Why not 100% RO water?

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Grinder12000

Grinder12000

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If a person use 100% RO water and builds it back up with minerals. Is that a bad thing? Or when people warn you about RO it's not including water additions.
 
I'm pretty sure those warnings are about using only RO water... That's my $.02 anyway.

RO water plus salts/minerals allows you to obtain a particular water profile and mimic those of famous locales (e.g. Burton upon Trent).

I would WAY recommend using RO water and adding minerals as opposed to following a recipe that calls for "add 1 tsp gypsum" or some other insane recommendation. Unless you know where your water is starting (and where the recipe author's water started), how can you assume that their water additions are going to produce the effect they are supposed to elicit in your water & subsequent beer?!?

Dat **** Cray...
 
I use nothing but RO from Glacier water machines outside grocery stores and have made some great tasting beers of all styles. Most of the brewers I've met here in Phoenix do the same. I'm not knocking or disputing those that get scientific with mineral additions, but until I run into a style that isn't turning out like I expect, I'm keeping it simple.
 
I've read the primer like 7 times. However I keep having people tell me using 100% RO will,taste horrible. So are they thinking that I would NOT built the water back up?

Ive read on this forum that diluting 4:1 RO is ok but 100% is not good."I" feel 100% is good IF it's built back up.

I agree 100% RO with no additions would be pretty foul.
 
Pure RO water without any mineral additions to restore desirable ionic concentrations does not produce a great beer in most cases in my opinion. For very light and delicate styles, it is not really that detrimental to flavor. But in styles that benefit from water mineralization for flavor, its going to be noticable. To me, that means that for most beers, having adequate levels of calcium, chloride, and sulfate to fit the beer character is a good idea. Other ions such as magnesium and sodium can also enhance flavor, but typically within a small range of concentrations.

The recommendations in the Primer are a good starting point for brewing with RO water.
 
Just curious, but I understood that with 100% RO water you wouldn't be able to balance your pH either, as the brewing salts contribute to that as well. For an AG beer wouldn't the enzymatic activity and also your efficiency be low?
For what its worth the guru at our local club uses all RO water then adjusts with brewing salts to the proper water profile for the style and malt bill, and he has had many award winning brews.
 
Starting with RO and building up your profile is fine. This is what I do as our drinking water is community well and it's terrible.

The biggest downside I see with using RO is the waste and the time it takes to collect.

Residential systems waste about 4-5 gallons for each gallon or RO they make.

Using my system, it takes me about a day to collect the 15-18 gallons I need. I've started looking into some more commercial type systems and small pumps to increase the pressure across the RO membrane.
 
sasky7777 - that was the main thing with my question. So far I see no harm in using 100% RO IF you rebuild the water.

My question is what are the important minerals to really obsess over. Obviously Calcium, Sulfate and Chloride. Magnesium from what I gather will normally take care of itself from the grain?? What else am I missing that "should not" be missed?

Am I correct in assuming Ajdelange's Primer use 100% RO as a Baseline?
 
Practical experience = I brewed for my first 2 years with RO water and no mineral additions and it worked fine.

Since I now add Gypsum & or Cal Chloride I think the beer is better but I dispute the assertion that you can't brew good beer with straight RO. Portland water is pretty close to RO water and many brew without additions.

I'd suggest you do a small test batch of RO only and then one doing AJ's primer method and see how it differs.
 
I've only used 100% RO water a handful of times, but it was fine. I especially thought it was perfect for Bohemian pilsner, and will continue to do that.

Mostly, since I have good tap water except for a high alkalinity, I do a mix of tap water/RO water since it's cheap and easy.
 
jpalarchio said:
I use the values recommended in this post https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/reverse-osmosis-water-users-108230/index2.html#post1194285 and let BeerSmith work out the changes for volume from there.
Click to expand...

Some bad advice in that thread. Most noteworthy is the suggestion that 5.2 be used. That stuff is less than worthless as it adds lots of sodium and doesn't buffer mash pH as advertised.

