Getting into water, should I just use RO?

[Yourrealdad]

So I have been slowly (very) been reading about water because I am finding my hoppy pale beers taste a little off.

From what I have read on the forums, How to Brew, the Primer here and other sources it almost sounds like just using RO water is the easiest way to go?

Is this what most people do or should I just use my tap water and adjust it?
I have pretty hard/alkaline? water I believe. I have my water report if people want to see it. It taste fine as it is pure rocky mountain spring water, just like Coors!

If RO is the way to go is there any reason why I wouldn't just get something like this?
http://theh2oguru.com/drinking-water-system/ro-mighty-mite-system-50gpd.html

Seems relatively cheap and it sounds like I can just hook it up to my faucet and start getting my water ready the night before a brew vs. the little more expensive setups that are under the counter and use a storage tank.

Any downsides to the system I linked?

Thanks for helping a non-chemistry type person as I try to figure this all out.

 

[Malt]

RO water is convenient in that it will give you a consistent starting point as long you maintain your RO system.

The linked system appears to use Dow Filmtec membranes which are fairly standard and should perform well for you.

Leaving the system run overnight is convenient but may cost you more in the long run due to waste water output. You might be able to use your tap water straight or cut with RO water and treated with campden tablets for Chlorine/Chloramines. In doing so the RO system might not have to run as long.

Posting your water report would help paint the big picture.

 

[NervousDad]

Not a water expert, but since moving to RO my salt addition have been greatly simplified.

 

[Yourrealdad]

Yeah so I actually was just reading about the waste water involved in making RO water at home so I think that is out.

Might just go and buy 5 gallon jugs and refill them for .40 from the grocery store. Anything wrong with that?

So now that RO system is answered, the question still remains to use RO or adjust your own water?

I have attached my water report from the city.

 

[Photopilot]

Depends on whether you are doing extract or all grain.

For all grain there are elements in the water you want/need. R.O. is a no-no. I have an R.O. filter I use for a multitude of fish tanks in the house. It is a 4 stage system. The first two are a filtration medium then a carbon filter. For brewing I just tap into the system after these first two which removes the chlorine and some of the crap in the water.

As far as R.O. wastage: Mine is mounted next to my laundry. I pour the output into my washer and make water during laundry days. Nothing goes to waste. I do the same thing with my immersion chiller water during brew day, it goes right into the washer.

 

[Photopilot]

If you do not need R.O.. You can just buy a dual stage filter. No fuss no waste.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-gfo-carbon-reactor-dual-1.html

 

[mabrungard]

Is this what most people do or should I just use my tap water and adjust it?
I have pretty hard/alkaline? water I believe. I have my water report if people want to see it. It taste fine as it is pure rocky mountain spring water, just like Coors!

If RO is the way to go is there any reason why I wouldn't just get something like this?
http://theh2oguru.com/drinking-water-system/ro-mighty-mite-system-50gpd.html

If your tap water has consistent quality and isn't too mineralized, it could be a fine choice. However, if you can't rely on it being consistent, then you may find it easier to narrow the quality with RO treatment. The same advice holds if the tap water is too mineralized. RO fixes that.

The system you reference uses teeny prefilters that won't give you much life. I suggest you can easily find a similar 3 stage system with the larger 10-inch prefilters that will perform for much longer. That is all you need.

 

[edroberts]

If your tap water has consistent quality and isn't too mineralized, it could be a fine choice. However, if you can't rely on it being consistent, then you may find it easier to narrow the quality with RO treatment. The same advice holds if the tap water is too mineralized. RO fixes that.
.

I typically cut the liquid limestone we pour out of the municipal taps here in Hamilton County with 30-40% distilled water and treat from there. Would RO be a better option over distilled?

 

[The_Bishop]

If you do not need R.O.. You can just buy a dual stage filter. No fuss no waste.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-gfo-carbon-reactor-dual-1.html

That won't do a single thing for you if your alkalinity is sky high or you have other undesirable elements in your water.

 

[Thedutchtouch]

Depends on whether you are doing extract or all grain.

For all grain there are elements in the water you want/need. R.O. is a no-no. I have an R.O. filter I use for a multitude of fish tanks in the house. It is a 4 stage system. The first two are a filtration medium then a carbon filter. For brewing I just tap into the system after these first two which removes the chlorine and some of the crap in the water.

As far as R.O. wastage: Mine is mounted next to my laundry. I pour the output into my washer and make water during laundry days. Nothing goes to waste. I do the same thing with my immersion chiller water during brew day, it goes right into the washer.

I do not believe this to be true, and know for a fact multiple commercial breweries and a multitude of all-grain homebrewers use RO. You simply add the salts/ions needed to the water.

