water treatment vs no water treatment

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Grantman1

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Has anyone experimented by using the same exact recipe with water treatment vs leaving their brewing water as is? And noted any of the differences?

I'm curious. For me, and many others I've seen on here, it seems like water treatment is one of the last things to mess around with
 
Yes. I have twice for classes brewed the same ale with water straight from my well and that same water treated to resemble Burton's water. In both cases people tasting the beer agreed that the Burtonized water produced a more authentic ale but that the one produced with the much less gypseous and carbonaceous well water was a much better beer.
 
It depends on your tap water and the style of beer brewed. If the water is decent, its likely that there is a style that works well with the water and a great beer made. Conversely, there are probably styles that don't work well at all. Knowing your water and what it might be more suited to would be a good idea before just diving into this.
 
I gotcha. My water here in Cary, NC is as follows:

Ca: 10
MG: 3
SO4: 42
Na: 32
Cl: 20
CaCO3: 41

All in all, not bad, from what I've read. I've been brewing with it for a few years and my beers have been great, but I'm tossing around the idea in my head of adjusting some of the factors depending on what I'm brewing - specifically for my pales, stouts and browns. I'm just trying to figure out if it'll make a huge difference.
 
That, of course, depends on what you brew and what treatment you undertake. Removing the sulfate would make a tremendous difference (for the better) in a Pilsner (or any beer you brew with Noble hops). Adding sulfate would make a tremendous difference (whether it is for the better or not is a matter of personal taste) in typical British ales you brew.
 
In mid 90's I used to pre-boil water to remove chlorine. Did an experiment and used water straight from tap and pre-boiled water in a english style bitter back to back brews. No difference... I stopped pre-boiling my water on my next batch.
 
Your water contained only chlorine, i.e. no chloramine, or contained chloramine at such low levels as to be unable to cause a problem. Just the heat of the HLT bringing the water to strike temp should be enough to drive off chlorine.
 
I was thinking of bumping up the sulfates not only for British ales, but for my APAs and IPAs as well.

Any thoughts/recommendations on that?
 
You'll always get the same answer from me on that. Try it. If you like the result continue to do it. If you don't stop. To give you a rough idea of what is going to happen try adding some gypsum to one of your current APAs or IPAs in the glass. I'm told this is a good indicator of what will happen as a result of adding this salt to the brewing water.
 

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