Also, the Palmer spreadsheet will lead you way astray if you rely on it for dark beers. As there is no solid relationship between beer color and water chemistry it is based on a flawed premise.

More generally, extremely soft water doesn't make very good beer - even Boh Pils should have some calcium and chloride in it. Thus in most cases you need to add at least some calcium chloride and, where hops emphasis is wanted, calcium sulfate. There are lots of places where you can get advice oh how much of what to add for different styles. At the simplest is the Primer in the Stickies here.
 
Saw this on Wikipedia:

Due to its fine membrane construction, reverse osmosis not only removes harmful contaminants that may be present in the water, it also strips many of the good, healthy minerals from the water as well, thereby making the water [12]. Reverse Osmosis water is, in fact, so chemically unstable and acidic that in many countries national plumbing codes restrict water that has been filtered via reverse osmosis from being reintroduced into copper pipes due to its corrosiveness on the copper. This also has implications for reverse osmosis filtration systems that use steel storage tanks, as the acidity of the water can lead to the steel rusting over time and contaminating the post-filter water.

A number of Peer-reviewed studies have looked at the long term health effects of drinking demineralized water, including the following:

Health risks from drinking demineralised water (http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutdemineralized.pdf)
 
I have extremely soft water and it makes great beer. According to the lab test, the only mineral present is a few ppm of copper.

And pH5.2 does exactly what it says it does. I've run checks.
 
100g of hulled Barley contain
Code: 
Minerals 
 
Calcium, Ca 	mg	 33	16	1.773
 Iron, Fe 	  mg	 3.60	19	0.154
 Magnesium, Mg 	mg	 133	16	3.571
 Phosphorus, P 	mg	 264	9	24.799
 Potassium, K 	mg	 452	16	8.962
 Sodium, Na 	mg	 12	15	1.241
 Zinc, Zn 	mg	 2.77	28	0.081
 Copper, Cu 	mg	 0.498	25	0.021
 Manganese, Mn 	mg	 1.943	21	0.149
 Selenium, Se 	µg	 37.7	0

So your grain provides a base of minerals. Seem like enough to get a beer made. http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/cgi-bin/list_nut_edit.pl
 
dbsmith said:
Saw this on Wikipedia:

Reverse Osmosis water is, in fact, so chemically unstable and acidic that in many countries national plumbing codes restrict water that has been filtered via reverse osmosis from being reintroduced into copper pipes due to its corrosiveness on the copper. This also has implications for reverse osmosis filtration systems that use steel storage tanks, as the acidity of the water can lead to the steel rusting over time and contaminating the post-filter water.
Click to expand...

You should take what you see on Wikipedia with a grain of salt. I can go to a page on Wikipedia and change the formula for water to H3O and it will stay H3O until someone spots that this has been done and changes it back. I'll admit it, I don't pull down a book anymore if I want the atomic weight of molybdenum, I go to Wikipedia and look it up there but try to remember to do common sense checks on what I see.

Reverse osmosis, or let's say pure, water isn't acidic. Its pK is 14. That's why it has a pH of 7. And it certainly is not "chemically unstable". What could it break down into except hydrogen and oxygen and if it did that all we'd have to do to solve the energy crisis is build RO systems. But it is a good solvent and is, therefore, aggressive with respect to many things including metal pipes. That's why you don't run it in metal pipes. There's not much point in preparing it to get minerals out if you are just going to let them back in by using metal pipes. Plus it's a big PITA when the pipes spring pinhole leaks. Note that this happens with lots of mineralized water too. Water authorities dump chemicals into the water they produce (including some for pH adjustment) to lower the "agressivity index" of the water to the point where their mains are protected.

dbsmith said:
A number of Peer-reviewed studies have looked at the long term health effects of drinking demineralized water, including the following:

Health risks from drinking demineralised water (http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutdemineralized.pdf)
Click to expand...

