The easiest way to make high alkalinity water suitable for IPAs/APA?

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Hjandersen

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I recently made a thread on improving my brewing water and today I got the missing ions from my local water supplier.

Here's my thread

I've started looking into brewing water after many of my IPAs had a bit of muddy/harsh bitterness to them (kind of lingering but astringent hoppy/tart taste). Additionally, although not bad beers many of them where a tad similar even though made after completely different recipes.

Here's my local tap water report:
Alkalinity - 12 dH (degrees hardness?)
Alkalinity (carbonate) - 8.9 dH
Bicarbonate - 193 PPM
Calcium 83 PPM
Chloride - 35 PPM
Chlorine - 0 PPM
Fluoride - 0,15 PPM
Iron - 0.01 PPM
Magnesium - 3.7 PPM
Mangan - 0,005 PPM
Nitrate - 41 PPM (not NO3-N)
Nitrite - 0,0050 PPM
Phosphor - 0.011 PPM
Sulfate - 20 PPM
Sodium - 12 PPM


Other parameters:
Non Volatile Organic Carbon - 0,72 mg/l
Conductivity at 12°C - 52 mS/m
pH at 12°C - 7,7 pH

Total microbes:
< 1 no./per 100 ml

For use in IPAs I'd want to decrease my alkalinity and increase my sulfate and calcium concentration right?? How should I go about it - would boiling the brew water and adding gypsum do that trick? Is magnesium addition necessary? (I'm reluctant to buy RO-equiptment and honestly don't think anyone supply pretreated water..)

80 % of what are brew are APAs or AIPAs so for now I'm mainly interested in how to improve my water in that context.

And one more thing - If microbes are not detectable in 100 ml of water could I pretty much assume that my water will not contaminate my beer?

Any comments or advice are welcomed..
 
I'd start by reducing the alkalinity and brew with that, then decide if you want more sulfate or chloride.

I'm one of the few that uses pickling lime to reduce the alkalinity. After adding the lime it turns cloudy with CaCaO3 precipitate. It takes at least 4 hrs to settle, or I typically set it up the night before. Then I transfer it off the sediment and then adjust the pH down to 5.4-5.5 with phosphoric acid. Of course you need a pH meter to do this well. Test strips can work in a pinch.

This removed the harshness from the bitterness of my beers.
 
I have access to a ph-meter.

But wait, so you use pickling lime to reduce alkalinity through precipitation, and then you adjust the ph to 5.4-5.5 BEFORE starting the mash?
(In my modest experience mash ph often gets to this level even with my 7.6-7.6 ph water after 5-10 min)

But no additions what so ever in terms of magnesium, sulfate and calcium?
 
What he said. Pickling lime, also known as slaked lime is CaOH. Add enough to raise the pH to 10.5 and keep adding small amounts to keep it there. When the pH stabilizes, go to bed. Next day rack it off and adjust the pH. I have been adjusting to 6.0 or a little less, that works well with pales.

When I check the resulting water with an aquarium test kit it reads less than 17.9 ppm carbonate hardness. I started with 100 ppm. This is pretty soft, I don’t think the final pH is critical, but remember you’re starting with pH10.5 water. I think you would want to take it down to 7.0 at least.

Here’s a good article on the basic chemistry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limescale

You might want to add some CaCl or CaSO4 to get the calcium back up. I don’t care for sulfate and it’s easy to get too much chloride, so I don’t use any salts. My sparge water is acidified to 5.4 or so, but it’s not softened. It’s not practical for me to treat the whole volume of water.

Maybe you can get an actual expert to tell you about the calcium. I know it’s not as big a deal as was once thought. I recently made a batch with 100% RO, no salts, and it came out good.
 
Hjandersen said:
I have access to a ph-meter.

But wait, so you use pickling lime to reduce alkalinity through precipitation, and then you adjust the ph to 5.4-5.5 BEFORE starting the mash?
(In my modest experience mash ph often gets to this level even with my 7.6-7.6 ph water after 5-10 min)

But no additions what so ever in terms of magnesium, sulfate and calcium?
Click to expand...

Correct, before the mash. The initial pH is not so important(pre-treatment), the buffering capacity is the important feature. My now de-alkalinized water has low buffering capacity so the grains set the mash pH for me. I get the pH in the ballpark and I know the grains will put the pH right where it needs to be. That is the problem with highly alkaline water, the grains don't have enough acid to bring the pH down. You can have a high pH with a low buffering capacity. In this case, there could be sufficient acid in the grain to hit the target pH. Most of my beers are fairly pale so I don't have to worry about the pH dropping too low. If I do brew a dark beer, I wait until after the mash to add the acid containing roasted malts, that way it doesn't mess with my mash pH.

