hard water=paler beer?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
pcollins

pcollins

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
Messages
562
Reaction score
32
Location
Cambridge, ON
Brewed my usual pale ale recipe the last couple of weeks and did two batches. Both batches were the same with ingredients purchased at the same time at my LHBS. The only difference between the two batches, as far as I know, was that I used hard water on the second one. That second batch seems to be significantly paler than the previous one.

I'm brewing extract with full boils.

Any thoughts?
 
That depends on what you mean by "hard". If you mean more calcium, maybe.

If the pH is higher during the wort boil, the color will be darker. Water with a lot of calcium (and magnesium) will result in a lower pH than water with similar alkalinity and less hardness.
 
I have terrible water and even beers made entirely from pale malt came out amber until I switched to distilled + 5.2 buffer, now they come out the right color. It can definitely make a difference.
 
Yeah, I don't have a water analysis for my area but I normally use soft water through my tap but I bypassed the water softener for that second batch. I imagine there is more of both but not sure.

Any other Cambridge brewers out there with more knowledge? Devils Creek?
 
ericd said:
I have terrible water and even beers made entirely from pale malt came out amber until I switched to distilled + 5.2 buffer, now they come out the right color. It can definitely make a difference.
Click to expand...

Are you using only distilled water and 5.2 stabilizer in the mash?

No other salt additions, such as Mg, SO4, Ca, NaCO3, etc...?
 

Similar threads

nxc3441
New member from maryland
Replies
5
Views
310
lumpher
lumpher
pvtpublic
Color extraction
Replies
24
Views
929
BrewnWKopperKat
BrewnWKopperKat
D
Small batch (1 Gallon) ingredients
Replies
8
Views
471
hotbeer
hotbeer
yard_bird
Pale Beer
Replies
21
Views
1K
dwhite60
D
T
Acetobacter recurring infections
Replies
7
Views
737
Tancred the Brewer
T
InkBird 300

Latest posts

Back
Top