I don't know if I'll go so far as to get my water analyzed, at this point. I plan to do my next brew with R/O water, and use some of the main salts/minerals to build it up to something close to ideal. I guess I want to try out working with water chemistry a few times to see if I can really notice a difference in the quality of my beer. Not that I don't think it can be a game-changer, especially with lighter beers.
It certainly can be a game changer. It was, for me, the final step in achieving what I consider very good beer as opposed to good beer. The problem is, as we've discussed and as you've seen from NUBWS, the subject is at least intricate if not complex. You have confessed to being an engineer. This disease is not curable and effects one throughout his entire life though perhaps those close to him suffer more (see
). Brewing water chemistry is the sort of thing engineers just can't keep their hands off. There are more over engineered homebrews out there than Carter's got pills (and almost as many spreadsheets, calculators, apps, nomographs.... - all done by engineers).
But I'm still so new to brewing that I don't know if my own techniques would impact the quality more than the water, right now.
They certainly can. Tweaking water is definitely for advanced brewers. Just as you need to learn how to ferment and package wort before you move on to wort production (i.e. go to all grain) you need to master the techniques of wort production before moving on to the nuances of water refinement. But, of course, if you can't get anything but poor quality extract you won't be able to produce good extract beer so also you won't be able to produce good beer from grain unless you have decent water. That is what the Primer is for. It tells you how to make decent water from RO for broad style groupings.
I strongly encourage you to resist the temptation to do anything more than follow the Primer at this point in your brewing career. The odds of a spreadsheet leading you astray are, IMO, greater than the odds of it bringing you towards better beer. This doesn't mean that a spreadsheet cannot be a fantastic educational tool. I encourage people to plug their tap water or RO water into a spreadsheet and play around with salt and dilution water additions
I know there are other techniques for dealing with hard water. But I'm guessing it's just easiest to get pure R/O water and make your own water profile from scratch, rather than trying to manipulate or shoehorn city water into some other profile. Might as well just take this route from the get-go.
Absolutely true. It is the way more and more brewers are going these days. The downside is that you don't get the learning experience that comes from learning to decarbonate with lime or by boiling. You can, of course, take those up experimentally if you want to (and NUBWS has sections for calculations on both).
Here's my general plan for water:
I want to try out making water from R/O source water. Find some different water profiles that match the beer I want to make, and then try to replicate that with my beer a few times.
Here's where you run into problems. You can, from DI water, synthesize any
reasonable (means the profile must balance electrically - many don't) mineral profile very accurately (typical ion concentration error 1% or less) if you imitate the way the water was made by nature. Most water contains calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate enters the water when limestone is dissolved by carbonic acid and to match such water you must do the same thing. NUBWS can do all the calculations but that's not the point. The point is that fiddling with CO2 is a big PITA and the result is seldom worth the trouble because the first thing a brewer confronted with natural water usually does is remove the calcium carbonate or figure out how to neutralize it or how to get around it otherwise and you would have to do the same. So why bother putting the bicarbonate in in the first place?
The ultimate reflection is probably that you can make better beer by not mimicing a profile than you can by mimicing one. This implies that you can make a better Burton Ale than the original brewers of Burton did and that's probably true. The most experienced brewers follow the Primer (not the Primer exactly but it's general principles - See Gordon Strong's book).
By the way, what's your background? Chemist?
Electrical engineer (retired).