must not know what high alkalinity is! Go a few more miles south from the lake. 81 ppm is hardly that high. Of course it will need neutralization. But at 81 ppm, the amount of acid won't affect taste, regardless of the type of acid.

logdrum said:

I live near Cleveland & get Lake Erie water & according to their water report, it is quite Alkaline:

Chloride: 22
TDS: 160
Magnesium: 7.1
Calcium: 33
pH: 7.0-7.6
Alkalinity: 81
Hardness (as CaCO3): 120
Sodium: 10.7
Total Organic Carbon: 1.9

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That looks like some really nice versatile water, not too far off from mine, just a little bit more alkaline. Can't brew a Czech Pils with it, but for most beers it looks like a great starting place to me.