A Brewing Water Chemistry Primer

Opened 5.1 in Excel 2007, no FALSEs
Added a line (and misspelled Munich)
Deleted the leftmost col. Still no FALSE.


Edit: same thing in Excel 2016. No FALSEs. (Falsies?)

Things appear top be looking up for Excel users. Thank you @balrog!

Silver_Is_Money said:

Some interesting reading on the impact of mashing at extreme pH values:

http://brulosophy.com/2017/01/30/wa...he-impact-of-low-mash-ph-exbeeriment-results/

http://brulosophy.com/2017/07/24/wa...e-impact-of-high-mash-ph-exbeeriment-results/

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I don't know what any of this is doing in the Primer thread but be wary of these exbeermint results. They pretend, or rather probably really think, that they are doing triangle testing, which certainly sounds impressive, but they are not. There is a very long thread here somewhere in which this is discussed at great length. If you read the linked articles carefully you will find that they do admit, but not in so many words, that the tests they did are meaningless.

ajdelange said:

I don't know what any of this is doing in the Primer thread ....

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My apology A.J.! I wish the mods would cut this thread back to only the few first essential posts, and then lock it, so others (myself included) will not treat it as just another common old open post.

ajdelange said:

I don't know what any of this is doing in the Primer thread but be wary of these exbeermint results. They pretend, or rather probably really think, that they are doing triangle testing, which certainly sounds impressive, but they are not. There is a very long thread here somewhere in which this is discussed at great length. If you read the linked articles carefully you will find that they do admit, but not in so many words, that the tests they did are meaningless.

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AJ, thank for doing this - way back 8 years ago. I've ridden the rollercoaster of homebrewing. Started fast, bought too much ****, downsized, quit for 5 years and then came back. One of the worst things to deal with is water chemistry. Most of the fancy spreadsheets give me ppm and other number's cr@p, but not 1/4 tsp, etc. Numbers I failed at 20 years ago in school. The skinny of this question is, considering you've popped up here, is that has any of your thoughts changed on this since 2010? I just bought my calcium chloride last week and looking for sour malt. But a chance to see if anything has changed before I begin your process. Thanks again!!!

The main difference is that today's brewers seem to want less minerals in their beers than they used to. When I wrote No. 1 ten years ago the goal was to give brewers what I thought they wanted - not what I would recommend. Over time it became apparent that the trend was towards less minerally concoctions. Thus we now recommend the use of about half (or even less) the salt quantities given in the earliest posts.

ajdelange said:

The main difference is that today's brewers seem to want less minerals in their beers than they used to. When I wrote No. 1 ten years ago the goal was to give brewers what I thought they wanted - not what I would recommend. Over time it became apparent that the trend was towards less minerally concoctions. Thus we now recommend the use of about half (or even less) the salt quantities given in the earliest posts.

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Ok, thanks. To clarify, 1/2tsp of Calcium Chloride per 5 gallons? Same portion of sour malt?

Yes, half the salts but the same amount of sauermalz.

ajdelange said:

Yes, half the salts but the same amount of sauermalz.

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Thank you so much again! I really appreciate it.

No problem. That's what I get the big bucks for.

ajdelange said:

No problem. That's what I get the big bucks for.

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You never cease to amuse.

I've been reading through this primer, and it is extremely helpful for me as I start to get into water chemistry. This may have already been asked, but I haven't found the answer in the thread. Is it possible to adjust the ph on the fly (during the mash)? I ask because it seems sort of like a lost cause to take a sample, somehow cool it to room temp before the mash has converted, which I think can take as soon as 20 minutes. I'm guessing the best way is to take a ph measurement when mashing, write it down and then go back to the notes the next time one makes the beer and then adjust the acidulated malt to get the ph closer to where one wants it. Does this seem right?

jlinz said:

I've been reading through this primer, and it is extremely helpful for me as I start to get into water chemistry. This may have already been asked, but I haven't found the answer in the thread. Is it possible to adjust the ph on the fly (during the mash)? I ask because it seems sort of like a lost cause to take a sample, somehow cool it to room temp before the mash has converted, which I think can take as soon as 20 minutes. I'm guessing the best way is to take a ph measurement when mashing, write it down and then go back to the notes the next time one makes the beer and then adjust the acidulated malt to get the ph closer to where one wants it. Does this seem right?