I can find you a peer reviewed study on nutrition that proves whatever you are interested in selling is beneficial. I've even been the victim of this. It has been noted that there is a correlation between longevity and magnesium content in local water supplies. A person, who owns, as it later turned out, a mineral spring in California which is high in magnesium, asked me, way back when, lots of questions about magnesium in brewing. I gave him the usual answers - avoid it, it makes beer sour and bitter. I then find myself quoted as a "noted brewmaster" (which I'm not) arguing in proposed legislation before the US Congress for mandatory minimum levels of magnesium in all commercially sold beer.

I think anyone who is afraid to brew with RO water because of health considerations is, how should I say it delicately, foolish, I guess. For one thing, the best RO beers are made with at least some minerals added back. Even for the softest water beers there is more mineral content than in the waters of the PNW. For another, if all your daily liquid intake is beer, you have a much bigger problem that low mineral content of RO.

I know there is religion out there about water: Kangi systems, "ionized water", "alkaline water" etc (the 'chemically unstable and acidic' nonsense smacks of the quackery found in websites promoting these). If this is your religion and you are not comfortable with RO water then don't use it. But if you do, don't collect it, store it or distribute it in metallic pipe/tanks.
 
ajdelange said:
You should take what you see on Wikipedia with a grain of salt. I can go to a page on Wikipedia and change the formula for water to H3O and it will stay H3O until someone spots that this has been done and changes it back. I'll admit it, I don't pull down a book anymore if I want the atomic weight of molybdenum, I go to Wikipedia and look it up there but try to remember to do common sense checks on what I see.

Reverse osmosis, or let's say pure, water isn't acidic. Its pK is 14. That's why it has a pH of 7. And it certainly is not "chemically unstable". What could it break down into except hydrogen and oxygen and if it did that all we'd have to do to solve the energy crisis is build RO systems. But it is a good solvent and is, therefore, aggressive with respect to many things including metal pipes. That's why you don't run it in metal pipes. There's not much point in preparing it to get minerals out if you are just going to let them back in by using metal pipes. Plus it's a big PITA when the pipes spring pinhole leaks. Note that this happens with lots of mineralized water too. Water authorities dump chemicals into the water they produce (including some for pH adjustment) to lower the "agressivity index" of the water to the point where their mains are protected.



I can find you a peer reviewed study on nutrition that proves whatever you are interested in selling is beneficial. I've even been the victim of this. It has been noted that there is a correlation between longevity and magnesium content in local water supplies. A person, who owns, as it later turned out, a mineral spring in California which is high in magnesium, asked me, way back when, lots of questions about magnesium in brewing. I gave him the usual answers - avoid it, it makes beer sour and bitter. I then find myself quoted as a "noted brewmaster" (which I'm not) arguing in proposed legislation before the US Congress for mandatory minimum levels of magnesium in all commercially sold beer.

I think anyone who is afraid to brew with RO water because of health considerations is, how should I say it delicately, foolish, I guess. For one thing, the best RO beers are made with at least some minerals added back. Even for the softest water beers there is more mineral content than in the waters of the PNW. For another, if all your daily liquid intake is beer, you have a much bigger problem that low mineral content of RO.

I know there is religion out there about water: Kangi systems, "ionized water", "alkaline water" etc (the 'chemically unstable and acidic' nonsense smacks of the quackery found in websites promoting these). If this is your religion and you are not comfortable with RO water then don't use it. But if you do, don't collect it, store it or distribute it in metallic pipe/tanks.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be concerned about my health drinking a relatively small amount of beer (compared to water intake) made with RO, but I think that there are perhaps concerns with using it with your metal brewing equipment, and with the health of the yeast. It seems safer to use a ratio of RO to tap/spring.
 
dbsmith said:
I wouldn't be concerned about my health drinking a relatively small amount of beer (compared to water intake) made with RO, but I think that there are perhaps concerns with using it with your metal brewing equipment, and with the health of the yeast. It seems safer to use a ratio of RO to tap/spring.
Click to expand...

