Steeping grains in hard water?

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Mk010101

Mk010101

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I have some very hard water. I don't know the exact hardness, but it is on the high side. This past weekend, I brewed up the Shakespeare Stout clone from AHS and it required some steep time. I start out with tap water without any filtering and bring it to the correct temp for steeping. I steep for 20 min (instructions said 15) and then sparge with some more water to get the last big of color/flavor out of the grains.

My question is: would the hard water affect the steeping % of flavors/sugars? I wonder, because I have such hard water, if it would be better to steep longer--or better yet, use filtered water for the steeping? Any thoughts on this?

The SG came in quite a bit lower than the kit said, which surprised me, but I think part of it was because I didn't get all the wort into the fermenter. I was trying to keep the hot/cold break from getting into the fermenter and I am sure I left too much good wort behind! Lesson learned for the next batch.
 
Well, filtering won't change your waters "hardness" unless your idea of a filter is a water softner system.

Hard water will drop your efficency even for just steeping grains. Kinda like soap not "sudsing" up with hard water. If you plan on using your tap water to brew, consider a water softner system because the hard water will fight you all the way when you try to use it without doing something to it.

You can try salts from your LHBS or online, but with out knowing where your water is in the first place, you'd be flying blind when adding salts.

You can use bottled spring water, or distilled (I use it and correct the profile to a style I'm brewing).

If you are on a city water supply, you can find out the numbers from them. If you are on a well, you have to have it tested. I can't comment on the online test kits, but most universities will test it for nothing or a small fee.

HTH
 
Would R/O water work? We have a softener system, but when I drink that water, I hate the taste so I don't really want to use it for my brews.

I will find out that hardness soon. I wonder what the efficiency lost is for hard water.
 
I was always under the impression that hard water was preferred in most cases to soft water as the calcium helped with yeast growth.???
 
Using a softening system will only add to the confusion since you still don't know where your water is at.

If you use RO water you'll need to build it up using brewing salts.

For steeping, you're only going after color and flavor and shouldn't be too concerned about the water affecting efficiency. If your water doesn't taste good however, your beer won't be either.

Once you start mashing is when you need to start worrying about water chemistry for the most part.
 
Well I love my tap water. When I want a glass of water, my family thinks I am nuts for going outside to get some water from the hose as the whole house is on the softening system!

Thanks for the info. This is something I will definitely be looking into and testing with a few future brews. But, yes, I do need to find out more information about the water as eventually I think I would like to go to partial mashing.
 
Chairman Cheyco said:
For steeping, you're only going after color and flavor and shouldn't be too concerned about the water affecting efficiency. If your water doesn't taste good however, your beer won't be either.
Click to expand...

Well, your compounding problems. Yes, harder waters are better for dark beers, but if your making a pale beer, how is it going to help? It's not.

Not knowing where your water is in the first place is going to hurt you in the long run. Now you mention you have a water softner... Find out where both; the unsoftened water and the water that goes through your softner.

What software do you use? Beersmith (I know from personal use) will correct your recipe for changes in your water profile. To believe water won't effect your recipe/outcome is kinda like flying blind. The general rule is if your water has no off-flavors, it should produce good beer. But if you are working with hard water, it's killing your efficency. Even for steeping grains, which is in reallity nothing more than mashing on a small scale, how can you expect to extract all the flavors and colors if your getting a low efficency in the first place?

The problem just keeps compounding itself when you use extract. With extract you really should use distilled water in the first place as the extract is just wort concentrate with the water profile (for the style) already in it.

Try using distilled water for the extract portion of your brew and bottled spring water for steeping your grains, and I bet your beer improves drastically over the water from your house.

How can someone from the other side of the country tell you that your water is fine for making beers? Water varies drastically from one side of the country to the other. Yours is yours alone, unless you find someone using the same water.
 
The water is the same after I steep and then add the extract. Why would I use two different types of water here?

And I don't see how hard water would affect extract at all. Does it hold back hot break, cold break or hops utilization?

