Water treatment questions

I made a belgian blonde - it was about my 8th or so all grain batch and thought it was my best beer ever! I really liked it and so did all my friends. I went to a club brew day to observe some masters at work and brought a bottle of it. A BJCP guy tasted it and was very nice but instantly said - the chlorophenols are overpowering the ability of the yeast to do their thing and that I had very hard water. Before this, I drank my tap water and never tasted anything bad at all. I always made fun of people who drink bottled water instead of tap. Now all I taste is the chlorine - the power of suggestion!

I went to Lowes and bought the household water testing kit they sell and used it. My PH was about 8.5 or so. The water also tested very hard - almost to the top of the little color coded scale they provide.

I stole (borrowed) a ph meter from work (a pharmacy) and tested it with water out of the tap - 8.9. I bought some Five start 5.2 stuff from the LHBS. I went to Lowes and bought a carbon filter to take care of the chlorine. I mixed in the appropriate amount of 5.2 and I was still at 5.9 - 6.0. I added a bit more and it would only go down to 5.8. I went ahead and brewed with this (German Hef - 60% german wheat, 30% german 2 row, 10% munich). I did not dip the ph meter in the mash - this never occured to me and I thought it might screw up the ph meter - after further reading I'll do this next time.

The hef is testing the integrity of a blow off tube now and I'll have my first taste in a week or so.

Is a ph of 5.8 low enough for most beers? Is there something else I should be doing to lower the PH? I brew a lot of stuff more on the malty end of things than the super hoppy end of things - I rarely make anything with more than about 25 IBUs. I tend to make a lot of german and belgian stuff - weizenbocks, tripels, dunkles.

Go to the brew science forum and check out the sticky on "Water Chemistry Primer" thats a great place to start. You can also find some useful spreadsheets for calculating your water profile, but AJ's suggestions in the primer will get you moving toward better beer if you're watching your PH with a meter. You may want to consider making two brews, the same, one with filtered tap water and one with bottled RO water.

Patirck said:

I went to Lowes and bought the household water testing kit they sell and used it. My PH was about 8.5 or so. The water also tested very hard - almost to the top of the little color coded scale they provide.

I stole (borrowed) a ph meter from work (a pharmacy) and tested it with water out of the tap - 8.9. I bought some Five start 5.2 stuff from the LHBS. I went to Lowes and bought a carbon filter to take care of the chlorine. I mixed in the appropriate amount of 5.2 and I was still at 5.9 - 6.0.

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This confirms what others have noted. Five Star 5.2 works great unless you own a pH meter. Tongue out of cheek: there are multiple posts in this forum as to why this is.

A carbon filter will take care of chloramine if contact time is long enough. Contact time is long enough if you can't smell chlorine in the filtered water. Many people use Campden tablets rather than filtration as it is much faster. One tablet typically treats 20 gallons of water. Again, if you can't smell chlorine you've treated it adequately.

Patirck said:

Is a ph of 5.8 low enough for most beers? Is there something else I should be doing to lower the PH? I brew a lot of stuff more on the malty end of things than the super hoppy end of things - I rarely make anything with more than about 25 IBUs. I tend to make a lot of german and belgian stuff - weizenbocks, tripels, dunkles.

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No, 5.8 is really not low enough though lots of beers have been made with pH this high and they are certainly drinkable. Yes, there are things you should be doing to lower the pH. When brewing German style beers the traditional treatement is with lactic acid either in the form of lactic fermented wort (sauergut) or lactic fermented malt (sauermalz) or, for the less strictly traditional, lactic acid from a bottle. The amount needed depends on the qualities of the water - primarily on its alkalinity, secondarily on its hardness. The first step, thus, is to know your water and the easiest way to do that is to send it off to Ward Labs for a test which I believe costs about $25. This is a good deal as the test is pretty accurate and hits all the points of importance to a brewer (assuming you don't have some really weird water laden with strontium or silver or something bizarre like that). Your high hardness and high pH suggest that alkalinity is probably high too but you really need to know how high in order to know how to proceed. You can decarbonate or dilute (with RO or distilled water).

There is a water primer in the stickies at the top of this topic that will give you some guidelines for starting out. If you can continue to borrow the pH meter, that will be your eyes in determining what to do with your water. In a nutshell - you cut the water until the mineral concentration is reasonable and then adjust acid until mash pH comes out in the right range (5.2 - 5.5 best, up to 5.6 OK).

I read the primer - it was great. I am looking for a bit of simplicity - perhaps too much.

Are the higher end home water testing sets that I can get at Lowes adequate for this or should I just to the wards water test? (I was hoping to brew this weekend).

From reading the primer, it seems that I will end up mixing RO water with filtered tap water - what ratio depends on the outcome of the water test and what style of beer I'm making (or to my taste as it says). I live in the Los Angeles area and we have access to many kinds of bottled water - one of the more prevelant ones is Arrowhead. I seem to remember the delivery guy (at work) saying that Arrowhead water is not just filtered water like sparklets- I know it tastes better. I am sure they are both put through an RO process for sanitation purposes but I think Arrowhead water has some minerals added back in for flavor. Would I be wise to use Arrowhead or should I stick with a pure RO or distilled water?

