General Water Questions

Ok,
I searched for water and really didnt see what I was looking for in the posts.

I am just looking for what is the first couple of steps to ensuring that I am using the optimal water?

My water is city water with like 1-2ppm of chlorine which I THINK is pretty low...

What would be the first things I would do to check my water? What are the main couple of things I need to look for?

I know this is general but any advice but I am not sure where to start...

Have you looked for your city's water report yet? It's tough to make suggestions without knowing your starting point.

Then have a look at something like How To Brew to get a sense of where your water falls in relation to "optimal" water and some of the options to adjust it.

You might want to check out Ward Labs. They make it very simple to send samples in for analysis.

I just checked out the site and they changed it a bit. Click on "About Us", then "General Information". Scroll down to Sample Supplies and click on the homebrewers link. They used to send free sample kits but it looks like they're trying to get us to use our own bottles, etc. No big deal, just a little more hassle than it used to be.

Here is what I have for the report... I dont know what is good or bad...

If anyone doesnt mind taking a look you'd be helping me a lot ?

Here is one
http://www.amwater.com/files/PA_2359001_CCR.pdf

and this is the other

Those reports are typical for municipal systems, just shows the stuff that have regulatory levels. You need Ca, Mg, Na, sulphates, chlorides and either bicarbonates (HCO3) or alkalinity expressed as CaCO3. Some are able to obtain these by talking to the engineers or labs at their water department. Most send a sample to Ward's lab.

So if I send a sample to ward labs and post the results I can get some better input than from that report?

Yes. There are some very knowledgeable and helpful people here. Excluding myself from the knowledgable, but I do try help when I can

This serves as a good reminder for me to send in a sample. We recently moved last fall and we have a well, but since I don't want to take a gamble on water I've just been buying it. But I'm really getting sick of buying 10 gallons of water every time I brew and it's adding to the total cost.

I know our water is hard, but that's about it. Maybe I can finally get off my butt and send a sample in.

So I guess I just goolgle ward laboratories and follow whatever directions they give?

Well... that is harder than I thought... there are a ton of links at that site... Not sure what to pick... anyone ever do it have a tip for what to do?

go to http://www.wardlab.com/. Click on sampling sheets. Click on Information Sheet for Homebrewers. The directions for submitting the sample is there.

Nice thanks... Do I want the W5 or the W6 test?

The cheapest one. Has all the information you need.

Even better.
Anyone know their turnaround time? Weeks? Months?

It was more like days for me. Seems like I had my results, via email, in about a week.

There is a good chapter in Palmer's book about understanding the water chemistry once you have your results and there are some good videos online that apply it to a specific brew. I know Bobby_M did a 2 or 3 part series on water adjustments a little while ago (I watched several of them last night).

So... In the mean time...

If I were to use bottled water: Should I get spring water or distilled?

And do I add anything to the water from the bottle?

Thanks!

I am surprised there isnt a category for water on the main board... beer is mostly water and water from what I am learning can have a big impact on your beer. And even if not a big impact and certainly seems to have some kind of impact.

First - welcome to HBT. I'm not sure if you're doing extract brewing, Water chemistry becomes much more important if you're doing all grain & mashing. If you want to use your tap water for extract, you would need to at least filter it & use campden tablets (1 per 5 gallons) to dissipate the chlorine or chloramine.

There is plenty of information available here on HBT. You do have to search around a little for it, but it's here. You could start here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Water

There's also good inforrmation at How To Brew - http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter4.html

Good luck with it.

jalgayer said:

I am just looking for what is the first couple of steps to ensuring that I am using the optimal water?

Click to expand...

If you're doing extract brewing, I'd go with water that just tastes good. If your tap water tastes good, use that; boiling it first will drive off most of the chlorine.

If you're doing all grain then you have more issues to deal with, because you need a certain pH range in the mash. But 90% of the time things will still work well. I've used R/O filtered water, carbon filtered water and boiled tap water; they've all worked. (I'm in San Diego.) Talking to local brewers at Ballast Point, Lost Abbey and Stone I've heard:

"Just use tap water and boil it; the mineral profile is good for all beer."
"We use a charcoal filter to keep the minerals in the water."
"We do all R/O filtering because you get too much crud otherwise."
"We use bicarb and calcium to get the water where we need it."
"We adjust pH for really dark beers but not for anything else."
"We never adjust the water and we do fine."

All of which makes me think that there's a lot of leeway in the process.

Check Hoppus' reply earlier in this string. He gave a link and navigation instructions. Got me right to a page...read it and you'll see a "homebrewers click here" link. You gotta supply a bottle (like a spring water plastic bottle) and mail it out--probably cost a couple bucks for the postage. I believe you want sample W-6 (the cheaper one).

Followed directions and sample is in the mail...

As far as using the campden... since it can kill yeast... When should I add it to the water? In the boil - even though that is only 2-3 gallons of the total amount?

Hours before?

Day before? - But this would seem weird as I heard that I can just let it sit out plain and the chlorine will go away.

I am totaly RDWAHAHB - however, I want to do things right...

So... any tips on the use of campden?

Just re-read your first municipal water report and it looks like your water has chlorine, not chloramine. IIRC the trihalomethanes are a by product of chlorine, not chloramine. That's good, because you can get rid of the chlorine during the boil, it boils off. Chloramine requires the campden. If your unsure about which one you have, a phone call to the water company should answer it.

My water has chlorine NOT chloramine.

I believe it was 2-4 PPM.

Get distilled water and add the appropriate amount of salts to create a water profile for the particular style of beer you're making.