About to start my first two all-grain batches

[MC_McMic]

I'm about to start my first two all-grain batches this weekend, and I had a quick question:

Should I bother messing with my water? The water in Austin, TX appears to be quite alkaline (pH of 9.6, according to my most recent water report), and the calcium content looks to be very low (15 ppm).

Water Report

Should I just focus on the process for now and worry about that type of stuff later, or is this going to adversely affect the taste/quality of my beer to the point where I should always be treating my water?

 

[beeber]

That water is too alkaline for my liking. You might want to do an acid rest to lower your pH (or maybe acidulated malt) if you are doing a multi-step mash.

 

[mgortel]

If you are unsure of your water....do yourself a favor and use distilled water for now until you can get a full water report and figure out what you need to do to it. (You can send a sample to Ward labs for testing to get a detailed report)

Also depends on brew....what are you brewing? If you are brewing a dark beer you may have an issue with pH being to low if using distilled water. Any "yellow" colored beer should be fine to brew with distilled and your pH should be in the right range without doing anything.

If you use distilled water you will want to add 50-60 ppm of calcium (use some gypsum and calcium chloride for this).

Post what you are brewing and we can give you more feedback.

Also, pH isn't a good indicator of the buffering capacity of your water....you need to know the alkalinity in ppm of CaCaO3 (calcium carbonate). You can buy a GH/KH water test kit from pet store aquarium section and test the KH....which is your alkalinity.

Distilled water will not have any alkalinity (at least it should not).....so no worry abpout mash pH being to high. Again if you are using light colored grains (no roasted grains) you should be fine with distilled water

In the meantime check out https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/ for great info on brewing water and also a free spreadsheet for water adjustments.

EDIT: Oops didn't realize you attached water report.....

If the alkalinity coming from your tap is in the 50+/- range that isn't too bad. The 170's will cause issues...unless you are brewing a stout or something dark

 

[MC_McMic]

If the alkalinity coming from your tap is in the 50+/- range that isn't too bad. The 170's will cause issues...unless you are brewing a stout or something dark

Thanks. Will the low calcium cause any issues?

Also, I've looked at BrunWater and tinkered with it briefly. It was a bit confusing... not exactly intuitive. Is there a better app out there? Otherwise, I'm sure I can figure it out by actually reading the directions.

Here are the two beers I'm brewing (both kits to start out):

AHS Biere de Garde

AHS Karankawa Pale Ale

 

[mgortel]

Bruin Water is not that difficult.,.....if (like you said) you read through the instructions.

You really want your Calcium at 50 ppm minimum.....less than 100 ppm....I usually shoot for 50-60 ppm

At first glance I think you will be fine with those (2) brews....gotta run....will try to look closer at it later.

 

[MC_McMic]

I used Bru'n Water, and it looks like I need to add chalk to get my calcium up and some sort of acid (phosphoric?) to balance the pH of both the mash and sparge water.

I guess that I just need to estimate how much water I'm going to boil off at this point? I was thinking of mashing with 3.75 gallons and sparging with 2.75 to arrive at 6.5 gallons preboil. Is this too much? I feel like I've generally boiled off quite a bit in the past.

Also, is there any harm at arriving under 5 gallons after my boil and then adding distilled water to bring up the volume if need be?

 

[jro238]

The 50ppm minimum for Ca is for your yeast health. I use lactic acid to lower my pH (make sure to get some pipets with it). Ez water calculator is another free excel tool.

 

[Osedax]

Low calcium will cause clarity issues. The yeast will suffer a bit but, they will still make beer. I would just worry about pH for right now. I think the norm is like 1-2% acidulated malt and it will come out fine. Worry about water chemistry after you get the basics down.

Good luck!

 

[MC_McMic]

I did end up purchasing some Phosphoric Acid from the LHBS. I also ordered some Calcium Carbonate off of Amazon, which should arrive before my yeast starters are ready to go.

 

[Yooper]

I did end up purchasing some Phosphoric Acid from the LHBS. I also ordered some Calcium Carbonate off of Amazon, which should arrive before my yeast starters are ready to go.

Never use calcium carbonate in your brewing water. You don't need it, and it doesn't dissolve properly without extraneous measures anyway.

You shouldn't need to increase the alkalinity of your water, but if you ever do need to raise the mash pH (unlikely), then you can use something like baking soda to do that. Don't use chalk to raise the calcium- use calcium chloride or gypsum (caS04) if you have to make some additions.