I also see the benefit of adding acidulated malt to my grist. Will this work with the Five Star 5.2 (which in my case should be called 5.9) to get the ph down to low 5s?

OK - so I measured my water at home using a kit - here are the results:

Calcium 68
Magnesium 27
Alkalinity as CaCO3 120
Sodium 99
Chloride 98
Sulfate 240
Water pH 8.6


I downloaded the spreadsheet in the sticky Palmer's mash RA v2 and put the numbers in. For a target srm of 12, after all is entered it apprears that I need a about a 50% dillution with RO water, 1.5 grams of baking soda as well as 1.6 ml of lactic acid. I am no chemist but don't baking soda and acid work against eachother?

I am still learning this but the ratio of chloride to sulfate still comes out very bitter and I would really like to have this be on the other end of the spectrum. What additions would I need to add and how would I calculate them to make this move to the very malty end of the spectrum?

I downloaded the water calc v86 and put the numbers in. It appears that if I add a bunch of table salt (about 2.5g / gallon) my chloride to sulfate ratio gets put to the very malty end of the spectrum. Is this going to effect the overall taste of the beer adding 28 grams 9.25 gallons of water?

Forget about ratios. If you have 240 ppm (or 120 ppm) sulfate, you are going to get a sulfate character in the beer. 900 ppm chloride won't fix that, though adding 2.5 g/gal of salt will make it salty.

Dilute the water more to get your sulfate lower. Maybe 4 parts RO to 1 part tap water. This would get you pretty good water. Add a bit of calcium chloride to that and see where that gets you.

Patirck said:

OK - so I measured my water at home using a kit - here are the results:

Calcium 68
Magnesium 27
Alkalinity as CaCO3 120
Sodium 99
Chloride 98
Sulfate 240
Water pH 8.6

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I'm interested as to what kit you used. In particular I'm interested in the sulfate and sodium tests as both of those are considered difficult.

You certainly have a lot of sulfate and this will be a problem for you if you are doing continental beers (not all continental beers, of course but many). For Pils or Helles, for example, you'd need to dilute 9:1 or more with sulfate free water to get to the level required.

Patirck said:

I downloaded the spreadsheet in the sticky Palmer's mash RA v2 and put the numbers in. For a target srm of 12, after all is entered it apprears that I need a about a 50% dillution with RO water, 1.5 grams of baking soda as well as 1.6 ml of lactic acid. I am no chemist but don't baking soda and acid work against eachother?

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Yes they do. The reason we add acid to brewing water/mash is to neutralize carbonate. The only reason one might contemplate doing that is if he wants to duplicate exactly what goes on in a brewery that uses carbonaceous water and compensates for that with lactic acid. When this is done the bicarbonate is converted to CO2 gas and driven off (or most of it-some residual bicarbonate remains) and the lactic acid is converted to lactate ion. Such a beer would have a specific ratio of lactate to bicarbonate and that could be a part of the beer's profile. But I don't think that's what you are about here.

Patirck said:

I am still learning this but the ratio of chloride to sulfate still comes out very bitter and I would really like to have this be on the other end of the spectrum. What additions would I need to add and how would I calculate them to make this move to the very malty end of the spectrum?

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The concept of the ratio as a design parameter has limited application i.e. to British brewing. It is not even uniformly accepted there but is in general rejected in continental brewing where less sulfate is considered better in most cases. If your sulfate number is valid that is going to be a problem for you in brewing many styles. If you like Burton style ales you are in great shape - otherwise this is a problem.

Given that you need 9:1 dilution to control sulfate you might as well use straight RO water (as rejections are in the 90%+ range) augmented with calcium chloride and calcium sulfate to taste when you want to emphasize hops.

I talked to the local water department and they told me that they started using water exclusivly from the colorado river as opposed to northern california as of a few years ago. The water is very hard and requires a bit more treatment.

Is there a difference between pure RO water and arrowhead water? I know I can taste a difference. I looked up the arrowhead site and found a water quality report http://www.nestle-watersna.com/pdf/AH_BWQR.pdf#page=4
Can I use this instead of RO water and not worry about additions of salts?

RO water is simply water from which 95% or more (depending on the membrane and the individual ions) of the minerals have been removed. Thus a good RO unit will produce pretty pure permeate if the feed is low enough in mineral content. For example, my feed TDS usually runs around 165 and my permeate can be as low as 1 but more typically 3-4 ppm.

If you taste a difference between RO and Arrowhead water I think that answers your question.

Arrowhead water is neither low in minerals nor is its mineral composition constant. I'd say it makes a poor candidate for a substitute for RO water.