For one thing as soon as the water hits malt a fair amount of stuff dissolves in it. Malt contains quite a bit of mineral matter (more than #18 hints at doubtless because the husk contains a lot of it). For another thing, as noted, you usually add some salts, even for Boh Pils. Furthermore, 'aggressive' water takes years to erode piping to the point where pinhole leaks appear. Aggressive water is, in terms of the way the water company thinks of it, any which does not deposit calcium carbonate. Thus softened water is, by at least one definition which includes log([Ca++]) in the index definition as aggressive as RO water which doesn't contain appreciable calcium either. Finally, your stainless steel is protected by the passivating layer. I wouldn't worry about damage to your equipment in the time the RO water is in contact with it. If the RO water were picking up anything appreciable in that short time you would taste iron in the water and beer.

As for yeast health: the malt provides sufficient minerals, with the exception of zinc, for co-factor duty. So I wouldn't worry about that. Nevertheless, when I prepare water for brewing I always blend in 10% tap water to supply 'trace elements' for the yeast. I feel a little silly doing it but I do it.
 
i know a guy that makes excellent (and gold-winning) lagers (mostly bocks) with straight, pure, RO. and malt.
 
ajdelange said:
For one thing as soon as the water hits malt a fair amount of stuff dissolves in it. Malt contains quite a bit of mineral matter (more than #18 hints at doubtless because the husk contains a lot of it). For another thing, as noted, you usually add some salts, even for Boh Pils. Furthermore, 'aggressive' water takes years to erode piping to the point where pinhole leaks appear. Aggressive water is, in terms of the way the water company thinks of it, any which does not deposit calcium carbonate. Thus softened water is, by at least one definition which includes log([Ca++]) in the index definition as aggressive as RO water which doesn't contain appreciable calcium either. Finally, your stainless steel is protected by the passivating layer. I wouldn't worry about damage to your equipment in the time the RO water is in contact with it. If the RO water were picking up anything appreciable in that short time you would taste iron in the water and beer.

As for yeast health: the malt provides sufficient minerals, with the exception of zinc, for co-factor duty. So I wouldn't worry about that. Nevertheless, when I prepare water for brewing I always blend in 10% tap water to supply 'trace elements' for the yeast. I feel a little silly doing it but I do it.
Click to expand...

Hmm I didn't think about that obvious point of the minerals in the malt. I'm curious though, if the water is more aggressive are there any concerns about extracting unpleasant compounds from the malt(i.e. tannins) any easier than normal(like at a lower temperature)? From reading the other posts here it seems like it is not a concern.
 
I've found using RO and adding in premixed salt blends works great, but I wouldn't use just RO water. Keep in mind some RO systems don't work as well as others, and leave some minerals in the water, especially places where the source water is very hard.
 
Hmm I didn't think about that obvious point of the minerals in the malt. I'm curious though, if the water is more aggressive are there any concerns about extracting unpleasant compounds from the malt(i.e. tannins) any easier than normal(like at a lower temperature)?
Click to expand...

It's a fairly complicated subject but a simple explanation could be given in terms of chemical potential. This is like electrical potential in the sense that if there is a difference in electrical potential current flows until the electrical potential difference is 0 whereas when there is a difference in chemical potential material flows until the chemical potential difference is 0. Chemical potential is given by u = u0 + R*T*ln(A). u0 is a constant (the chemical potential when A = 1), R is the universal gas constant, T is the absolute temperature and A is the activity of the substance in question. Activity and concentration can be considered the same. The chemical potential of ferulic acid (just to pick something found in malt) is minus infinity in pure water because there is no ferulic acid in pure water. But the chemical potential of ferulic acid in the water from the wells of Burton on Trent (TDS of around a gram per liter) is also minus infinity because there is no ferulic acid in that water either. Thus the chemical potential between malt and Burton water is the same as between malt and DI water. Ferulic acid will move from malt to either in the same way and the final concentrations in either will be the same. For calcium ion the story would be different. The potential difference for calcium ion would be smaller for Burton water than for DI and it would take less transfer of calcium to Burton water to equalize the chemical potential in the malt and water.
 
I've been using 100% RO water with salt additions on my last few brews and my reslts have greatly improved. I tend to move a lot and like the idea that once I have a recipe dialed in with the proper RO and salt additions that I can move anywhere and recreate the beer without having to mess with new local water.
 

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