All Grain with Soft Water?

[xxsn0blindxx]

I'm planning to do my first AG brew using a cooler MLT and batch sparge. I only have soft water in my house, the only un-softened water taps are on the outside of the house and it's winter here is Wisconsin. Aside from that, our city's water report really doesn't have all the necessary information for a water profile calculation. So my question is, can I use my soft water and get by with just measuring PH and getting it stabilized or am I better off using bottled water, or...?

 

[ross3648]

First, If I were you I would call your water company and tell them you need more information on the water profile. Thats what I did with my company and they got back to me with my request within a few days.

Second most bottle water is also very soft.
Deer Parks Ca 3.8 Mg 1.2 Na 2.8 SO4 6 CL 0.5 HCO3 32.9
Poland Springs Ca 5.3 Mg 0.9 Na 2.1 SO4 3.2 CL 5.3 HCO3 14

So your water is more than likely better than the bottled stuff
If you can't wait, pick a style suitable for soft water.

 

[mightynintendo]

You'll probably want to at least add calcium with softened water.

 

[Omegagodly]

well i dont know how to answer your question but i can say that i have done a bee cave haus pale ale AG with water in my house that is naturally very soft (or so the company that supplies it says) and its turning out great. its about to be bottled this weekend and the hydrometer samples taste delicious. i dont have a profile of my water for you for comparison though. sorry.

 

[avidhomebrewer]

I live in Wisconsin (Sheboygan) and use soft water for the full year of brewing, with no negative effects. To be honest, I don't even measure anything in my water; it tastes good, so i brew with it (for over 10 years).

Where are you in Wi?

 

[xxsn0blindxx]

Thanks for all the suggestions I know this is a situation with no best solution. I will try just adjusting the pH and see how it turns out before worrying about the mineral content.

Avid, I'm over in Waukesha, good to know using soft water isn't going to be a big deal.

 

[Picobrew]

I brewed for about a year (50 batches or so) with straight up Portland, OR city water, which is very soft and has a ph of about 7.5. This seemed to work fine for me except that theoretically the hops would pop more with a higher amount of sulfates, and for darker beers the mash is too acidic. These problems were hard for me to notice, but I suspect they were there to some level. I made mostly beers under 15 SRM, so the mash problems were probably muted.

About 10 beers ago I switched to adjusting my water. Depending on the recipe I have used gypsum, chalk, calcium chloride, baking soda, and epsom salts. I used the ez water spreadsheet and watched Bobby_M's videos which were very helpful.

I can't tell you that it makes a huge difference for me to make all these adjustments, I haven't done a side-by-side with the same beer yet, which I can do in about a week with a porter that will be ready.

The thing that is nice about having clean/soft water is that you can build it up very easily and you will never have to cut it with other water, and it is likely that it will work "ok" for you unmodified as it did for me for quite awhile.

Here is the detailed profile of my water, kcinpdx posted this in another thread:

Primary Contaminant
Fluoride (F) <MRL
Secondary Contaminants
Chloride (Cl) 1.9
Fluoride (F) <MRL
Hardness (as CaCO3) 5.1
Sulfate (SO4) <MRL 3.7
Unregulated Contaminants
Alkalinity (as CaCO3) 8.5
Hydroxide (as CaCO3) <MRL
Carbonate (as CaCO3) <MRL
Bicarbonate (as CaCO3) 8.5
Carbon Dioxide, Free (CO2) 1.1
Carbon Dioxide, Total (CO2) 8.5
Calcium (Ca) 1.1
Cyanide (CN) 0.046
Magnesium (Mg) 0.6
Potassium (K) 0.2
Sodium (Na) 2.6

 

[Pops]

Heres a couple of articles.

http://***********/stories/wizard/a...zard/568-draft-widgets-a-soft-water-mr-wizard
http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2008/08/24/brewing-water-hard-or-soft/

 

[manticle]

Water where I come from is pretty soft. No problems yet and I don't do adjustments.

That's not to say you shouldn't look into the science behind adjusting your water and have a play with it and see what works for you. You definitely should.

However don't let anyone tell you you CAN'T brew something. I brew pale and dark beers. They may improve with adjustments but they taste good without. It's a finer point of brewing - worth looking into but not stressing over (presuming the water is of good quality to begin with of course).

 

[babalu87]

I'm planning to do my first AG brew using a cooler MLT and batch sparge. I only have soft water in my house, the only un-softened water taps are on the outside of the house and it's winter here is Wisconsin. Aside from that, our city's water report really doesn't have all the necessary information for a water profile calculation. So my question is, can I use my soft water and get by with just measuring PH and getting it stabilized or am I better off using bottled water, or...?

Have (or put) a TEE in with a ball valve and a spigot before your water softener so you can access city water prior to your system.

Send a sample to Ward Labs for testing.

 

[flananuts]

If you can get a water profile, using various formulas available found right here on the site you can adjust your soft water to make any beer you want. I have very soft water and by using a spreadsheet i can add the various minerals and salts to mimic the type of water profile I'm looking for. This also greatly improves your efficiency because you'll end up with the proper residual alkalinity for the type of beer. Here's some youtube videos that walk through making water profiles for a couple types of beers.

http://www.youtube.com/bobbyfromnj#p/u/7/o1n7-RjEJEM

 

[Bobby_M]

It's not that soft water is bad, it can just benefit from more alkalinity when you brew darker beers. Also, soft water is different than softened water. The latter has a lot of sodium due to the ion exchange.

The short term solution is to build water with store bought RO/distilled.

 

[Beerrific]

It's not that soft water is bad, it can just benefit from more alkalinity when you brew darker beers. Also, soft water is different than softened water. The latter has a lot of sodium due to the ion exchange.

The short term solution is to build water with store bought RO/distilled.

Right. Brewing with soft water can be great because it is a blank canvas so to speak. But, brewing with water from a home softening system could be bad. If you have very hard water, you are going to have a lot of sodium in there and you may be able to taste it in the final beer.

Personally, if I lived somewhere with very hard water that was not suitable to brewing, I would run a softener and the get an RO system for drinking/brewing.

 

[xxsn0blindxx]

We do have very hard water here, the latest quality report lists a hardness of 13.4 to 24.0 grains/gal and anything over 10.5 is considered very hard. I will have to follow the water pipes again, but I am pretty sure that all the indoor faucets and showers use softened water. I don't think our water tastes bad, in fact I think it tastes pretty good, but if the sodium from the softener can cause harm that concerns me.

 

[manticle]

Brew with it and see.

 

[02fx4dude]

Thanks for all the suggestions I know this is a situation with no best solution. I will try just adjusting the pH and see how it turns out before worrying about the mineral content.

Avid, I'm over in Waukesha, good to know using soft water isn't going to be a big deal.

I'm in Waukesha, I measure with a hardness test kit every few months for fish tanks. City water has total hardness 400-450 mg/l as CaCO3. I Usually mix 1 part hard tap water with 3 parts RO/DI water to get water around 100 mg/l for making beer. I Use RO/DI water because water from softeners usually has enough sodium ion to make the water taste nasty, IMO.

Maybe some neighbors would let you get some hard water from their taps.

Brian

 

[bradfordmonk]

i typically brew with deer park spring water...do i just add Calcium Chrloide and Gypsum?

 

[acidrain]

Read the water primer in the brew science section.