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Nevermind. I found it! It is reply #230, if anyone else is wondering the same thing.

jlinz said:

I'm guessing the best way is to take a ph measurement when mashing, write it down and then go back to the notes the next time one makes the beer and then adjust the acidulated malt to get the ph closer to where one wants it. Does this seem right?

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In my opinion this is the best approach.

Well, I used the recommended baseline adjusted by half with RO and kept the acidulated malt at 2%. I haven’t tried the beer yet, but I nailed the mash ph at 5.3, so I’m pretty excited about my first voyage into water chemistry. [emoji120] for simplifying this whole thing!

Any water chem. gurus out there that can look at this water profile for a neipa?

gr8abe said:

Any water chem. gurus out there that can look at this water profile for a neipa?View attachment 606903View attachment 606904

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I would say the additions are on the high side but just go and brew it and then turn your chloride and sulfate additions around on your next brew and see how you like it. Find your preference and then perhaps tune it down a bit

Has anyone practiced or heard of someone who bases their water additions on the chemical composition for a given beer? Meaning, brewing a beer with distilled water with just acid additions to get the mash in line. Then measuring (if an in-house lab) or sending out the final beer to be tested for composition. Then tailoring a water profile to a desired effect in subsequent brews?

leesmith said:

Has anyone practiced or heard of someone who bases their water additions on the chemical composition for a given beer? Meaning, brewing a beer with distilled water with just acid additions to get the mash in line. Then measuring (if an in-house lab) or sending out the final beer to be tested for composition. Then tailoring a water profile to a desired effect in subsequent brews?

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There is an article in BYO that is not available anymore for non subscribers. They analysed the water profile of finished popular beers including a tree house and also analyse the water of a beer brewed by the author Michael Tonsmeire I believe.
Grains give sulfate and more chloride

beervoid said:

There is an article in BYO that is not available anymore for non subscribers. They analysed the water profile of finished popular beers including a tree house and also analyse the water of a beer brewed by the author Michael Tonsmeire I believe.
Grains give sulfate and more chloride

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Yes...I’ve seen that. But I’m asking has someone practiced adjusting their water according to the final “base” beer composition brewed with distilled water. Developing a water recipe from the final ions in the beer from the ingredients? Does that make sense?

For example say you brew a beer with distilled water and the resulting beer measures low on chloride....so one adds chloride to the next batch to see the result.

As there are no reference values for finished beer what are you going to compare your lab results with?

Vale71 said:

As there are no reference values for finished beer what are you going to compare your lab results with?

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It would be trail and error. Your base beer without additions comes in high on chloride. So you give it none but increase the sulfate to see what the effect is. I guess you would be creating your own reference for that particular beer with those particular ingredients.

Hard to say you're high on chloride if you don't have any reference value for that.
If you have to lay the foundations from scratch I think it could be an interesting project for a doctoral thesis but a bit beyond the means of your average homebrewer.

I hear yah that it would be a big undertaking.

Just wondering if anyone’s done it?

leesmith said:

I hear yah that it would be a big undertaking.

Just wondering if anyone’s done it?

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I was thinking of doing an RO beer of my basic grain bill to know what minerals I get and then aim for a specific profile but after reading a couple of beer analysis from different popular neipa brewers the nrs are all over the place. Some are high in chloride up to 400ppm some are 200ppm high in both chloride and sulfate. So what to aim for?

