Does all RO water need brewing salts?

I use water from the local grocery that has been through a reverse osmosis process. The water in my section of town is not the best for drinking and is very hard. I found some Burton Water Salts today in 1/3 oz (9 grams)packages. These contain Papain and Gypsum and are advertised to treat 5 gallons of water by adding just prior to the boil.

I have never tried adjusting the water chemistry of the brew process and would like to know if anyone thinks I should or should not add these? My wife is going to watch our infant som tomorrow for Father's Day so I can get a brew session in.

Thanks,

PS: I am planning on brewing Biermuncher's Cream of the Crops Ale and a version of Notty Pilsner Ale in case the beer style dictates the water chemistry.

I think an important question is are you brewing all grain or extract? If AG, then yes, you need the salts, and the salts you need are determined by the style of beer you are making. On the other hand, if you are brewing extract, the the extract should contain all the necessary salts, though perhaps not exactly the salts you need. I brew extract with RO water, and usually add a teaspoon of gypsum to my boil. Is it necessary? I don't know, but it has done no harm and maybe done some good.

I've been brewing ag (and an occasional extract) for over 10 years and haven't used brewing salts yet. My tap water tastes fine. I'm of the opinion that if the RO water (or any other water) tastes good, brew with it.

philjohnwilliams said:

I think an important question is are you brewing all grain or extract? If AG, then yes, you need the salts, and the salts you need are determined by the style of beer you are making. On the other hand, if you are brewing extract, the the extract should contain all the necessary salts, though perhaps not exactly the salts you need. I brew extract with RO water, and usually add a teaspoon of gypsum to my boil. Is it necessary? I don't know, but it has done no harm and maybe done some good.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I should have mentioned that I am brewing all grain now. My brews have tasted just fine w/o adding salts but I am always looking to try to improve my process. I'll try to learn more about which salts go with which styles of beer.

RO is not good for AG brewing. For a simple solution read this:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

arturo7 said:

RO is not good for AG brewing. For a simple solution read this:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

Click to expand...

RO isn't good for AG brewing? Since when? That's my preferred water. You have a "blank slate" so to speak- not too much alkalinity like my tap water!

I've used 100% RO water for pilsners, 75% RO for cream ales, 40% RO water for pale ales, and the only beer I use my tap water at 100% for is a stout.

RO with some Calcium Chloride (NOT Burton salts!) is great for many, many beer styles. Do NOT add gypsum or Burton salts to any water if you don't know your water makeup, unless you've done it before with good results. Mash pH is crucial, not just the salts.

The sticky in the brewing science forum will open up a whole new part of making beer. I think the key is to understand the difference between RO water and distilled water. Sometimes the term purified is thrown around - it can mean either RO or distilled. If you want to start of with a blank slate - used distilled water and add the salts necessary to create a water profile suited to the beer style you are brewing. If you can get a water report for the supplier of the RO water you are using, match it up using one of the water calculation spreadsheets and see what it is suited for. You may or may not need to add salts to your RO water - it depends. Keep in mind that the machines outside of grocery stores are usually quite suspect in the consistency of the water they output.

On the other hand - don't over think it too much - if you enjoy the beer you make and don't notice any off flavors caused by things like sulfates then don't start thinking about making customized water - it is a slippery slope.

I have found that for the styles I like, my tap water sucks. If I wanted to make IPAs and stouts every batch I would do ok but for lighter continental stuff I have to start out with distilled and add the appropriate salts to make my own pilsen or munich water.

Yooper said:

RO isn't good for AG brewing? Since when? That's my preferred water. You have a "blank slate" so to speak- not too much alkalinity like my tap water!

Click to expand...

OOOOPS! Totally screwed that one...

How the snot did the work "not" get in there? Sunday AM before the coffee kicked in...?


I brew with RO water. Sorry for the misdirection.

Patirck said:

The sticky in the brewing science forum will open up a whole new part of making beer. I think the key is to understand the difference between RO water and distilled water. Sometimes the term purified is thrown around - it can mean either RO or distilled. If you want to start of with a blank slate - used distilled water and add the salts necessary to create a water profile suited to the beer style you are brewing. If you can get a water report for the supplier of the RO water you are using, match it up using one of the water calculation spreadsheets and see what it is suited for.

Click to expand...

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought RO was close enough to distilled as to make the difference negligible for brewing. My tap is very hard, but comes out to only 20 ppm after RO treatment. Maybe you were referring to filtered or spring water?

i have an R/O system in my house, will make 50 gallons a day. I usually make a 50/50 mix of R/O and charcoal filtered tap water to remove the chlorine smell . i think my tap is about 200 PPM hardness so with the R/O that brings it down to about 100 PPM . My beer tastes good to me. had a big party yesterday, and the crowd coulden't get enough of my Belgian Witt. had to keep explaining how I brew it.

I have been fortunate to make what I consider to be pretty good beer using RO water provided by Culligan for my all grain brewing but I am still curious to know if perhaps adding 1/2 tsp to 1 full tsp of these Burton Brewing salts might improve the mash.

I have read today in a large volume of posts online that RO water is OK for all grain and is terrible for all grain. It might just depend on the supplier of the RO water. The grocery I use has one these machines where you bring your own jugs to fill for 25 cents a gallon.

