Water adjustments. Is it really worth it?

I've beer reading a lot on water adjustments this summer and will be attempting to have a go at it this week. My local water supply is quite soft and I'll be adjusting it to brew a porter. I've brewed a few darker beers in the past with ok results.

Should I be tasting a huge difference if I'm doing this correctly? What about for other styles? Adjusting for pH is logicial but what about taste.

Just want to know...

This depends very much on whether or not you're brewing all-grain. If not, I wouldn't worry about anything other than chlorine/chloramine (campden tablets) so long as your water tastes alright. If you're going all grain than you need to get a bit deeper into this subject, just to make sure you're not dealing with exceptional issues such as highly alkaline water. Others will weigh in with links to good intros to the topic.

John Palmer's "How to Brew" is what I've used (although it seems to be offline at the moment). Here's the section that lets you compare your water to what you want. http://web.archive.org/web/20080312155718/www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-1.html

How far off your water is from those numbers will be the biggest factor on how much adjusting your water will affect taste.

Without the details on what your water profile looks like now, it's anybody's guess if you'll see a noticeable difference by changing things. +1 on reading chapter 15 of John Palmers "How to Brew". It's a great place to start as far as learning what ions have what effect on brewing.

Thanks for all the responses so far. This is my 50th or so batch all grain and I have read Palmer numerous times as well as Noonan, Daniels and some others. I do have all my numbers and know exactly what my water profile is. I've just never gotten around to adjusting my water. I'm simply curious as to what differences I should by tasting on styles where my untreated water was unfit before. Are we talking about slight nuances or sort of a night and day type of thing?

It's really hard to quantify. It's like asking how much better your beers will be if you get a temp controlled fermentation chamber. Well, how "off" where your temps before? If you have a basement with 67F ambient, it won't help your ales all that much.

If you have Pilsen-like water and you were generally happy with your Porters and Stouts before, you'll probably notice a difference due to getting the pH up into range.

On the flavor end of things, it's a lot more nuanced in my opinion. You can get a slightly rounder flavor (it's almost a mouthfeel perception to me) with elevated Cl levels.

I look at attention to water just like the difference between slightly fresher vs. slightly stale ingredients, etc.

Do the commercial brewers really use the water straight as it comes into the brewery?
Don't they adjust the mineral profiles too? If they do, adjusting to a particular water profile doesn't help too much.

If you are brewing all-grain, the difference can be huge. I've tried all kinds of methods to make the local tapwater, which is (theoretically) perfectly suitable for all-around brewing, yield great beers. Starting from cheap, $0.30 cents per gallon RO water and throwing in some minerals has changed identical recipes from "meh" to "mmmm".

Keep in mind that you can easily go overboard when it comes to mineral additions. For the most part, gypsum, calcium chloride and maybe chalk is all you really need. Gypsum for hoppy beers, calcium chloride for malty ones and adding enough to yield somewhere between 50 and 100 ppm calcium usually does the trick.

adam01 said:

Do the commercial brewers really use the water straight as it comes into the brewery?
Don't they adjust the mineral profiles too? If they do, adjusting to a particular water profile doesn't help too much.

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From what I've noticed, most of the breweries interviewed on Can You Brew it, just use city water "as is". Most will pump it through a carbon filter. Some add gypsum, but it really seems like most aren't going through too much trouble to adjust their water.

I agree that its only a necessity if your water is extremely hard, or extremely soft. If its really hard, the only option you have is to use RO, or cut it with RO.

adam01 said:

Do the commercial brewers really use the water straight as it comes into the brewery?
Don't they adjust the mineral profiles too? If they do, adjusting to a particular water profile doesn't help too much.

Click to expand...

Commercial brewers (in general):

1. Understand water better than homebrewers
2. Think about it less than homebrewers
3. Will handle pH problems by removing alkalinity or adding acid but rarely by adding a crap ton of salts.

Just went through a tour at Avery...they use Boulder's city water, and I think all they do is heat/boil it to remove excess chlorine, etc... Can't remember if they do anything else to it, but they said that water in that part of the country is perfect for brewing. That's just one example, though...

I'm no expert here, but from what I remember researching my last Kolsh I brewed, the reason that "real Kolsch" comes from the Cologne is because of the water supply and whatever the special characteristics of that water. Now it may be possible to recreate Cologne water by adding minerals and whatever else you need to get that same profile, which is good for making a specific style of beer(eg: Kolsh). But on the other hand, if you just use your local water supply, then you will be getting beers unique to you, similar to what the brewers in Cologne did.

I've brewed a number of fantastic brews using the water out of my faucet, but it really comes down to your preferences or if you are trying to exactly mimic a specific type of beer.

Edcculus said:

From what I've noticed, most of the breweries interviewed on Can You Brew it, just use city water "as is". Most will pump it through a carbon filter. Some add gypsum, but it really seems like most aren't going through too much trouble to adjust their water.

I agree that its only a necessity if your water is extremely hard, or extremely soft. If its really hard, the only option you have is to use RO, or cut it with RO.

Click to expand...

It could seem like they're not going through any trouble because once you've made your calculation it's very easy to add 5g of whatever salt to fix your water. It really isn't any trouble, just the math can seem confusing.