Water Report

I've read a number of posts where folks are asking about their water. I'd like to ask the same thing about mine.. but before I do, I'd like to know what the important parts of the water are for the brewer. IOW, what should I include, as the city analysis is a mile long.....

I'm still only brewing extracts.. so, what pertains to AG folks may not apply to me.. That said, I'm sure I will be doing AG in the reasonable future.. so, I'd guess all the important points should be noted for me to post.

Thanks.. Bill

How to Brew, John Palmer...

Chapter 15 - Understanding the Mash pH
A good start: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-1.html



- Mike

ezwatercalculator.com

I actually just did this today. The spreadsheet has the substances of interest listed. Palmer gives some targets you should shoot for. I decided I was less concerned with hitting exact numbers for water profiles because those numbers are not exact and I'd rather just get in the ballpark for a particular style. What I gleaned is that for some beers (helles, pils) you want softer water, and for the rest, get in range and tweak your chloride/sulfate level based on the style/hoppiness.

Seems like as long as you are within proper numbers, it's more important to hit proper mash PH. That spreadsheet can tell you how to do that with some acid malt.

When dealing with extracts, its beneficial to use water with relatively low mineralization. That is because the extract already contains the minerals from the water used in the original mash.

This is not to say that a brewer would not want to add more minerals in some cases. For instance, if brewing a hoppy beer with extract, adding gypsum to increase the sulfate content could be desirable.

RO or distilled water have low mineralization. If a brewer's tap water has low mineralization, it will be fine for extract brewing. If the brewer's tap water has high mineralization, it may not be ideal from extract (or any) brewing. This issue may be especially true if the tap water's alkalinity is high. You can pick up more information about brewing water in Bru'n Water.

I don't have Excel.. so if someone will be kind enough to peruse this..

I do tend to like hoppy beers.. so depending on feedback.. I may need to add gypsum?????

Substance Avg Level Detected
Copper 0.59 ppm problem????
Lead <5.0 ppb
Chlorine 0.66 ppm
Fluoride 0.75 ppm
Nitrate(NO3) 2.5 ppm
Alkalinity 155 ppm
Aluminum 51 ppb
Arsenic < 2 ppb
Barium 117 ppb
Bicarbonate 192 ppm
Calcium 26 ppm
Chloride 8.8 ppm
Hardness 174 ppm
Iron <100 ppb
Manganese <20 ppb
Magnesium 26 ppm
pH units 7.1 pH units
Sodium 10 ppm
Sulfate 18 ppm
Zinc <50 ppb

You definitely want to get the chlorine to 0. You could use a campden tablet (one tablet per 20 gallons of brewing water, crushed and dissolved in the water) early in the day or the day before.

Your bicarb is pretty high, though. Not quite as high as mine at 228, but I found that I had to dilute my tap water with RO water to get the alkalinity down.

RO water would also help solve your chlorine issue as well.

You've got stuff in your water I don't- copper, lead(?), aluminum, flouride, nitrate, for example. It might be inconvenient, but I'd buy reverse osmosis water from the store, especially if you can find one of those big "Water Machine" dispensers where it's cheap.

I wish i could steal beer knowledge, Yooper would be my first victim.

brewd00d said:

I wish i could steal beer knowledge, Yooper would be my first victim.

Click to expand...

But all that info at once would drive you insane. Be careful what you wish for!


Rev.

Thanks guys.. The current brew I have going.. my first.. is RO water. I thought about going with bottled water from the Dollar Store.. I think it's a buck a gallon.. cheaper than gasoline.. . But, I like your idea of blending the tap with bottled.

If I don't go with bottled water, I'l at least put it thru a charcoal filter to clear up the chlorine... it's not chloramide.. I think that's what the other form is.

The other thing I need to do is check with Bear Republic down the street. I called the city water engineer and he said they are calling him every so often to get some current stats. I'm not commercial so I don't care about a bit of this or that changing a smidge.. But, I guess if they can use it as is.. or with charcoal filtering, I can too. I'll have to see what they say.

Yoop.. Yes, looks like the Cu is a bit higher than some websites that would like to see it absent. I don't know if that's leached from pipes or natural.. same for Alum....

You don't have to own Excel to use one of these water spreadsheets. There are freeware spreadsheet programs that do a great job. I recommend LibreOffice as an alternative to Excel. I include a link to their website on the Bru'n Water page. Bru'n Water works pretty well with that program.

Yooper mentioned reducing alkalinity by dilution. That is a good alternative, but not the only one. For the moderate alkalinity in the profile above, acidification is likely to be an acceptable alternative. Bru'n Water has that calculation covered too.

Don't worry about the trace elements. They are reported in parts per billion, so they are extremely low. RO only moderately affects concentrations that are this low and its quite likely that almost any water source has those ions too. Don't be fooled into thinking that your water doesn't have these ions just because they aren't reported. The water report above is quite comprehensive and detailed with reporting limits at very low levels. Its really nice. Please understand that we DO want trace levels of copper, flouride, zinc, iron, manganese, nitrate, etc in our water. They are all nutrients to the yeast. And in most cases, the yeast consumes and/or adsorbs these trace metals from the wort and leaves the beer even cleaner.

Copper has long been proven to be an important component in wort and is known to fully precipitate out of the beer during fermentation. You HAVE to have copper in your water or have copper components in your brewing system to supply this very important nutrient to the wort. Copper also serves as a reactant for sulfide and other sulfur compound removal. VERY IMPORTANT.