Charlotte NC Water

I am pretty new to All-grain, and two out of three of my first batches were pitched. My last one is not terrible, but i often find that is has an off taste at the end. I have even noticed this in a local breweries Golden Ale.

Right now I use a Camco RV Water filter on my garden hose, and I am wondering if I need to attack the problem chemically. Our water is generally a high pH (7.9-9), so should I try bringing that down with distilled or bottled or chemical treatments.

I always use Safale US-05 (most brew ales). Any suggestions?

Is your garden hose safe for drinking water? Hoses are made of really nasty chemicals, many of which are carcinogens. When left out in the heat for an extended period of time off gassing and leaching could be exponentially worse.

Lowe's and Home Depot sell hoses rated safe for drinking water. Even then, I would not leave the hose outside. Keep inside and use it for brewing water and then store it away.

As for the Camco. I'm sure it will work great at filtering out the chlorine but may not filter out the tastes associated with the drinking hose. It may also filter out other things beneficial to the wort. I would see about getting a local water report and using a water addition calculator to add calcium or salts, etc.

The pH here in Wilmington, NC is also high (7.89 for our source). We find that adding gypsum to the mash to be beneficial. Also, are you using any vinyl tubing for your hot water/wort transfers? I can't tell you how many times I've tasted a homebrew from someone that has used vinyl hose, not rated for hot liquid transfer.

Yea, i actually just bought a good water hose (literally a second ago). Hopefully that and gypsum will help. I have silicone tubing.

Remember that the pH of the water has little to do with the pH of the mash. What controls that is the alkalinity. Waters of higher pH often have higher alkalinity but it is possible to have quite a range. You can't really control mash pH effectively without knowing what the alkalinity is. You can find that out explicitly by having the water tested (Ward Labs) or testing it yourself (http://www.wetnewf.org/pdfs/measuring-alkalinity.html or use simple drop count kits from Hach or the aquarium supply store). Alternatively you can find out what the alkalinity is implicitly by acidifying the water being used for mashing to mash pH before adding the grains. This effectively deals with alkalinity and if you know how to interpret the results lets you determine the actual alkalinity number.

There is no question that beers mashed at proper pH will taste better than those that don't but mash pH usually results in more subtle improvements than removing 'off tastes'. Some off tastes are related to water chemistry in particular the presence of chloramine in the water can lend a smokey, plastic-like flavor/aroma and excess sulfate can render the hops bitterness harsh. Chloride, OTOH, mellows and sweetens beer though in excess if paired with sodium or potassium it can, obviously, impart a salty taste. A more interesting comment is that high level chloride leads to a 'pasty' taste. Sure I tasted the paste in Kindergarten but I really don't know what this means. It is, then, clearly important to know what your sulfate and chloride levels are. There are tests for these you can do at home but it's certainly simpler and less expensive (unless you intend to test or have tested dozens of samples) to send off to Ward Labs.