I don't use software (yet) as I am making kits right now. Still in the learning process. Again, you said it is killing my efficiency...and I would love to know by how much. Is there a formula for this or a website with this information?

One thing I do is top it off with boiled tap water, which removes a lot of the minerals deposits. But that is just water that is for topping off. Maybe I should boil the steeping water first, then the next day pour it into the steeping pot and begin from there. I will give that a shot next time I brew.
 
How much effect does pH have in mashing and sparge water?
Lots, especially on beer flavor and extract efficiency. The success of any mash is most dependent on proper temperature and acidity. Grain brewers all pay attention to the mash temperature; too few pay attention to its acidity. The pH optimum for alpha amylase is 5.7; for Beta amylase it is 4.7. A high mash pH, like a high mash temperature, favors dextrinization at the expense of saccharification to fermentable maltose and glucose. If your brews consistently produce beers that are sweeter than they ought to be, look at your mash pH. Is it high? Generally speaking, a 'high' mash pH is anything above pH 5.3. Ideally, it should be 5.2 during saccharification. During sparging, the pH of the mash runoff should never be allowed to rise above 5.8, and really should be kept below 5.5. Higher alkalinity progressively increases astringency and haze in the runoff and in the finished beer. I learned another effect of acidity in brewing from Jim Koch of Boston Beer Company. While admiring the flavor of a Geary's Pale Ale, he commented that the beer had a very "bright" flavor, which he attributed to a well-controlled mash pH. He made the case that beers made from a high pH mash always taste "dull" and "muddy". Sometime later, I conducted my own survey of his assertion, rating the "brightness" of beers flavors and then doing a pH reading of the beer. The pattern was clear - the lower the pH of the beer, the brighter its flavor. The differences were dramatic. It is very easy to test mash acidity with pH papers. If your mash pH is high, it is easy to learn how to manage it using lactic acid. Add a couple of drops of 10% lactic acid to your brewing liquor for your next brew. If the mash pH is still too high, add a few more drops next brew. Repeat the moderate increases until you dial in a 5.2-5.3 pH mash. Just remember to decrease acid additions when you brew darker beers, because dark malts themselves lower mash acidity. You are very likely to brew better beer if you control mash acidity.
Click to expand...

From mashers.org and I have been told similar by Joey, owner of Blue Star Brewery here in San Antonio.

Why would you use two types of water? As a test for you. Distilled water for the extract portion because extract is already water "corrected" and distilled is "0" across the board (except Ph = 7, which is "neutral" for Ph). Spring water because it's pretty "neutral" water, and you don't really want to mash in distilled water because there is nothing in it and may actually pull more from the grains than what you want to pull from them.

In order to find out "what" it's doing to your efficiency, you would need to know where you water is.
 
So you are saying to steep grains in one pot and in another pot do the extract boil? Do I then add them together for fermentation?

Why would I just not use the same spring water (after steeping) for the extract? The quote you mentioned above seems to be for all grain brewing (and steeping) but not for extract brewing.

Seems like more work, but I am willing to try and test it out.
 
Mk010101 said:
So you are saying to steep grains in one pot and in another pot do the extract boil? Do I then add them together for fermentation?
Click to expand...

Nope, just do it the same way you have been doing it. Just use the spring water for your steeping.

Mk010101 said:
Why would I just not use the same spring water (after steeping) for the extract? The quote you mentioned above seems to be for all grain brewing (and steeping) but not for extract brewing.
Click to expand...

You can use the spring water throughout if you want. <shrugs> That's up to you. Bottled spring water is cheaper to get in the 5gal jugs compared to distilled water.

Mk010101 said:
Seems like more work, but I am willing to try and test it out.
Click to expand...

I did it about a year ago when I realized the "sweet" taste in my well water continues into my brews. It never occured to me it was my water until one day I ran out of bottled spring water and reached for the tap and had a drink. The preverbial light came on and I said "Oh crap, that's where all the sweetness in my beers is coming from".