My Calcium level is sufficiently high that there is still plenty left after the lime treatment. The only salt additions I do, is I will add some CaCl2 for beers that are on the malty/rich side (before adding the lime)
 
What they said... It's not intuitive, and calcium is removed... so you may wish to supplement calcium after you complete the process. You would prepare the water the day or so before, and rack off the precipitated chalk. If that stands too long - then the CO2 will reabsorb into the water and reconvert the chalk to bicarb.

Kai did an article with pics on Braukaiser - http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Alkalinity_reduction_with_slaked_lime

As for easier - I would suggest dilution with R/O or DI water. The math is simple division for all of the ions at that point... 1:1 dilution = 50% starting alkalinity or 3:1 dilution R/O to tap which should leave 25% of your tap minerals and bicarb. Dilution also reduces your nitrate (which is on the high end of potable). Everything else would work well with some salt additions, and the final alkalinity can be knocked out with liquid acid or sauermaltz in the grain bill. You need to decide if you want to treat water ahead (which you should do anyway to remove chlorine & chloramines) or purchase R/O.

For an IPA, you will need to decide what level of sulfate your prefer. Start with the Primer stickied in this section... looking at British or Very Bitter options.
 
The healthy amount of alkalinity in that water is likely to incur problems with high mash pH and a resulting harshness in the beer. Reducing that alkalinity is imperative.

An acid addition is the simplest way to reduce alkalinity, but that incurs the accompanying anion. In the case of PA and IPA, boosting the hardness via a dose of gypsum and epsom salt would reduce the need to reduce the alkalinity to a high degree. The sulfate addition would be welcome for enhancing the hop character and beer dryness.

As mentioned above, this water is well suited to lime softening since it has high temporary hardness. It is a good method too. Just a little more time and effort than an acid addition. For some beer styles, the reduction in the calcium content will be welcome. Pre-boiling and decanting the water would produce similar results.

Dilution is a good choice, but it will cost a bit more if you have to buy a machine or go off to the store to purchase RO. This may not be ideal for all brewers.

All of these ideas are workable. Work with your end result in mind and that will help guide you to a solution that works well for you.
 
Thanks for all replies! I'll try pre-boiling and adding gypsum to my water when I brew next time + keeping pH favorable as usual.
 
mabrungard said:
The healthy amount of alkalinity in that water is likely to incur problems with high mash pH and a resulting harshness in the beer. Reducing that alkalinity is imperative.

An acid addition is the simplest way to reduce alkalinity, but that incurs the accompanying anion. In the case of PA and IPA, boosting the hardness via a dose of gypsum and epsom salt would reduce the need to reduce the alkalinity to a high degree. The sulfate addition would be welcome for enhancing the hop character and beer dryness.
Click to expand...

So bumping this due to renewed interest in improving homebrew.

that incurs the accompanying anion - Why exactly is that problematic? It could be beneficial as well right?
 
mabrungard said:
..boosting the hardness via a dose of gypsum and epsom salt would reduce the need to reduce the alkalinity to a high degree.
Click to expand...

I think this is something we need to be looking at. Many of us have for years accepted the definition of RA = alk - [Ca++]/3.5 - [Mg++]/7 as meaning that 3.5 mEq of calcium emits 1 mEq of protons in the mash. Then someone pointed out that Kolbach's paper says his observations are with respect to knockout wort, not mash and that, therefore, 3.5 was probably too small a number. I was recently asked to review a paper in which the investigators sought to determine what that number might be and concluded it was more like 9.4. They screwed up in how they calculated alkalinity but correcting that their data showed that it should be 10.4. Their data was limited and given what we are finding out about calcium chloride recently, which they used to control hardness, their hardness calculations are also suspect. But this aside I do believe that 3.5 is too small WRT mash. Even at 3.5 the protons emitted by the calcium reaction have typically a small effect on mash pH given typical grain to water ratios and typical mash buffering capacities.

An area for further investigation for sure.
 
Hjandersen said:
that incurs the accompanying anion - Why exactly is that problematic? It could be beneficial as well right?
Click to expand...

Yes, it absolutely can. If, for example, you need to knock out some alkalinty and increase the chloride or sulfate ion concentrations in a particular water hydrochloric or sulfuric acid can kill two birds with one stone.
 
ajdelange said:
Yes, it absolutely can. If, for example, you need to knock out some alkalinty and increase the chloride or sulfate ion concentrations in a particular water hydrochloric or sulfuric acid can kill two birds with one stone.
Click to expand...

Great that's sort of what I figured..

But, it's just unclear to me what the outcome will be "taste-wise" between the options of 1) simply doing an acid addition and 2) a significant RO-dilution or pickling lime softning?