 

[Ski12568]

I am starting to mess with water also and plan on following this method:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

All I needed to buy was gypsum, calcium chloride, and lactic acid. I'll be using gallon jugs of purified water from the grocery store. Will probably go to the water machines later.

I do plan on switching to phosphoric acid at a later time.

 

[Photopilot]

I do not believe this to be true, and know for a fact multiple commercial breweries and a multitude of all-grain homebrewers use RO. You simply add the salts/ions needed to the water.

You can do that, but by using RO you are removing minerals only to add some back in.

If you do ales and you have hard water you just need to remove the chlorine or chloramine with a two stage filter. As mabrungard said the water looks good as is for ales. He has helped me in the past with water issues. If I remember correctly he does water analyses for a living. Check out his signature for handy spreadsheet on brewing water.

 

[Thedutchtouch]

You can do that, but by using RO you are removing minerals only to add some back in.

If you do ales and you have hard water you just need to remove the chlorine or chloramine with a two stage filter. As mabrungard said the water looks good as is for ales. He has helped me in the past with water issues. If I remember correctly he does water analyses for a living. Check out his signature for handy spreadsheet on brewing water.

This is true to an extent, but different types of beer such as pilsners stouts etc require different mineral content for best flavor. Simply saying reverse osmosis is a no-go for all grain brewing is misinformation. RO allows for a consistent baseline from which you can build water profiles to suit any style being brewed, and water tables vary location to location, and sometimes even within the same municipalities depending on water source. Some even need to go one step further and mix in distilled water to further reduce baseline mineral content (as RO typically decreases by a factor of roughly 10). It's not helpful or accurate to simply focus on ales and state that reverse osmosis has no place in all styles of all grain brewing since mineral content varies so wildly.

 

[Yourrealdad]

You can do that, but by using RO you are removing minerals only to add some back in.

If you do ales and you have hard water you just need to remove the chlorine or chloramine with a two stage filter. As mabrungard said the water looks good as is for ales. He has helped me in the past with water issues. If I remember correctly he does water analyses for a living. Check out his signature for handy spreadsheet on brewing water.

I thought the issue with adjusting water is the types of grains and how they affect the mash PH? Ales vs. Lagers shouldn't matter right?

My water I believe is fine for dark beers that use roasted/toasted grains because they will lower my alkalinity, which I believe is in the higher range.

I cannot brew a decent pale beer that is comprised of base or light malts only, especially if they are hoppy with my water profile, correct?

-mabrungard I didn't see you say my water was fine as is, so I missed that if you did. My water does change though because I live in the Rockies and so I am pretty sure that depending on snowmelt and such the mineral content will change.

Again to start out should I just buy bulk RO water and add the needed minerals back in ala the primer or work with spreadsheets like Brun' water?

Thanks again

 

[Thedutchtouch]

I thought the issue with adjusting water is the types of grains and how they affect the mash PH? Ales vs. Lagers shouldn't matter right?

My water I believe is fine for dark beers that use roasted/toasted grains because they will lower my alkalinity, which I believe is in the higher range.

I cannot brew a decent pale beer that is comprised of base or light malts only, especially if they are hoppy with my water profile, correct?

-mabrungard I didn't see you say my water was fine as is, so I missed that if you did. My water does change though because I live in the Rockies and so I am pretty sure that depending on snowmelt and such the mineral content will change.

Again to start out should I just buy bulk RO water and add the needed minerals back in ala the primer or work with spreadsheets like Brun' water?

Thanks again

This is definitely what I would reccomend.

 

[Roadie]

I use a system from the company you linked similar to this http://theh2oguru.com/drinking-water-system/water-cop-5-stage-ro-50-gpd.html but with a pump that feeds my upstairs ice maker/fridge. I upgraded the tank on the linked system to a 20 gallon storage tank so anytime I want to brew it's no issue getting about 16 gallons of RO out of it at one time. I used to have a 120 gallon in-wall stony reef tank and had an RO/DI system from the same company that I ran for years without issue so I like their products, plus they moved from Florida to KS and are only about a mile away from me which is convenient.

I like the convenience of starting near zero (actually around 4 TDS water from my unit) and building a water profile that I want for the style beer that I'm brewing. I get exactly what I want instead of the crappy hard water that my municipality delvers to me through the faucet - not to mention mineral concentrations vary throughout the year from the city.

Not many reefkeepers I knew got water from those machines at the grocery store or Wal-Mart as you had no idea when they changed the filters on the machine last so sometimes you got good water and other times not so much. For brewing you don't have the same worries as with keeping animals thriving so it may not matter as much. Personally I've never regretted getting my water system as we like drinking clean water and my wife is an ice-cube fanatic and never having water issues when brewing is a plus.

