A Brewing Water Chemistry Primer

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Larso said:
I'm brewing a wit using 35 litres (biab) of Bottled water for a 20 litre brew with this profile here

can anyone tell me how I should treat it please? I've got calcium chloride , calcium sulphate, crs and dls. Sorry for askin you's to do the work but I'm puttin on the mash tonight an I've a busy day ahead

Thanks

L
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What kind of bottled water is it?

If it's distilled or reverse osmosis water, then you'd add 2tsp calcium chloride in the 35 to 40 litres of water.

But if it's something else (eg spring water), it's a bit harder to tell, uulll it's impossible for us to know what's in YOUR particular bottled water. Does the bottle include a breakdown of the mineral content? More specifically calcium, magnesium, chloride, and sulfate would at least help give us a better idea of what you're working with. Though it's VERY unlikely you can go wrong with half the proscribed amount - in your case,that would be 1tsp calcium chloride in the entire starting liquor volume of 35L.
 
Thx Emjay, it's spring water, the mineral breakdown is on the image I posted, ca = 10, cl = 12, sulphate = 10, bicarbonate = 25, sodium = 9, magnesium = 2.5, they're all mg/l. Certainly not RO unfortunately. Can't buy that bottled here

Thanx

L
 
But it's low enough that you can practically consider it RO. I'd be inclined to follow the recommendations of the Primer at the top of this thread. For the acid you could use the amount of CRS recommended by Brewpaks for the specified amount of alkalinity which is the specified bicarbonate*50/61 = 25*50/61 = 20 i.e. not much.
 
ajdelange said:
But it's low enough that you can practically consider it RO. I'd be inclined to follow the recommendations of the Primer at the top of this thread. For the acid you could use the amount of CRS recommended by Brewpaks for the specified amount of alkalinity which is the specified bicarbonate*50/61 = 25*50/61 = 20 i.e. not much.
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Thanks Aj, are you saying I can use crs instead of sauermalz which I don't have! Also do I treat it like a soft water beer? Or a British beer as in a pale ale kind of beer??

Thanks

L
 
Larso said:
Thanks Aj, are you saying I can use crs instead of sauermalz which I don't have[?]
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Yes. An equivalent of one acid is, well, equivalent, to one equivalent of another acid in terms of pH control. The flavors might be different and a wit is one place where lactic flavor is definitely a plus so lactic would be the better choice here but CRS should do, especially as so little will be needed.

Larso said:
Also do I treat it like a soft water beer?
Click to expand...

I would but the waters of Belgium are diverse. Best thing, of course, would be to brew it with soft and hard water and see which gives the most pleasing result.
 
Does anyone have any thoughts about water considerations for mead, assuming AJ's baseline as a starting point? Obviously, sauermalz is right out, but acid blend would probably accomplish much the same thing. My gut tells me that mead water would require more salt additions than beer water since honey doesn't have as much mineral content as malt, but my mead knowledge is pretty limited.
 
Hello AJ, you participated in a panel discussion on water chem at NHC. Was this recorded? Is there anyway I can watch this online?

During a quick search on youtube for it, I found this video of a recent lecture on water chem by John Palmer:



He spends a lot of time on SRM vs RA which I thought was a concept that was all but abandoned ("a handwave a best"). Assuming it is a recent lecture, do you have any thoughts on this?
 
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Yes, it was recorded (audio only) and I just had a note from one of the other panelists (Colin Kaminsky) saying that he had listened to it but I haven't been able to find it on the AHA site, where, they told us, it would be posted in a couple of weeks so I don't know where Colin found it. I'd say be patient and it will pop up. Of course it's just me reiterating what I say here and Martin reiterating what he says here but Colin and John made some interesting comments too.

John still feels that RA is a powerful tool for water analysis but I believe he is backing off on it as a driving design parameter. And you have doubtless seen me post here many times that while there is a correlation between SRM and the RA of the source water it is much too weak to allow color to serve as a driving design parameter. This is more or less equivalent to calling it a 'hand wave'.
 
I was a having a non-beer related conversation about our water (the guy believes in conspiracy theories about flourination) and I found this: "...Metro Vancouver is introducing sodium carbonate (soda ash) into our tap water to make it more alkaline...The current target is to adjust our tap water pH levels up to pH 7 – 7.5. Ultimately, Metro Vancouver Water District intends to raise the pH of our water to pH 8 or higher once the Seymour-Capilano Filtration Project is complete (2013?)." http://yourwatermatters.com/vancouv...er-tap-water-ph-adjustments-no-longer-acidic/ Does this threaten our perfect brewing water? How much sodium carbonate is needed to raise the pH of practically distilled water. The current water is as follows: Ca 1.4ppm, Cl 1.8ppm, SO4 1ppm, CO3 4.6ppm, Mg 0.2ppm I'm hoping that it won't put the sodium or carbonate too high
 
Wow these minerals number are incredibly low.. Even lower than pilsen water..