Assuming I properly pH-adjust my mash with acid or sauer malz - can my high mineral water still result in subtle astringency? (which I detect in most of the homebrews made from this water - including my own..)
 
The first goal, without which you cannot expect to get the best beer, is to get the mash pH correct. This requires that enough acid be available in the mash to cover the proton deficits of the water and the grist. Acids have proton surfeits and thus neutralize proton deficits but an acid has two parts: the proton(s) and an anion. When you add acid the protons are absorbed by the grist and water components responsible for alkalinity and the anions are released into the solution. Thus, as discussed, if you use hydrochloric acid you will have chloride ions in the beer, if you use lactic acid, lactate and so on.

You can reduce the amount of anion left in the beer by reducing the amount of acid that must be added. This can be done by 1)removing alkalinity from the water and 2)using dark malts to supply acid. 1) can be accomplished by precipitating carbonate via the use of lime or heat or by dilution with low mineral content water. It is possible to get the alkalinity down to effectively 0 by using a large enough dilution. There is a limit as to how much alkalinity you can expect to remove with lime or boiling. If you reduce water alkalinity by dilution (or replacement) with RO then there will be no anion in the beer attributable to the water's alkalinity. With respect to the grain, you can really only neutralize - you cannot dilute so for minimum added ion content use dark malts rather than added acid to overcome proton deficit. Obviously that can't be done with a light beer and so some external acid will be required. As you are apparently on the continent (reporting in dH) you may have hydrochloric and sulfuric acids available to you and you can use those for water and/or grist proton deficit reduction. In the US only lactic and phosphoric acids are readily available to brewers. Lactate ions are pretty flavorful, certainly much more so than phosphoric, so that many brewers favor phosphoric acid for pH control.

However you do mash pH control most of the bicarbonate from the water has been converted to CO2 gas at mash pH and, at mash temperature, will fly off so if you have managed pH properly water problems relating to its alkalinity are pretty much solved. This leaves the flavor effects of Cl- and SO4-- to be considered. If your water is high in sulfate and you do pH control with sulfuric acid you will augment the SO4-- content and your beer will show the effects of augmented sulfate. The same, of course, applies to chloride. But if you adjust pH with phosphoric acid your sulfate and chloride levels don't change and there will be minimal flavor effect from phosphate as it is pretty flavor neutral. The strategy is to use whatever combination of acids and salts leave you with water with essentially 0 alkalinity, sulfate and chloride ion levels approximately where you want them and acid anions (phosphate, lactate...) low enough that they do not effect flavor.

Then there is consideration of simple quantity of minerals to consider. Some beers (Bohemian Pils) are best when brewed with low levels of everything and others (Export) are quite the opposite in that a crisp mineral profile is definitely a part of the style.

Clearly it can all get quite complicated which has led a lot of people to try to match mineral 'profiles' in the water for each style. This is a good approach is one is relaxed about it e.g. uses water with a little calcium chloride and nothing else for Boh. Pils. and water with a fair amount of calcium chloride and gypsum for Export but one can over do it in, for example, trying to match different profiles for Pils from Plzen and Ceske Budejovice. Given the complexity it is most tempting to simply obtain RO water and adjust it by the addition of salts.
 
ajdelange said:
The first goal, without which you cannot expect to get the best beer, is to get the mash pH correct. This requires that enough acid be available in the mash to cover the proton deficits of the water and the grist. Acids have proton surfeits and thus neutralize proton deficits but an acid has two parts: the proton(s) and an anion. When you add acid the protons are absorbed by the grist and water components responsible for alkalinity and the anions are released into the solution. Thus, as discussed, if you use hydrochloric acid you will have chloride ions in the beer, if you use lactic acid, lactate and so on.

You can reduce the amount of anion left in the beer by reducing the amount of acid that must be added. This can be done by 1)removing alkalinity from the water and 2)using dark malts to supply acid. 1) can be accomplished by precipitating carbonate via the use of lime or heat or by dilution with low mineral content water. It is possible to get the alkalinity down to effectively 0 by using a large enough dilution. There is a limit as to how much alkalinity you can expect to remove with lime or boiling. If you reduce water alkalinity by dilution (or replacement) with RO then there will be no anion in the beer attributable to the water's alkalinity. With respect to the grain, you can really only neutralize - you cannot dilute so for minimum added ion content use dark malts rather than added acid to overcome proton deficit. Obviously that can't be done with a light beer and so some external acid will be required. As you are apparently on the continent (reporting in dH) you may have hydrochloric and sulfuric acids available to you and you can use those for water and/or grist proton deficit reduction. In the US only lactic and phosphoric acids are readily available to brewers. Lactate ions are pretty flavorful, certainly much more so than phosphoric, so that many brewers favor phosphoric acid for pH control.