 

[Yooper]

As far as the water report goes, treat your water for chlorine with campden tablets (one per 20 gallons of water, crushed and stirred in well) to offgas the chlorine before mashing.

You have a fairly high sulfate level to start with, so for malty beers you won't need to add gypsum, but you could add a little calcium chloride to bring up the calcium and the chloride but it's not necessary. You can go with up to 80-100 ppm of chloride. For hoppy beers, some gypsum (CaS04) can be used to increase the calcium and the sulfate.

A brewing spreadsheet (EZ water or Bru'nwater) helps tremendously with this, although EZ water always predicts mash pH inaccurately.

Your water looks ok as a base, as long as you treat for the chlorine.

 

[MC_McMic]

As far as the water report goes, treat your water for chlorine with campden tablets (one per 20 gallons of water, crushed and stirred in well) to offgas the chlorine before mashing.

You have a fairly high sulfate level to start with, so for malty beers you won't need to add gypsum, but you could add a little calcium chloride to bring up the calcium and the chloride but it's not necessary. You can go with up to 80-100 ppm of chloride. For hoppy beers, some gypsum (CaS04) can be used to increase the calcium and the sulfate.

A brewing spreadsheet (EZ water or Bru'nwater) helps tremendously with this, although EZ water always predicts mash pH inaccurately.

Your water looks ok as a base, as long as you treat for the chlorine.

Okay, thanks. In regards to your previous post, though, Bru'n Water was how I figured to add Calcium Carbonate in the first place. Why does it present this as an option if you should basically never do it?

Chalk seems as though it achieves exactly the desired effect, looking at my spreadsheets.

 

[Yooper]

Okay, thanks. In regards to your previous post, though, Bru'n Water was how I figured to add Calcium Carbonate in the first place. Why does it present this as an option if you should basically never do it?

Chalk seems as though it achieves exactly the desired effect, looking at my spreadsheets.

You'd have to ask Martin Brungard (he usually responds to posts, especially in the brew science forum area) why it's in there.

I don't understand how it could possibly have the "desired effect", as it probably would raise mash pH, and that's not what you want, especially if you're adding acid to counteract the alkalinity you're adding.

 

[Osedax]

I would be curious on this. I thought on Bru'n Water it says to never add it to the mash? You can add it to the boil but, again, I have no idea why you would.

 

[MC_McMic]

So, pickling lime is the alternative that I would want to add calcium to my mash? Is this available at most grocery stores?

 

[Yooper]

So, pickling lime is the alternative that I would want to add calcium to my mash? Is this available at most grocery stores?

No. You don't want to add alkalinity.

You can add some calcium if you feel that you really have to (I think that's what is forcing you to want to add something?) although it's not necessary. If you feel that you can not possibly brew a batch simply by hitting the proper mash pH with the water you have and that you absolutely must fiddle with it, then adding some calcium chloride would be fine in the biere de garde. You want to keep the chloride level under 100 ppm and my preference is less.

For the pale ale, use gypsum to add calcium and sulfate.

Don't add alkalinity, unless you need it to raise your mash pH (and you almost never will, unless making a stout or something like that, and even then probably not).

 

[MC_McMic]

My knowledge is obviously very limited. These will be my first two all-grain batches, I've added my water report into Bru'n Water, and the two things I gleaned from doing so were:

1) My water is quite alkaline
2) My water is low in calcium

So, really, my only two goals were:

1) Achieve a desirable mash alkalinity
2) Get my calcium over 50 ppm (it currently sits at 15 ppm, according to my water report)

Maybe I'll just brew with my tap water and not worry about it for now.

 

[Yooper]

My knowledge is obviously very limited. These will be my first two all-grain batches, I've added my water report into Bru'n Water, and the two things I gleaned from doing so were:

1) My water is quite alkaline
2) My water is low in calcium

So, really, my only two goals were:

1) Achieve a desirable mash alkalinity
2) Get my calcium over 50 ppm (it currently sits at 15 ppm, according to my water report)

Maybe I'll just brew with my tap water and not worry about it for now.

Mash pH is crucial. Check the mash pH projection, and add acid (phosphoric acid is great for this) if you have to so that you get a good mash pH of 5.3-5.5. That's important.

Calcium is great, and if you want to add some calcium chloride for a malty beer to get the calcium up to 40 ppm, that's great but it's not nearly as important as mash pH. For a hoppy style, gypsum can get your calcium up to 40 ppm if you want to do that. It's not crucial to have added calcium, but it is helpful for yeast flocculation and beer clarity.