I think its easyer and cheaper xperimenting with high and low additions and use your taste to find out what you like and get a feel for what they do.
Ive settled on less is more for now as grains themselves already add 50 to 100 ppm sulfate and up to 300ppm chloride.

beervoid said:

I was thinking of doing an RO beer of my basic grain bill to know what minerals I get and then aim for a specific profile but after reading a couple of beer analysis from different popular neipa brewers the nrs are all over the place. Some are high in chloride up to 400ppm some are 200ppm high in both chloride and sulfate. So what to aim for?

I think its easyer and cheaper xperimenting with high and low additions and use your taste to find out what you like and get a feel for what they do.
Ive settled on less is more for now as grains themselves already add 50 to 100 ppm sulfate and up to 300ppm chloride.

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You would need that baseline beer and then adjust as to what you think would be good and see how it turns out.

But knowing the numbers of that one beer that really tasted right may be useful in quality control in future brews. If for some reason a particular malt that year resulted in a higher amount of a certain ion...then the water could be adjusted accordingly to match those target amounts of ions?

Also, the experience of collecting the data of all those beers (you brewed) could help you make decisions on water additions based on ingredient selections.

Commercial beers give you nothing to work from unless you know the exact ingredients including the water.

Ah...I’m just spit balling here. Something to think about though.

leesmith said:

You would need that baseline beer and then adjust as to what you think would be good and see how it turns out.

But knowing the numbers of that one beer that really tasted right may be useful in quality control in future brews. If for some reason a particular malt that year resulted in a higher amount of a certain ion...then the water could be adjusted accordingly to match those target amounts of ions?

Also, the experience of collecting the data of all those beers (you brewed) could help you make decisions on water additions based on ingredient selections.

Commercial beers give you nothing to work from unless you know the exact ingredients including the water.

Ah...I’m just spit balling here. Something to think about though.

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Yes ive been pondering the same thing, I made a thread about it not too long ago.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...ermentation-minerals-and-lab-analysis.659884/

Considering the fact the mineral additions from the grains change, you would have to analyse many times.
I concluded its probably more worth my time to get a better feel for what the minerals do in a beer.
Trillium has up to 200 chloride. Tree House up to 400. Both great beer brewers

I couldn't find this in my searching this thread... is there any general guideline, similar to those in post #1, for beers that are low abv, e.g. 2 or 3%? With fewer grains going into the mash, the beer would have fewer minerals contributed from the grains.

In my case, I am more concerned with low abv pale ales than stouts as stouts would be providing more pH lowering grains. Thanks!!

AJ posted a ways back that general tastes have changed in the decade since original post to lesser minerals. He said the general guide is half what was first put down in post 1.

As to fewer grains, if you still mash x.x quarts/pound you'd have the same ppm from grains regardless of using more or less grain. This doesn't apply to full vol BIAB mashing of course.

OK then I should have specified in my case, I BIAB mash on the stove with approx 3 gallons, then after the boil I top up with 2-2.5 gallons. I assume that's similar to full volume BIAB in terms of the need to add more minerals given the low grain amount?

JJ900 said:

I couldn't find this in my searching this thread... is there any general guideline, similar to those in post #1, for beers that are low abv, e.g. 2 or 3%? With fewer grains going into the mash, the beer would have fewer minerals contributed from the grains.

In my case, I am more concerned with low abv pale ales than stouts as stouts would be providing more pH lowering grains. Thanks!!

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Are you concerned about ph or flavor impact....or both?

leesmith said:

Are you concerned about ph or flavor impact....or both?

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I think both. I have made IPA's, pale ale, stouts etc. without water adjustments, except for charcoal filtering out chlorine, and they came out great. The only beers to give me trouble have been NEIPAs sometimes being astringent.

Although I'm not trying to make that now, rather a low abv pale ale, I am wondering if there will not be enough medium and dark grains to bring down pH and protect against some off flavors.

