My local tap water report - Chasing the München Dragon

Hello fellow beer geeks,

I have fallen head-over-heels with brewing beer. My poor wife bought me a Cooper's extract brewing kit for my birthday March 30, 2015. As of today (July 25 2015) I have jumped into all-grain and kegging, with a fermentation fridge etc.......SWMBO has been very patient.

Anyways, my "holy grail" beer of the moment is a great Munich Helles. I Faking love that beer. Simple and understated, but very difficult to achieve a replica at home from my research. Munich has a very peculiar water profile, and so I thought I would start first with the water.

My local water treatment facility manager is awesome. I emailed him on a Thursday night, and by 8:00am Friday he had sent me the most recent water analysis for my town. Here are the relevant details for Oakville, Ontario:

Calcium: 35.4
Magnesium: 8.71
Sodium: 15.7
Sulfate: 28.0
Chloride: 29.1
Total hardness: 122
Total dissolved solids: 179

The problem I have with comparing to a Munich profile is with the Carbonate numbers I'm finding online. I'm not comfortable enough yet to calculate the Carbonate numbers from my local water report. My report lists "total hardness" as 122ppm. What does this mean for my quest to produce a proper Helles lager? I have been looking up recipes and techniques for this style, but it all starts with water. A little help from the experts?

I am referencing Ray Daniels' book "Designing great beers" pg 188 for Munich water:

Calcium: 75
Magnesium: 18
Sodium: 2
Carbonate: 180
Sulfate: 120
Chloride: 60

How do I get from my tap water to this water? If my local water authority is chlorinating/fluoridating my water is campden treatment essential, or just recommended?

thelastleroy said:

The problem I have with comparing to a Munich profile is with the Carbonate numbers I'm finding online. I'm not comfortable enough yet to calculate the Carbonate numbers from my local water report.

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Nor should you be as you haven't been given the information you need to do that for which you need the alkalinity and pH. But you don't really need to know the bicarbonate and carbonate as long as you know the alkalinity.

thelastleroy said:

My report lists "total hardness" as 122ppm. What does this mean for my quest to produce a proper Helles lager?

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Generally the alkalinity is somewhat similar to the total hardness number. In this case we can guess (by consideration of electrical balance) that it is around 90.

thelastleroy said:

I am referencing Ray Daniels' book "Designing great beers" pg 188 for Munich water:

Calcium: 75
Magnesium: 18
Sodium: 2
Carbonate: 180
Sulfate: 120
Chloride: 60

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You don't want to brew with water like Munich water. You want to brew with Munich water as treated by the brewery when it makes Helles. This would involve removing the bicarbonate (there is very little carbonate in any water) thus taking out an equivalent amount of calcium. A good Helles is made with water that contains a modest amount of calcium chloride and a smaller amount of calcium sulfate and not much of anything else (like bicarbonate). Such a water is easily prepared by adding a modest amount of calcium chloride to RO water. Or you can try to remove the bicarbonate from your water. Far and away the easiest method for doing this is to find out what the alkalinity of the water actually is (ask the utility or obtain a simple test kit from an aquarium supplier) and dilute it with RO water to get the alkalinity under 50 ppm as CaCO3 (1 mEq/L). That is about the extent to which you can decarbonate by other means and those will be a bit tricky for you as your calcium and probable alkalinity are not very high,

thelastleroy said:

If my local water authority is chlorinating/fluoridating my water is campden treatment essential, or just recommended?

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Fluoridation we don't worry about. Chlorination is usually adequately handled by drawing the brewing water the day before the brewing session and letting it stand. Only if chloramination is being used is bisulfite necessary. See https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=361073

Thank you for your help!


Alkalinity: 87.1
PH: 7.66

My report doesn't say if they are using chlorine or chloramine. They list this:

Free chlorine: 1.07
Total chlorine: 1.26


I've attached the actual report. Can someone check it for me? I'm in the "Oakville" distribution column.