 

[McKnuckle]

I'll give the water report a shot:

Your water has low mineral levels and moderately high alkalinity (150 as carbonate). There's only a tiny amount of sulfate, chloride, and sodium. The calcium is pretty good, albeit just a hair lower than the recommended 50 ppm lower threshold (43.4).

This is a good base water for darker beers due to the alkalinity, with the addition of a little CaCl and gypsum to bump Ca past 50, and raise Cl and SO4 to brewing levels from their almost non-existent current states.

For lighter beers, the residual alkalinity is an issue, so I'd either use distilled/RO and add back CaCl and gypsum, or blend distilled/RO with your house water and add CaCl and gypsum.

Your water treatment kit should include CaCl, gypsum, Epsom salt, and lactic acid. Most of the time only CaCl and gypsum will get you an acceptable profile. And in general, I find that less is always more - don't treat the water as a "flavor" per se; just try to correct what's wrong about it for the beer style you're brewing.

 

[Yourrealdad]

Thank you McKnuckle I appreciate you looking at the profile and giving me feedback.

Is it easier to dilute or just RO it? I have messed a little with Brun'water but not lately for dilution.

 

[TheHopfather]

I am also in the Rockies, just a little further north than you and our water is very similar.

I would recommend Brun' Water (I've tried a bunch and this one is the easiest for me to understand). I was having a problem with my hoppy beers having enough bitterness. This sub-forum helped me come up with a water profile for my IPA's that I am very happy with. To make a nice, bitter IPA I need to dilute tap water with RO water (20% tap to 80% RO). This is because my bicarbonate is so high (150 ppm, same as you), this ratio drops my HCO3 to 46 ppm. Then you simply add gypsum which will boost your sulfate (I'm shooting for 200 ppm for my IPAs) and your calcium (which isn't very important for our water). Brun' Water will help you calculate the amount of acidulated malt to add to your grain bill to lower your pH into that 5.2 - 5.4 range.

Here is the link to my thread if you are interested, our water is very similar - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/help-my-ipas-water-issue-512268/

Good luck!

 

[McKnuckle]

Good advice from TheHopFather...

I think that it's probably easier to use distilled/RO but all options can be available to you. For example, I have terrible well water with very high alkalinity (205), sodium (141), and chloride (234). As a result, I brew the vast majority of my beers with distilled water and added salts. However, for a low pH grist I might blend back a little of the well water to get some natural residual alkalinity. I have to do this carefully, otherwise chloride and (especially) sodium creep up too high. However, it's just another tool in the kit.

I will say that only 4 months ago, I had no clue about this stuff and was avoiding it entirely, because it seemed overwhelming. But since I got my water tested and dug in, my beers have improved really dramatically, like night and day, because I was brewing with such crappy water before. So I encourage you to experiment and try to take a pragmatic approach to water chemistry - no need to become a chemist (hydrologist?). Just learn enough to fix the problems and make good beer.

 

[helibrewer]

I buy RO and build it up. I have a nice quality source for .40/gal so it is well worth it for me.

 

[brewing_clown]

I'm also in Colorado and have high alkalinity. I had my water tested just before Christmas and had alkalinity of 201. I emailed the water district this week with a few questions, and one of their chemists told me current alkalinity is 248.

I was diluting and acidifying, but with my water alkalinity being such a moving target, I think I'm better off just getting a R.O. system and building up a profile each time.

 

[Yourrealdad]

I'm also in Colorado and have high alkalinity. I had my water tested just before Christmas and had alkalinity of 201. I emailed the water district this week with a few questions, and one of their chemists told me current alkalinity is 248.

I was diluting and acidifying, but with my water alkalinity being such a moving target, I think I'm better off just getting a R.O. system and building up a profile each time.

I think I am going to do the same thing, I am guessing that my water might be even more volatile since I am right in the mountains. I would get an RO system, but I don't like the idea of wasting 4 gallons to make 1. Might as well just pay .40 a gallon and fill up two 5 gallon jugs and add back in the needed minerals.

 

[mabrungard]

-mabrungard I didn't see you say my water was fine as is, so I missed that if you did. My water does change though because I live in the Rockies and so I am pretty sure that depending on snowmelt and such the mineral content will change.

I didn't realize that was your report. It seems to be missing some info and doesn't balance well, but its probably not that bad. The one thing that stands out is the alkalinity is high and must be neutralized with some form of acidification.

 

[Yourrealdad]

I didn't realize that was your report. It seems to be missing some info and doesn't balance well, but its probably not that bad. The one thing that stands out is the alkalinity is high and must be neutralized with some form of acidification.

I didn't post the other two pages because it looked like some repetition and some info that did not pertain to brewing.

What do you think it is missing?