Most city do alkalinize their water to prevent corroding the pipes, so that's not unheard of..

The sodium should be watched for but the carbonates are only going to build some buffer in your water...

Unless you plan on doing only pilsners all the time, that water needs quite a lot of tinkering for most beers...
 
gbx said:
I was a having a non-beer related conversation about our water (the guy believes in conspiracy theories about flourination)
Click to expand...

I have been on earth long enough to remember when fluoridation was first proposed and the debate over it. It was deemed a communist plot to render our children so stupid that the country would fall to socialism. Turns out the prognostication was correct but I find it hard to believe it's the F- ion that is responsible.

gbx said:
The current water is as follows: Ca 1.4ppm, Cl 1.8ppm, SO4 1ppm, CO3 4.6ppm, Mg 0.2ppm I'm hoping that it won't put the sodium or carbonate too high
Click to expand...

This water is quite aggressive with the saturation pH (the pH at which calcium carbonate will deposit in the mains) being 10.69 i.e. much higher than the water's actual pH. The mains will corrode.

gbx said:
"...Metro Vancouver is introducing sodium carbonate (soda ash) into our tap water to make it more alkaline...The current target is to adjust our tap water pH levels up to pH 7 – 7.5. Ultimately, Metro Vancouver Water District intends to raise the pH of our water to pH 8 or higher once the Seymour-Capilano Filtration Project is complete (2013?)."
Click to expand...

Raising the pH of the water to 8 obviously gets it closer to the saturation pH than 6.8 (the approximate current value) but not enough to prevent corrosion. Slow it certainly but water with the current level of alkalinity at pH 8 would still be quite corrosive. Adding soda ash is obviously a simple and inexpensive way to increase pH.

gbx said:
Does this threaten our perfect brewing water? How much sodium carbonate is needed to raise the pH of practically distilled water.
Click to expand...

No threat because so little is required as the buffering capacity of the current water is so low. Only 2.3 mg/L of soda ash would be needed. This would raise the sodium by 0.4 mg/L and the alkalinity to 5.5 (from the current 4.6). The bicarbonate level would go to 5.4 mg/L (from the current 3.2) This maneuver only lowers the saturation pH to 10.47 (from 10.69) and the water will still be quite corrosive to metal pipe (this is why RO water, which this stuff resembles is run around in plastic pipe). To fix the corrosivity problem the plant would have to introduce additional calcium as well as additional carbonate. But I'm sure the engineers understand their distribution system better than I do and just raising the pH will doubtless improve the situation with respect to the mains. I wonder about the home owner though. I would think Vancouver plumbers would be happy campers with the current or the new pH levels unless Pex pipe has supplanted copper everywhere in your fair city.
 
Awesome! thanks for the response. In the water FAQs section on the city website there is a "Why is my bathtub water blue?" section that talks about copper corrosion. I think you might be right about the plumbers - our 30 year old townhouse has had the original copper piping fail due to corrosion on 2 separate occasions in the 3 years we've lived here.
 
ajdelange said:
I have been on earth long enough to remember when fluoridation was first proposed and the debate over it. It was deemed a communist plot to render our children so stupid that the country would fall to socialism. Turns out the prognostication was correct but I find it hard to believe it's the F- ion that is responsible.
Click to expand...

I was just thinking about this...a little off topic but its interesting that the conspiracy theory survived longer than the communist threat. The story now is that the illuminatti, reptilians, new world order, etc are the ones responsible for trying to subdue us with flouride.
 
Hi, I don't fully understand the baseline use of sauermalz in RO water. I'm brewing a bitter next with bottled water that has caco3 of 20ppm. I have brupaks crs. According to brupaks I shouldn't use any crs in this water but the baseline instructions would have me add sauermalz as an acidifying agent? Why is that?

Thanks

L
 
Larso said:
Hi, I don't fully understand the baseline use of sauermalz in RO water. I'm brewing a bitter next with bottled water that has caco3 of 20ppm. I have brupaks crs. According to brupaks I shouldn't use any crs in this water but the baseline instructions would have me add sauermalz as an acidifying agent?
Click to expand...