View attachment Halton water profile.pdf

thelastleroy said:

Alkalinity: 87.1
PH: 7.66

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I guessed 7 for the pH and calculated 88.9 for the alkalinity. Not bad!

thelastleroy said:

My report doesn't say if they are using chlorine or chloramine. They list this:

Free chlorine: 1.07
Total chlorine: 1.26

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You have a chlorine equivalent of 1.26 - 1.07 = 0.19 mg/L chloramine. That's pretty low but a quarter of a Campden tablet is pretty cheap.

thelastleroy said:

I've attached the actual report. Can someone check it for me? I'm in the "Oakville" distribution column.

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None of the numbers there differ appreciably from what you were told by the engineer. Some variation with time/season/weather is normal. Hence my recommendations don't change. I'll note, however, that there are several ways to skin this cat and others here may have different opinions as to how to approach this. For example, as your chloride is pretty modest you could replace some of the bicarbonate (enough to get the alkalinity under 50) with chloride ions by the use of hydrochloric acid (if you could get it in food grade) or you could use phosphoric acid and replace bicarbonate with biphosphate ion (which is pretty flavorless).

thelastleroy said:

I am referencing Ray Daniels' book "Designing great beers" pg 188 for Munich water:

Calcium: 75
Magnesium: 18
Sodium: 2
Carbonate: 180
Sulfate: 120
Chloride: 60

Click to expand...

I don't think that is anything like Munich water. I conducted some pretty intensive research on the water quality in Southern Bavaria and there are no cities with sulfate and chloride levels that high, including Munich. In addition, brewers in that region do practice some form of decarbonation that drops both the calcium and carbonate (bicarbonate) content. You can see appropriate estimates of Munich water quality (both raw and decarbonatated) in the water profiles presented in Bru'n Water.

To give you a preview, both the sulfate and chloride in that profile are less than 20 ppm. That is in line with the soft presentation of the typically malty beers from that region.

Thank you for your advice. So considering my tap water levels, it would be safe to say that for my Helles beers I should be using distilled/RO water and then adding back the specific mineral content I would like? My tap water is pretty soft as tap water goes, is it worth trying to blend tap water with purified water without adding in special salts? Is this where yeast nutrient becomes essential?

I'm asking for a 'real world' opinion. I don't pretend to have the palate to taste the difference between 20ppm sulfate in one Helles to another. I just want to brew a reasonable facsimile. It really would be a dream to have a proper Helles on tap!

thelastleroy said:

Thank you for your advice. So considering my tap water levels, it would be safe to say that for my Helles beers I should be using distilled/RO water and then adding back the specific mineral content I would like?

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Personally, I would live with what you have from the tap and acidify the mashing and sparging liquors with lactic acid. Your tap water is somewhat similar to Southern Bavarian waters I've reviewed. Just slightly more chloride and sulfate than typical.

That sounds like an easy solution. What is your recommended dose of lactic acid for a 5.5 gallon batch?

Your alkalinity is modest at 87/50 = 1.74 mEq/L. You will need acid equivalent to about 85% of that to reach mash pH which is about 1.5 mEq for each liter of water treated. 88% lactic acid is about 11.8 N so that's 1.5/11.8 mL of the lactic acid for each liter of water treated. This effectively zeroes the alkalinity of the water leaving only the grain alkalinity to deal with. A typical pilsner malt is going to need about 5 mEq for each kg of it to reach mash pH (5.5) so that's an additional 5/11.8 mL of the 88% lactic per kg. Now here we are getting iffy as not all grains have the same acid demand. Though the calculations are simple the results, while they are as accurate as your water report for the water part, are approximate for the malt part. It is best to make a test mash with a small amount of grist and water and verify the pH with a good pH meter.

thelastleroy said:

That sounds like an easy solution. What is your recommended dose of lactic acid for a 5.5 gallon batch?

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Use Bru'n Water to coordinate the needs of your water and your mash. The program looks complicated, but its not. However, you do have to read the instructions to understand it.

Guys...need help in understanding my local water report (Pottstown, PA). Does this tell you guys anything at all. I can't find levels for Carbonate and Bicarbonate, Chloride, PH, etc.... Am i missing something or is this water report pretty much worthless and i need to send water to ward labs?

Link to Water Report:
http://www.pottstown.org/DocumentCenter/View/288

This looks like a water safety report, you need a complete analysis report. Try and find the email for the head of the water treatment facility.