Now for the $64 question, would there be any serious harm to the mash with trying a 1/2 dosage of these salts in my next brew? I will be making lighter style ales for the next few weeks wit maybe one stout and one porter.

Thanks for the replies. I will try to see if Culligan is willing to provide a water report for this area.

Like was mentioned before in an earlier post, most RO filters plug up to a point due to the amount they filter and then let more and more minerals etc bypass the filter causing it not to be as pure as we are led to expect.

msa8967 said:

I have been fortunate to make what I consider to be pretty good beer using RO water provided by Culligan for my all grain brewing but I am still curious to know if perhaps adding 1/2 tsp to 1 full tsp of these Burton Brewing salts might improve the mash.

I have read today in a large volume of posts online that RO water is OK for all grain and is terrible for all grain. It might just depend on the supplier of the RO water. The grocery I use has one these machines where you bring your own jugs to fill for 25 cents a gallon.

Now for the $64 question, would there be any serious harm to the mash with trying a 1/2 dosage of these salts in my next brew? I will be making lighter style ales for the next few weeks wit maybe one stout and one porter.

Thanks for the replies. I will try to see if Culligan is willing to provide a water report for this area.

Click to expand...

What is in these "Burton salts"? My understanding is that it may be far too much of gypsum, and not enough chloride. But if you're making an English IPA, it might be ok. The issue is not knowing how much sulfate you're adding, and how much papain.

Yooper said:

RO isn't good for AG brewing? Since when? That's my preferred water. You have a "blank slate" so to speak- not too much alkalinity like my tap water!

I've used 100% RO water for pilsners, 75% RO for cream ales, 40% RO water for pale ales, and the only beer I use my tap water at 100% for is a stout.

RO with some Calcium Chloride (NOT Burton salts!) is great for many, many beer styles. Do NOT add gypsum or Burton salts to any water if you don't know your water makeup, unless you've done it before with good results. Mash pH is crucial, not just the salts.

Click to expand...

Sorry I some how missed seeing your post Yooper. I think I will just keep doing what I have been with the same RO water until I get a water report from the Culligan company.

Yooper said:

What is in these "Burton salts"? My understanding is that it may be far too much of gypsum, and not enough chloride. But if you're making an English IPA, it might be ok. The issue is not knowing how much sulfate you're adding, and how much papain.

Click to expand...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/burton-water-salts-compostion-216367/

TheDom said:

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought RO was close enough to distilled as to make the difference negligible for brewing. My tap is very hard, but comes out to only 20 ppm after RO treatment. Maybe you were referring to filtered or spring water?

Click to expand...

RO water and distilled water are two different things. Distilled is essentially the steam boil off of water captured and cooled back down to liquid form. When you distill water, you leave all salts behind (theoretically - yes there can be trace amounts of some salts that get carried with the steam depending on the process but usually not enough to measure). RO water is passed though a very fine filter - actually a membrane - it takes out a lot of contaminants and larger particles but will let most salts pass through as they are close enough in size to the water molecule. As an earlier poster mentioned - these membranes have to be changed regularly or the water will just bypass the membrane by poking hole in it.

You can brew with any form of water but the taste can vary greatly depending on the level of salts (and other contaminates) in the water.

Patrick, you are right about the difference in process, but a good fresh RO filter also removes the majority of the salts. For Brewing purposes, there really isn't any difference between RO, Distilled, or Deionized. They all remove 90-99 point something percent. (close enough for government work... or brewing)

I think you will find that RO water still has plenty of minerals in it compared to distilled water. That said, a lot of great beer has been made with RO and for that matter tap water. My main suggestions are:

If you are aiming for a particular style that requires a very specific water profile, it is easier to start with distilled water and add the salts as calculated by one of the spreadsheets. Distilled water essentially starts off at zero mineral content.

RO water has some minerals in it - this is usually a good thing and makes the water taste better. Depending on the source of the RO water, a reliable water analysis that lets you know the exact makeup of the water may be difficult to come by. Big vendors like arrowhead and sparklets have lots of places they make and bottle water and you can't be sure which facility it comes from. The vending machines outside of supermarkets may or may not have had the filter changed in the last decade. Residential RO systems are sort of the same as supermarket vending machines - the quality of the water depends on the filter. Again - lots of great beer can be made with water from any of these sources but until you try it out you just don't know.

As an example - my $hitty tap water in Glendale, CA is good for stouts and IPAs and bad for pilsners, hefewiezens and many other continental styles. This would be great if I liked IPAs and didn't like continental styles as much as I do. Unfortunately, I have come to conclude that for the styles I like - I either have to use RO and hope that the water profile is soft enough for the malty styles I like, or use distilled and add my own salts. The cost of the water adds $5 - $8 per batch. Distilled and RO water are about the same price and since I already spent $10 on the various salts out there and I have access to a very fine precision scale at work, I just calculate out the additions I need to make to both mash and sparge water and create two little packets that I use on brew day (or the day before).

Aside from marginal flavor impacts, RO will have much less calcium than the 30 ppm suggested as the minimum for good enzyme activity in the mash.