I've tried many methods short of an RO system to get rid of the flavor and can't. I lug water from a friends house in water bottles and/or buy bottled spring water and distilled until I figure out if I can get rid of the "flavor" in my water. Investing in an RO system right now is not in the cards right now - especially for something that I have no idea if it will work.
 
dcbrewmeister said:
Even for steeping grains, which is in reallity nothing more than mashing on a small scale
Click to expand...


Ummm, no it isn't. It's steeping. All you are doing is dissolving sugars from the grain into the steeping water. There is no starch conversion going on in a steep. It's making grain tea and nothing more, which is why you can only use fully converted grains like crystal and black malt - there is no enzyme activity because there are no enzymes and there are no unconverted starches. When doing a partial mash, with unconverted grains like Munich or Vienna along with some 2-row, you are converting starches to sugars and great care must be taken with regard to temperatures and pH and all that other good stuff.

You'll be perfectly fine making beer with the water you have as long as it tastes fine. Once you start mashing and doing all-grain brewing, you'll need to take care of your water - and even then it's not that tricky. For extract/specialty grain brews and no mashing you're good to go.

Try not to be confused by the flood of 'information,' most of it doesn't apply to you just yet.
 
Chairman Cheyco - He still has no idea what the Ph of his water is and is trying to figure out where the flavors in his brews are coming from. The biggest change in his brews is the water he's using. Steeping grains is easy, but you still have to be aware of your water makeup, just ignoring it and hoping for the best is not the way to go.

Even during a steep, if you Ph is above 6, you will release tanins that will probably account for the flavors in your beer. Just like steeping in water that is too hot, not a good thing either. Tanins that you don't want and that will affect the flavor of your brews.

I suspect his water is pretty hard - he has a water softener that he is not using for brew water. Just about every book I have talks about the Ph in your water - even for steeping grains - and how important it is. This is the first group I've ever seen/read you tell you not to worry about it. I've even read AG'ers who say not too worry about it.

Great - you have water that the Ph is low - he doesn't. I have the same problem with my water being very hard, and with an odor that I can't get rid of, and it very much affects my brews.

Use the bottled water for at least one batch, keep track of it and when you drink it I will quarantee it will take care of your "off-flavor" problems.
 
Well, I never stated that I have off-flavors or that I wanted to improve the flavor of my beer. What I was questioning was if the hard water (and I LIKE the taste of my hard water!) messed up efficiency, etc. The last two brews I have done have been off on the SG and I wasn't sure if the hard water affects it.

dcbremeister, I appreciate your info here and suggestions, of which I plan on using to see if I can get better utilization/efficiency of the steeping grains. And I do agree it would be nice to know more about my water, as it could help me in the future, especially if I ever go to AG.
 
Mk010101 said:
Well, I never stated that I have off-flavors or that I wanted to improve the flavor of my beer. What I was questioning was if the hard water (and I LIKE the taste of my hard water!) messed up efficiency, etc. The last two brews I have done have been off on the SG and I wasn't sure if the hard water affects it.
Click to expand...


Maybe a tiny bit, but probably not enough for you to really notice. If you're topping up your brew, and leaving wort in the kettle, that's the most likely place you're losing OG points.

Brew on and don't worry!

:mug: :rockin:
 
dcbrewmeister is correct, water chemistry can have an adverse affect on extract beers. This is because pH will affect tannin extraction, hop utilization, yeast performance, flavor perception and more. But it is also true that extract brewing is more forgiving to the wrong water chemistry than AG brewing. If you have very hard water and want to know if playing with your water will make a change for the better in your extract brews, then I second the idea of trying spring water for one or more batches.

Kai
 
If anyone is interested in exploring water chemistry in great detail, James from Basic Brewing Radio interviewed John Palmer on this very topic for this week's podcast. I only understood about half of what he was talking about, but if people really want to get into this topic, it was a really good show.
 