That is a bummer as I have ready access to arrowhead water at work (no I'm not stealing - except from myself). There are several places I have seen around that allow you to fill your own jug from a machine. Do you know if these are considered RO water? I understand the process of reverse osmosis now and I am thinking I probably need to order some distilled water and add my own salts so I know what I am using. I am just trying to figure out what would be the easiest and cheapest way to do this in the long run.

Patirck said:

Is a ph of 5.8 low enough for most beers? Is there something else I should be doing to lower the PH?

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I'm far from an expert on this, but if you tested it at 5.8 before mashing, the grains should acidify the mash (even without adding aculdated malt) and you should be in the low 5s.

When I started this thread I was mainly concerned with high ph and chlorophenols (chorline I think). I got a carbon filter for the chlorine and some five star 5.2 for the ph. I think both of those problems are fixed for the most part. Since starting this I have learned that I have a lot of sulfates in my tap water that may keep me from brewing the style of beers I like. According to what I've read, I would be ok to do very bitter stuff (high ibu) and very dark stuff. This would be great except that I like very malty stuff and generally like lighter or amber color beers (not for the color but for the taste they ususally impart).

I think I may end up making my own water starting with distilled or RO and adding gypsum and table salt to get the sulfate/chloride ratio I would like. This is not ideal as the cost of 9 gallons of bottled water is probably $9 and the hassle of lugging around two big water bottles every time I want to brew is not something I would look forward to.

Patirck said:

There are several places I have seen around that allow you to fill your own jug from a machine. Do you know if these are considered RO water?

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AFAIK these are indeed RO machines. They should be labeled some way to confirm this or the store in which they are installed should be able to confirm it for you.

Patirck said:

I understand the process of reverse osmosis now and I am thinking I probably need to order some distilled water and add my own salts so I know what I am using. I am just trying to figure out what would be the easiest and cheapest way to do this in the long run.

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One possibility is to install a home RO system. These are available for a bit over $100 at stores like Home Depot. If you are paying a buck a gallon for distilled or RO water and use 9 gallons per brew its easy enough to calculate that you will have recovered an investment of $100 in 12 brews.

I may do something a little different. I am assured that the building my business is in has better water and I may just use that - I still have to fill up a few 5 gallon jugs and lug them around but at least there is no special trip involved. In the future, I may look into a whole house filter / water softener and see what that does to the water chemistry from the tap. I am guessing it probably won't take care of the high sulfate issue. After playing around with the EZ water calc spread sheet, it seems that if I add table salt I can overcome the choride / sulfate ratio issue. I just wonder what else starts happening when you get higher chloride concentrations on the order of 250 ppm.

If your sulfate is as high as you indicate (and I am still curious as to how that was determined) then adding chloride isn't going to help. The whole concept of the ratio as the sole determinant of quality is very questionable and is not accepted by most brewers. A beer with lots of minerals will taste mineralish - think Export or Burton beers irrespective of the ratio. Also think of the Bohemian pilsners where the ratio doesn't matter one whit - what matters is that the total mineral content be low.

Water softeners are not a solution in brewing. They remove beneficial calcium ions to replace them with at best useless sodium ions and do not touch the problematical bicarbonate and sulfate.

So my only real option is to use RO water and add salts.

By the way - I have a freind with a lab (mostly biological stuffbut he shares space with a company that does enviromental testing) who did the sulfate and the chloride test. He says he has not done this kind of testing in many years so while I trust him, I wonder if his test is accurate. I called the water department and they also disagreed with his findings, saying the ppm of sulfate is more like 154 for my area. I should probably do the online testing to be sure. The $16.50 for the wards test seems like a pretty good deal.

Using the EZ calcultor, if I plug in 100% RO water, it seems that I can't add any magnesium, does this matter? It looks like I can add 1 gram of gypsum, 3 grams of baking soda, 2 grams of chalk and 1 gram of salt and be in the green on all numbers except magnesium

Patrick,

I know you are now focused on other issues but +1 to what hophazard said on your pH.

The pH you need to be concerned about is in your mash. The grain has acidification and buffering components that need to be taken into consideration, and this will vary depending on the style. To me you sound like you’re in the right ballpark for an average type beer, i.e. water in the high 5’s + average grain = should equal mash pH in the low 5’s. This will depend on equipment and batch so please run your own tests.

Also, for what it’s worth, I’m using what may be a similar type source to your arrowhead water. There is a local spring water company (Simpson Spring in MA) with a 25 cents/gallon filling station right down the street. I sent them an email and the people there were most helpful, sent me their full water report. If you have a good consistent source like this with a good profile I don’t see the issue. To make an ideal beer you may still need to adjust the water to match certain recipe styles (like real light or dark beers), but this source gives me a good middle of the road ion profile that I can use for most brews.

So my advise is to contact arrowhead. Find out what’s in the water, what their source is, how consistent it is, and go from there.

RO is great, but you’ll have to build your water profile every time you brew.