Difference in philosophies. There is no one correct answer in any of this. I don't know Brupaks' reasoning here but I believe it is that Carbonate Reducing Solution (CRS) is to be added to the extent that alkalinity is neutralized. Thus the treated water is more or less like distilled water in terms of setting mash pH. Twenty ppm as CaCO3 is not very much alkalinity to the extent that they apparently feel that the water is close enough to distilled as is - no treatment is required.

I do know what my philosophy is and that is that a distilled water mash will be too high - in the 5.6 - 5.7 range depending on the base malt and darker malts if any are used. Therefore, additional acid is required i.e. enough to get the pH down a couple tenths of a point or 2-3%. It doesn't have to be sauermalz. CRS can serve as the source of additional acid if you can tolerate the sulfate. Or the acid can be lactic or phosphoric. The primer mentions sauermalz because it is easy to obtain, easy to measure out, easy to calculate and safe. And we do not have CRS this side of the pond.
 
I was frequently warned many many years ago by perhaps the most eccentric man I have ever met of the dire consequences likely to befall those who did not learn their semi-deponents. Loquor is a semi deponent so there it is!
 
Yooper said:
By Ajdelange






For British beers: Add 1 tsp gypsum as well as 1 tsp calcium chloride


Can someone explain why the suggestion is to add both, gypsum and calcium chloride? What I have read is that they do the same things, lower ph and add calcium ions to benefit the enzymes in breaking down starch molecules to sugar. I am probably wrong in my assumption, the reason that is I am just beginning to read about water chemistry.
Click to expand...
 
junior said:
Can someone explain why the suggestion is to add both, gypsum and calcium chloride? What I have read is that they do the same things, lower ph and add calcium ions to benefit the enzymes in breaking down starch molecules to sugar.
Click to expand...

Correct on the calcium but gypsum adds sulfate as well as calcium and calcium chloride adds chloride as well as calcium. These two have profoundly different effects on the quality of the beer to the point that many think one offsets the other. In fact the effects are not offsetting but chloride adds fullness (body), roundness and sweetness to the beer while sulfate adds dryness and sharpens (to the point of harshness in many cases) the perception of hops. In British beers this is sought after. In German beers it is avoided. Thus in brewing British style beers many references will suggest the addition of a lot of gypsum. It is the opinion of many that sulfate harshness does not improve British beers any more than it does continental beers (and other disagree strenuously) and so brew their ales with little or no sulfate. Because of this I always recommend starting out with low sulfate and adding it incrementally to see if you like or dislike its effects. As gypsum is so traditional in British brewing I recommended splitting the calcium contribution half and half between sulfate and chloride as a starting point.
 
ajdelange said:
Correct on the calcium but gypsum adds sulfate as well as calcium and calcium chloride adds chloride as well as calcium. These two have profoundly different effects on the quality of the beer to the point that many think one offsets the other. In fact the effects are not offsetting but chloride adds fullness (body), roundness and sweetness to the beer while sulfate adds dryness and sharpens (to the point of harshness in many cases) the perception of hops. In British beers this is sought after. In German beers it is avoided. Thus in brewing British style beers many references will suggest the addition of a lot of gypsum. It is the opinion of many that sulfate harshness does not improve British beers any more than it does continental beers (and other disagree strenuously) and so brew their ales with little or no sulfate. Because of this I always recommend starting out with low sulfate and adding it incrementally to see if you like or dislike its effects. As gypsum is so traditional in British brewing I recommended splitting the calcium contribution half and half between sulfate and chloride as a starting point.
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Ajdelange, if I understand you correctly, the calcium aids enzymes in there ability to convert starch to sugar, and the chloride and the sulfate if used are more for the taste aspects and not for the fermentation benefits. Hope these questions make sense to you, and thank's for the lesson in brewing water chemistry.
 
Yes, calcium is beneficial in many ways as an enzyme cofactor, through its influence on mash pH etc and yes, sulfate and chloride can be used to exert control over flavor.
 
ajdelange said:
Yes, calcium is beneficial in many ways as an enzyme cofactor, through its influence on mash pH etc and yes, sulfate and chloride can be used to exert control over flavor.
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Ajdelange, uneducated people like me appreciate the help people like you unselfishly give, thank you very much. P.S. I didn't know what (cofactor) meant so I looked it up,, a substance that needs to be present in addition to an enzyme for a certain reaction to be catalysed. That's two things I have learned in one post. I should have paid more attention in school.
 
Just out of curiousity, is the information in the first post supposed be a blanket quick fix, regardless of where you live or what your water report says? I want to do an Bitter, so should I just follow the british beers guideline?
 