Kaiser said:
dcbrewmeister is correct, water chemistry can have an adverse affect on extract beers. This is because pH will affect tannin extraction, hop utilization, yeast performance, flavor perception and more. But it is also true that extract brewing is more forgiving to the wrong water chemistry than AG brewing. If you have very hard water and want to know if playing with your water will make a change for the better in your extract brews, then I second the idea of trying spring water for one or more batches.

Kai
Click to expand...


How hard do you think the water would have to be to affect the efficiency of steeping a pound of grain enough to have an impact on the OG of the brew?

It seems to me you guys are splitting hairs here. There is no doubt that water chemistry has an impact on what he's trying to do here, but how much? Not enough to worry about it - especially since he's not trying to troubleshoot off-flavors in his beer.
 
Chairman Cheyco said:
How hard do you think the water would have to be to affect the efficiency of steeping a pound of grain enough to have an impact on the OG of the brew?

It seems to me you guys are splitting hairs here. There is no doubt that water chemistry has an impact on what he's trying to do here, but how much? Not enough to worry about it - especially since he's not trying to troubleshoot off-flavors in his beer.
Click to expand...

He boils the extract in the same water... If his water is really hard, he's killing the extract(s) efficiency/utilization. Probably why his OG is off.

As Kaiser stated - extract is very forgiving, but it is not infallible.
 
dcbrewmeister said:
He boils the extract in the same water... If his water is really hard, he's killing the extract(s) efficiency/utilization. Probably why his OG is off.

As Kaiser stated - extract is very forgiving, but it is not infallible.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by extract efficiency? Efficiency, in the realm of grain brewing, refers to the percentage of potential sugars that are converted and ultimately make their way into the wort. With extract, there is no efficiency; you put the extract in the water, it dissolves, it's in the wort; 100% efficiency.

I could see, potentially, that a particularly unusual water profile might impact how many of the (already converted) sugars were dissolved from the specialty grains, but I can't imagine how it would impact the extract itself.

The water profile will impact various elements of the beer, but not whether the extract is dissolved into the wort.
 
dcbrewmeister said:
He boils the extract in the same water... If his water is really hard, he's killing the extract(s) efficiency/utilization. Probably why his OG is off.

As Kaiser stated - extract is very forgiving, but it is not infallible.
Click to expand...


Extract efficiency? Wow, it sounds like I'm in way over my head. And here I thought that adding extract to water would yield an OG directly related to the amount of extract added. Now you're telling me that depending on how hard the water is, it may or may not accept gravity from the extract.

Back to the books for me I guess.
 
the bird is brewing with this;

Calcium(Ca): 4.0 ppm
Magnesium(Mg): 1.0 ppm
Sodium(Na): 10.0 ppm
Sulfate(SO4): 8.0 ppm
Bicarbonate(HCO3): 10.0 ppm
PH: 7.9 PH

And I'm not going to spend any more time looking for Chairman Cheyco's water profile (I spent almost 5 minutes) but consider that most of the northern water I could find is fairly neutral...

the bird is practically brewing with distilled water Zero accross the board except Ph which is 7 and you have distilled water.

Here is my well water;

Calcium(Ca): 24.0 ppm
Magnesium(Mg): 13.0 ppm
Sodium(Na): 17.0 ppm
Sulfate(SO4): 44.0 ppm
Bicarbonate(HCO3): 245.0 ppm
PH: 9.6 PH

And you don't think a ph of 9.6 has any effect on extract?

I'll tell you what, send me your address and half the shipping for as much water as you want to pay for. You brew one batch using my water and one using yours and let us know gravity readings and flavor all the way throughout the brew...

Or you can just keep brewing with your distilled water from your faucet.
 
I'm not going to get into this because it's way over my head, but everything I've heard related to PH and extract brewing indicates that it impacts all the things that Kaiser mentioned, but how it would impact original gravity is beyond me.
 
the_bird said:
I'm not going to get into this because it's way over my head, but everything I've heard related to PH and extract brewing indicates that it impacts all the things that Kaiser mentioned, but how it would impact original gravity is beyond me.
Click to expand...