However you do mash pH control most of the bicarbonate from the water has been converted to CO2 gas at mash pH and, at mash temperature, will fly off so if you have managed pH properly water problems relating to its alkalinity are pretty much solved. This leaves the flavor effects of Cl- and SO4-- to be considered. If your water is high in sulfate and you do pH control with sulfuric acid you will augment the SO4-- content and your beer will show the effects of augmented sulfate. The same, of course, applies to chloride. But if you adjust pH with phosphoric acid your sulfate and chloride levels don't change and there will be minimal flavor effect from phosphate as it is pretty flavor neutral. The strategy is to use whatever combination of acids and salts leave you with water with essentially 0 alkalinity, sulfate and chloride ion levels approximately where you want them and acid anions (phosphate, lactate...) low enough that they do not effect flavor.

Then there is consideration of simple quantity of minerals to consider. Some beers (Bohemian Pils) are best when brewed with low levels of everything and others (Export) are quite the opposite in that a crisp mineral profile is definitely a part of the style.

Clearly it can all get quite complicated which has led a lot of people to try to match mineral 'profiles' in the water for each style. This is a good approach is one is relaxed about it e.g. uses water with a little calcium chloride and nothing else for Boh. Pils. and water with a fair amount of calcium chloride and gypsum for Export but one can over do it in, for example, trying to match different profiles for Pils from Plzen and Ceske Budejovice. Given the complexity it is most tempting to simply obtain RO water and adjust it by the addition of salts.
Click to expand...

Great - thanks for taking the time!
 
I can't get pickling lime here, it is sold only to authorized laborators. The same with phosphoric acid. Of course i refer to food grade stuff, not rust remover of construction lime.
Does boiling the water reduce the alkalinity enough for a good beer? I always get bitterness astringency on light colored beers, but i don't have a water report, just know that it is a region with hard water and we have a lot of lime deposits on the faucets and what not.
 
Your observations do suggest that your water has high hardness and it may be suited for softening and decarbonation through pre-boiling. While it will not enable you to make great pale beers, it may improve those beers from your current results. The pickling lime treatment provides a similar result to that of pre-boiling, but without knowing what is in your water, its not possible to say that either treatment would be highly effective.

It does sound like you do need to find a source of food-grade acid to help solve your brewing problems. If there are no sources, you might consider creating your own saurergut fermenter to create acidified wort that can serve as your acid resource.
 
I can get lactic acid from wine makers suppliers, but i think that it can impare some flavours if used too much. Phosphoric acid is known to be almost tasteless.
What can i do with the acid if i don't have pickling lime?
 
You can get rid of alkalinity by

Ca++ +2HCO3- + Ca++ + 2(OH)- ----> 2CaCO3 + 2H2O using lime (Ca(OH)2)

or

Ca++ + 2HCO3- ---> CaCO3 + H2O + CO2 using heat

or

3Ca++ + 6HCO3- + 6H+ + 6H2PO4- --->3Ca++ + 6H2PO4-- +6CO2 + 6H2O with the acid (H3PO4)

or, put another way, you can push it out as a solid (CaCO3) or a gas (CO2) or both depending on your choice of method. Note that with heat and lime the hardness (Ca++) is precipitated too whereas with the acid you keep the hardness and add the anion of the acid (H2PO3-- in this case).

The heat and lime methods are a little tricky in that you never know exactly how much you are going to precipitate but the lesser of the hardness or alkalinity is usually around 1 mEq/L after a well run process. You need to check that you achieved this with hardness or alkalinity tests.

Pickling lime is sold in the US in supermarkets in the section where canning goods are offered. It is used to firm the flesh of cucumbers that are being pickled, hence its name. This is, of course, not the industrial connotation of 'pickling'. If canning of foods is done over there you might find something in a food store. It must, however, be distinguished from pickle crisp which does the same thing but is the chloride of calcium rather than the hydroxide.

Lime must be available for construction, agriculture etc. though it may be in the 'quick' form (CaO). Slaked lime (Ca(OH)2) is easily prepared from quick lime simply by adding water but it is usually simpler to just adjust additions to use the quick form. You must be careful with it as the slaking reaction is very exothermic to the point where the bag in which it is usually supplied can burst into flame.
 
I wish i could understand these fenomens better... i need to do some chemistry readings for that.
Lime for contruction is easy to find, but is it safe to use it for drinking water treatment?
 
My water has 17 degrees carbonate hardness.

They're right that boiling and acid additions are options.

In the end, I bought a small RO system (about 100USD) exclusively for brewing. It produces about 7L of water per hour on my water pressure.

Totally worth it, as I can blend back with my tap water to hit various water profiles.
 

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