As you get more into water knowledge, you can tweak the water profiles to add even more gypsum for hoppy/bitter beers but you can get a very good result with minimal additions especially if your mash pH is in the proper range.


It's not the water alkalinity that really matters- it's the mash pH. But you are correct that since you have a moderate alkalinity in the water already you don't want to add more (as in pickling lime or chalk).

 

[jro238]

I also have very soft water (ca somewhere around 8). I made a few batches without altering it and still made pretty decent beer (better now though) I would definitely address mash ph. I didn't do this and later realized that my mash was around 5.7. This led to lots of tannin extraction, a strong husk flavor in the finished beer, and lots of haze. Gelatin improved this quite a bit after the fact but adding about 9ml of 88% lactic acid to my water is much much easier.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

Regarding the use of chalk, Martin includes it in Bru'nwater but explains in the instructions that its use is discouraged since it is not readily soluble without employing a rather involved process. As a very rough approximate of last resort he says you can double the amount called for to account for the lack of solubility. In no circumstances should it be used in the sparge water.

I also have very soft water that is pretty low in everything. I recently brewed a very light lager for which I wanted to boost the calcium at least into the 30's to help the yeast out but I wanted to keep the sulfate and chloride low. I added a minimal amount of gypsum and calcium chloride and then used pickling lime (Mrs. Wages in the canning section at any store that has canning supplies) to bring the calcium up. I used a few ounces of acid malt in the grain bill and then tweaked the mash pH with some lactic acid to stay around 5.4 pH.

One key point with using lime is that you only add it to the mash after dough-in. If you add it to the water ahead of time it will spike the pH. Also, like chalk, you never add it to the sparge water.

 

[MC_McMic]

I did my first two all grain batches over the weekend. I hit 5 gallons right on the nose with both batches, hit my specific gravity with one beer, and missed by 0.001 with the other (a pale ale and a biere de garde, respectively). So, I'd say it was a success! Both batches are in the fermentation chamber at 65°, bubbling away.

I haven't calculated my efficiency yet. I'm happy with how everything went, though.

In regards to the chalk, etc... I didn't use the chalk at all. That's okay though, as I can use what I bought at the gym! I ended up using a combination of phosphoric acid, gypsum and campden to treat the beer, calculating the amounts with Bru'n Water.

I'm excited to try out my first couple all-grain beers!

 

[Osedax]

Awesome! Let us know how they come out.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

Two batches in one weekend. Impressive! Can't wait to hear the results.

 

[MC_McMic]

Two batches in one weekend. Impressive! Can't wait to hear the results.

Yeah, I'll likely try to avoid doing this in the future. The second batch started to feel a bit like work.

However, I figured doing a batch on both Saturday and Sunday would really help me nail down a process. Also, I can just barely squeeze two primary fermenters into my chamber, which doubles as my keezer.

(also, I just wanted more beer)

 

[MC_McMic]

Sorry for the double post; quick question, though...

I tried using a dual-wort-chiller setup, as I live in Austin and the tap water is already around 75° F. It did not seem to do a great job. I had one chiller sitting in a cooler full of ice water and the other chiller in my brew kettle ("downstream" obviously). I couldn't get my beer down below 74°. Any idea why that might be? I would think that the ice water would chill the tap water pretty well.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

I'm assuming the dual chillers are immersion chillers. It sounds like maybe the flow rate through the system is too fast and tap water doesn't have enough time in the ice bath to cool the chiller water.

I use a relatively simple chilling system with my IC. I made my IC from 30 feet of 3/8" copper tube. The feed and discharge hoses are just friction fit over the tubing with no clamps - works fine.

I bought the smallest 12V Rule bilge pump from my local marine supply store (~$20) and spliced it to an old household battery charger adapter cord (made sure it was 12V converter) with an in-line switch. I freeze a couple of gallon jugs of water and also save (or buy) about 3 bags of ice. I put the IC in the wort for the last 15 minutes of the boil to sanitize it. After the boil I fill my sink partially with water and put the BK in it along with the 2 gallon ice blocks (I cut the jug away first). I hook up the chiller "feed" hose to the bilge pump and submerge the pump in the ice water. The "output" chiller hose just discharges back into the ice water.

Plug the bilge pump in and turn it on to pump the ice water through the IC. Initially, the discharge water back into the sink is pretty warm so I keep syphoning some water out of the sink to give me room to add fresh ice from tbe bags.

The syphoning part is a little inconvenient but not that big a deal. I chill 5.5 gallons from boiling to 65F in about 15-20 minutes.