Here here. There is no such thing as extract efficiency. Efficiency when using malt extracts is 100%. If you add 6lbs of extract, to 6lbs of water, you're going to have a bucket full of stuff that weighs 12lbs. Water pH cannot affect OG when using only extract.
 
dcbrewmeister said:
the bird is brewing with this;
Calcium(Ca): 4.0 ppm
Magnesium(Mg): 1.0 ppm
Sodium(Na): 10.0 ppm
Sulfate(SO4): 8.0 ppm
Bicarbonate(HCO3): 10.0 ppm
PH: 7.9 PH
Click to expand...

Bird,

Is this really the water you get from the tap? I'm definately jealous b/c I had to install an R/O system to get water as soft as this ;)

Kai
 
You can always boil the water you will be steeping in and decant off of the sediment when it cools.

Not too scientific, but it works to get better extraction for my mini mashing. We have very hard water here.

Barry
 
Kaiser said:
Bird,

Is this really the water you get from the tap? I'm definately jealous b/c I had to install an R/O system to get water as soft as this ;)

Kai
Click to expand...

I have no idea where he pulled that water info from. When I think of it, I'll call the town and get the actual water report.
 
-- I just found this post not being posted yet ---

Chairman Cheyco said:
Extract efficiency? Wow, it sounds like I'm in way over my head.
Click to expand...

No, that must be a misunderstanding. Water chemistry should not affect the "utilization" of the extract. And if there is no enzymatic rectation involved, I'm not sure if it can affect the efficiency of the steeping.

Mk010101, did you end up with the amount of wort (after chilling and before you got it into the fermenter) that the recipe called for? Maybe there is another, more simple, reason why your OG is off.

Kai
 
the_bird said:
I have no idea where he pulled that water info from. When I think of it, I'll call the town and get the actual water report.
Click to expand...

I don't think that this is your water. Water in this part of the country shouldn't be.

Kai
 
Kaiser -- The recipe called for a OG of 1.060 in 5 1/4 gallons. It had 7 1/2 pounds of LME and steeped the following grains:

1/2# Crystal 120
1/2# Chocolate Malt
1/2# Black Roasted Barley
1/2# Flaked Oats

I figure steeping should have given me .003 gravity, so at worst, my SG should have been around 1.055-58.

Well it came in at 1.047 (temp adjusted) in only 5 gallons. I mixed it really well before I took the gravity reading. I did leave maybe two-three cups of wort in the boiling pot because there was just too much trub in it. I had a strainer, but the last time I used it, it didn't do that great of a job keeping most of the trub out. Maybe I shouldn't have cared and put it all in and not worried about the little bit of trub that would end up in the fermenter. My concern was that I used the pacman yeast and I wanted to save it and not have to wash it as much at the end of fermentation. That, plus what I read about not getting a lot of break material into the fermenter.

So I think my main problem was those last few cups left in the boiling pot plus maybe bad efficiency of the steeping grains. If the color of the beer is supposed to be black to jet black, then I know I didn't get a good steep because it is more dark brown in color.

The instructions didn't say how much wort I should have after cooling--only to start with 2 1/2 gallons, steep in that then add the extract. I did remove (temporarily) 4 cups of liquid after I steeped. I added the extract and got it to a boil. About 15 min into the boil I added back those 4 cups of water that had been steeped. I don't think I could have lost anything in that either, but maybe I did??? I did remove these 4 cups (again temporarily) so that when I got the wort back to boiling it would boil over.
 
Ok, I got a water sample test and here are the results:

Ph: 7.4
Hardness: 673
Alkalinity: 176
Cloride: 364
Magnesium: 55
Sodium: 227

All those are in PPM. If anyone sees this (or those who had mentioned this before) I was curious as to how this does affect my steeping.

Also, if I go to partial mashes or maybe someday all-grain what do I have to do to "correct" my water?

Thanks!
 

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