advice in handling water adjustment-- 3 separate sources, changing ratios

Greetings beer friends,

Moving to Denver!

Unfortunately, brewing water is going to get complicated... its drawn from 3 separate treatment facilities. Report also mentioned an integrated system that can send water from any of the 3 on any given day based on demand.

Water report :
http://www.denverwater.org/docs/ass...22BC7A58A72/TreatedWaterSummaryReport2013.pdf

I'm getting fairly involved with my brewing water now & looking deeper. Using meter to take mash PH, adjusting some salts to my taste, making adjustments to beers after each brew etc. I'd like to have water be a tool for making great beer not just something that works.

Seems tough to accurately dial in beers if there is daily variability in the water. I know for instance that the alkalinity could range from 24 - 77, sulfate 26 - 61, chloride 6 - 30. Any way you get the point.

1. General thoughts on the water profiles (see below)?

2. Could those ranges of differences cause problems like I think they could?
(for someone very particular about their beer of course)

3. Should I just start from RO water? Is that actually ideal for brewing?
(Dialing this in is important to me, but don't want to waste energy/water/$)

4. I'm curious, assuming the goal was to have water working for you & dialed consistently, would an actual brewery just spend the extra money to get an RO unit or measure every day or something?

Thanks in advance water gurus!

Data: [all mg/L] -- A=Plant # 1, B= plant #2, etc.

alkalinity: A=72, B=51, C=30
Calcium: A=33, B=25, C=17
Magnesium: A=8, B=6, C=3
Sulfate: A=57, B=49, C=28
Sodium: A=18, B=17, C=5
Chloride: A=29, B=20, C=6
(numbers are averages, actual number ranges found in doc above)

fogley said:

1. General thoughts on the water profiles (see below)?
alkalinity: A=72, B=51, C=30
Calcium: A=33, B=25, C=17
Magnesium: A=8, B=6, C=3
Sulfate: A=57, B=49, C=28
Sodium: A=18, B=17, C=5
Chloride: A=29, B=20, C=6

Click to expand...

Yes there is quite a bit of variability there - factor of almost 5 on the chloride for example. The one you would, of course, really look at is the alkalinity which can more than double (on average - peak deviations would be even greater) depending in source. The good news is that the overall mineral content is not that high in any case but...

fogley said:

2. Could those ranges of differences cause problems like I think they could?
(for someone very particular about their beer of course)

Click to expand...

Yes, these variations are enough to cause noticeable variations in the beer. Mash pH could swing enough to change outcome (depending on grist) and while you can make beer, even good beer, with chloride as low as 5 most beers will benefit from more. 28 on the sulfate is higher than would be desired for some beers (lagers hopped with noble varieties) and 57 much more (factor of almost 2). In sum, those variations could cause problems but not major problems.

fogley said:

3. Should I just start from RO water? Is that actually ideal for brewing?
(Dialing this in is important to me, but don't want to waste energy/water/$)

Click to expand...

For best results you will want to deal with the variations somehow. RO is doubtless the easiest and permits the most precise control but there are other things you can do. None of these supplies is so alkaline that you can't contemplate neutralizing with phosporic (or another) acid. If you take the approach of using acid to set liquor pH to say 5.5 each time you brew and take careful note of the amount of acid that requires you are effectively measuring the alkalinity of the water to pH 5.5 - not 4.5 as the lab would so your answer will be about 90% of theirs. From the data you presented it is clear that the more alkalinity the more sodium, chloride, calcium... the water contains so you could get a rough idea as to how much to supplement chloride and calcium just from the acid addition.

RO, OTOH, gives you complete control and you don't have to do the titration (implied by acidifying to pH 5.5). And it gives you control over the sulfate as well as everything else which the acid addition approach doesn't. That may not be important if you don't brew those lagers that require low sulfate.

fogley said:

4. I'm curious, assuming the goal was to have water working for you & dialed consistently, would an actual brewery just spend the extra money to get an RO unit or measure every day or something?

Click to expand...

That would depend on the brewery. Some install RO systems and some measure every day and adjust accordingly.

Thanks AJ, greatly appreciate the insight!

Looks like RO is in my future, until then I may try the acid technique- good idea.

I suspected the sulfate might cause issues with my cleaner beers. Do you know if sulfate clashes with noble hops in general, or is that unique to the lager situation?

You mentioned most beers benefiting from more chloride (than 6) which my experience confirms - what have you found to be a good minimum baseline?

thanks again

fogley said:

I suspected the sulfate might cause issues with my cleaner beers. Do you know if sulfate clashes with noble hops in general, or is that unique to the lager situation?

Click to expand...

I'd say in general but I readily accept that personal preference may be involved here.

fogley said:

You mentioned most beers benefiting from more chloride (than 6) which my experience confirms - what have you found to be a good minimum baseline?

Click to expand...

Again I think personal preference is at play here but I'd say 25 mg/L would be a good minimum.