Oter said:
Just out of curiousity, is the information in the first post supposed be a blanket quick fix, regardless of where you live or what your water report says? I want to do an Bitter, so should I just follow the british beers guideline?
Click to expand...

I believe it's based on RO water not tap water.
 
It's based on water with low ion content whether you are lucky enough to get it out of the tap because you live in the Pacific north west or NYC (I guess you can't really call someone who is forced to live in NYC lucky but the water is good) on unlucky enough to live where the water is unusable and must be replaced or diluted to the point where is is virtually replaced with RO or otherwise deionized water. There are in between situations where 1:1 or 2:1 dilution can get you to low ion content as defined in the sticky.
 
No, you are not missing anything. It has not, AFAIK, been posted nor do I believe it will be. The company that made the recordings makes money by selling these and I expect they will be offered for sale at some point but I don't know when or where.
 
ajdelange ,
I have had success with the information on the thread and have won many metals, I believe, because of the changes I'm now making.
That being said, I will be brewing a Robust Porter tomorrow and have been told by people smarter than me that the water profile here is great for brewing that style of beer.
I was hoping you might take a look at the profile and see what you think.
I filter my water to remove the chlorine and our water has no chloramines.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks
Bull
ca 33.3
mg 9
so4 28
na 13
cl 22
hco3 99

The recipe is
11# 2 row
.75#C60
1.25# roast/toast. This will be added to sparge only.
4 oz acidulated.
 
I expect that will work out fine for you. There is always some risk with a dark beer that the dark malts may contribute more acid that you expect them to and that the pH will drop too low if you include the acid malt. OTOH there is always the risk the pH will be too high without the acid malt. For this reason I'd hold back on the acid malt, check the pH about 15 minutes after dough in (and more frequently than that if you can.) and add the acid malt if it is needed. Next time you brew this beer you will know whether you need it or not.
 
Without the acid malt, the mash ph calculated out to just under 5.6 which is higher than I want. With the acid, the ph drops into the low 5.4 range.
Adding the dark malts only for the sparge won't have any affect on the ph during the mash, so I left them out of the calculations.
The only thing I was thinking would be to add about 2 grams of gypsum and 4 grams of calcium chloride to bring my ratio more into balance.
Thanks for taking a look.
Bull
 
I would predict a mash pH of 5.55 but my prediction is based on experience and the calculators are based on models based on experience and in some cases experiment. The problem is that neither my predictions nor the calculators are necessarily accurate in a given situation. As I said, there is risk that without the acid malt you might go too high and without it you might go too low. The only way to resolve the uncertainty is to measure the mash pH with a meter.

When I make stout I don't use acid malt and the pH comes in right around 5.5 - 5.55. That's a wee bit higher than I like too but I don't use acid malt simply because AFAIK the reknowned brewers of that style don't and if you account for the fact that the pH at mash temp is likely to be 5.3 - 5.35 I'm comfortable with that. The bottom line is that the beer comes out fine. But that's what I get - you might get something a little different.

Chloride/sulfate ratios are not really useful. If you want sharp hops, dry hops, use sulfate. If you want to round and sweeten the beer and improve its mouthfeel use chloride. Use these to the extent you want those effects. The ratio will fall where it will fall.
 
For a few brews I have been diluting my water with 50% distilled water. I have been playing around with ez water, and it seems like diluting my water might not be necessary.

This is my water report:



pH
7.3
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 157
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.26
Cations / Anions, me/ L2.2 / 2.3

Sodium, Na 21
Potassium, K 1
Calcium, Ca 16
Magnesium, Mg 5
Total Hardness, CaCO3 61
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.2 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 3
Chloride, Cl 42
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 56

Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 46

Total Phosphorus, P 1.06
Total Iron, Fe 0.03

As a test, I created a grist in EZ water of 16lbs of pils, 5 gallons of mash water, and 5 gallons of sparge water (1.25 qt/lb thickness). I used the soft water suggestion in this thread.

10 gallons water: 1tsp total CaCi2 and 8oz (3%) acid malt.

All tap

Calcium Magnesium Sodium Chloride Sulfate Chloride / Sulfate
(Ca ppm) (Mg ppm) (Na ppm) (Cl ppm) (SO4 ppm) Ratio
23 5 21 55 9 6.08

50% distilled 50% tap

Calcium Magnesium Sodium Chloride Sulfate Chloride / Sulfate
(Ca ppm) (Mg ppm) (Na ppm) (Cl ppm) (SO4 ppm) Ratio
15 3 11 34 5 7.50


Can anyone smarter then me, tell me if I am wasting my money diluting my water?
 

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