Can we talk water chemistry?

[JonAllenNH]

Hi everyone, I've never messed with water chemistry. Buy a couple cases of spring water gallons and call it a day. However, I'm looking to advance my brewing and want to start looking at it. I've done a lot of reading and it seems to me that distilled water would give you a perfect blank slate to then add brewing salts and create damn near ideal water chemistry, rather than try to mess with whatever chemistry your tap water has already. With that said, I've read a lot of articles and forums cursing distilled water as a really bad idea. Am I missing something? Or should I assume that people mean distilled water as-is is a really bad idea (which would be obvious as there are no minerals)?

 

[Jayhem]

You are going to have to add so many salts and minerals to have ideal ranges of naturally occuring cations and anions in your distilled water it's not worth it. Start with a good balanced spring water, have it tested for concentrations and pH and build your own water profile from there.

Bru'n water spreadsheet is the place to start.

Send off a sample of your water of choice to: http://www.wardlab.com/WardInfo/Water.aspx

 

[ajdelange]

I've done a lot of reading and it seems to me that distilled water would give you a perfect blank slate to then add brewing salts and create damn near ideal water chemistry, rather than try to mess with whatever chemistry your tap water has already.

Yes, that's absolutely correct.

With that said, I've read a lot of articles and forums cursing distilled water as a really bad idea. Am I missing something? Or should I assume that people mean distilled water as-is is a really bad idea (which would be obvious as there are no minerals)?

These articles and forum postings are made by people who clearly don't understand the science (e.g. #2 here). Most don't understand that malts contain quite a lot of minerals - certainly enough to meet the coenzyme requirements of the enzymes involved in mashing and fermentation. Some of the worlds finest beers (Pilsner Urquell, for example) have long been made with very soft (low mineral) water. This is not to say that some beers aren't improved by the addition of more chloride or sulfate and the positive benefits of higher levels of calcium are well known. The amounts of salts needed to establish reasonable ion concentrations are quite modest (unless you are one of those guys that likes 300+ ppm sulfate and even then its a few grams for a 5 gallon batch).

When malts are tested the test mash (Congress Mash) is done with distilled water. The extract number obtained from that mash is considered the highest extract that one can obtain (home brewers say they have 100% efficiency if they obtain it).

For the reasons you have given (control) and others (elimination of seasonal or source derived variability in water supply characteristics) more and more commercial and home brewers are moving to RO (not quite as pure as distilled but almost so) water for all their brewing. The availability of more efficient less expensive RO systems has made it possible to put breweries in parts of the world where it was previously unthinkable.

A huge advantage of RO or DI water is that it has no alkalinity. Most of the brewers battle with his water has been against alkalinity. Most of the complexity of brewing water calculations is related to properly dealing with alkalinity. In the relatively rare cases where alkalinity is required in mash water because of unusually high percentage of dark malts it is easily obtained with sodium bicarbonate or lime water both of which are alkaline enough with respect to mash pH that they can be considered 'strong' bases and carbonate system calculation can by and large be ignored or at least simplified.

 

[JonAllenNH]

The availability of more efficient less expensive RO systems has made it possible to put breweries in parts of the world where it was previously unthinkable.

Which is funny since brewing partly came out of requirement because the water was so gross you couldn't drink it, yet magically (after boiling) when it was made into beer it didn't make you sick anymore.
In any event, thanks. That is along my lines of thinking as well. I used the Brewer's Friend Water Chemistry tool to play around with some profiles starting from distilled and it really didn't take much salts at all, quarters and halves of tablespoons, and I feel like I would have tons more control. I think I'm going to try it on my next brew (Black IPA) which will have a lot of sulfate, so funny you mentioned sulfate at 300+pmm, even so, I'm shooting for around 200ppm not 300+.

 

[schematix]

I used the Brewer's Friend Water Chemistry tool to play around with some profiles starting from distilled and it really didn't take much salts at all, quarters and halves of tablespoons, and I feel like I would have tons more control.

For about $10 + a few bucks shipping you can buy a scale that can measure up to 100g in 0.01g increments. Volume measurements are notoriously inaccurate.

 

[JonAllenNH]

Yeah, I have one. When it comes to measuring it out I use the grams, but tablespoons are a better visual for most people in my experience...granted those people aren't homebrewers.