JJ900 said:

I think both. I have made IPA's, pale ale, stouts etc. without water adjustments, except for charcoal filtering out chlorine, and they came out great. The only beers to give me trouble have been NEIPAs sometimes being astringent.

Although I'm not trying to make that now, rather a low abv pale ale, I am wondering if there will not be enough medium and dark grains to bring down pH and protect against some off flavors.

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Use some sort of acid to get the ph your shooting for; acid malt, lactic acid, phosphoric acid......
I’d suggest using a water calculator such as Brewersfriend or Bru N Water.

But yes you’ll be fine if you treat your water properly and get your ph in line.

balrog said:

... in the decade since original post...

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Hard to believe but it has been almost a decade!

ajdelange said:

Hard to believe but it has been almost a decade!

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Time flies when you're having fun AJ!

Hey AJ,
Thanks for the guide on page 1.
Can you help me? I need a little help with my first homebrew experiments. I'm using RO water that reads between 0-3 ppm on my TDS meter. I've read that it's best to rehydrate the powdered yeast just on it's own in water first. From what I've read, pure water will kill the yeast though so I was thinking of just adding a some CaCl2 to my RO water. What is the right amount in terms of ppm on my TDS meter to add to near pure RO water before I add yeast powder? Is it 25ppm or are you using half that (12.5ppm) now?

The second thing I was thinking of doing is priming the yeast, by that I mean adding the rehydrated yeast to a sterile bowl with more RO water and dextrose for a day or two until more yeast is made (before adding to the actual beer ferment). Is the 25ppm (or 12.5ppm) of CaCl2 enough for priming the yeast in RO water with dextrose? If not I can add some of the tin of Coopers homebrew malt extract. It is a 1.7kg tin for making up in 23L of water and on the back it says it contains 18mg of calcium & 40mg of sodium per 100g. This would mean the tin of malt extract diluted in 23L of water would provide 13mg of calcium and 30mg of sodium per litre (ppm). I would assume there would be other elements in the malt extract not listed in the nutritional table on the packaging such as nitrogen but I'm guessing. Please let me know what you think I should add as a minimum so as not to kill the yeast or make nasty, funky flavours.
Thanks mate.

If others can be believed, Fermentis is now apparently recommending that rehydration of their dry yeasts is unnecessary, as per their research direct pitching works just as well. I would speculate that other dry yeasts are similar enough to also run with this advice. Are you considering dry or liquid yeast?

Ran across this post a couple of months ago and brewed my last 2 batches using the 1 tsp of Calcium Chloride per 5 gallons and 2% acid malt in RO water that starts out around 4 ppm. I was using tap water treated with campden before. Wow, what a difference! The tap water beer always had a lingering green twang that would take almost 2 months to fade but never really dropped all the way off. The RO/Calc/Acid beer at only 3 weeks is way way better with basically no green twang taste. I am a believer. So I finally came to the end of this long post and see that I should maybe drop the Calc to 1/2 tsp. I will give it a try next time. Glad I kept my old trusty 75gpd RO system purchased years ago for keeping a saltwater fish tank in good working order.

bgmac said:

Ran across this post a couple of months ago and brewed my last 2 batches using the 1 tsp of Calcium Chloride per 5 gallons and 2% acid malt in RO water that starts out around 4 ppm. I was using tap water treated with campden before. Wow, what a difference! The tap water beer always had a lingering green twang that would take almost 2 months to fade but never really dropped all the way off. The RO/Calc/Acid beer at only 3 weeks is way way better with basically no green twang taste. I am a believer. So I finally came to the end of this long post and see that I should maybe drop the Calc to 1/2 tsp. I will give it a try next time. Glad I kept my old trusty 75gpd RO system purchased years ago for keeping a saltwater fish tank in good working order.

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Do you know what your tap water's mineral levels were?

VirginiaHops1 said:

Do you know what your tap water's mineral levels were?

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I'm not sure what the mineral levels are in my tap water but it does test fairly consistent 145-148 ppm tds.