Reverse Osmosis (RO) or Deionized water starter thoughts

[cscade]

Hey guys, just a shoot-the-**** tech thread here.

So, I put in an RO system for my brewery about 6 months ago. I have been using it for the usual things like water adjustments and making Star San last forever.

Recently, I also started using it for making starters, to avoid exposing the yeast to any Chloramines during their growth. Does anyone else do this? One of my major concerns was nutrition & Calcium, so here's what I have been doing;

• DME at a rate of 100g/L of starter volume
• Yeast nutrient (Wyeast, specifically) at a rate of 1g/L of starter volume
• Gypsum at a rate of 0.4g/L of starter volume for Calcium
• Straight RO Water to volume
• 1 drop/L of Fermcap-S to keep the starter from boiling over on the stove

My hope is to achieve ~100ppm calcium with the Gypsum, and then the nutrient would take care of the other trace minerals.

So far, this works. I have not noticed any differences in the rate or amount of yeast growth vs. tap water only, but I don't have a way to actually count the cells. There have been too many other variables to know if this makes my beers better or worse at all. It just seems like the right thing to do, and the fermentations appear to behave the same.

 

[02fx4dude]

my SOP for brew water:

Here in Waukesha we have very hard water, about 450mg/l total hardness, as CaCO3. I cut the water 1 part tap to 3 parts RO which give me about 110 mg/l total hardness. I use this for brewing and starters. I don't add anything or treat my water. Waukesha actually has very good, clean water, except the radium

Also, boiling should drive off any chlorine/chloramine.

 

[jbaysurfer]

Hey guys, just a shoot-the-**** tech thread here.

So, I put in an RO system for my brewery about 6 months ago. I have been using it for the usual things like water adjustments and making Star San last forever.

Recently, I also started using it for making starters, to avoid exposing the yeast to any Chloramines during their growth. Does anyone else do this? One of my major concerns was nutrition & Calcium, so here's what I have been doing;

• DME at a rate of 100g/L of starter volume
• Yeast nutrient (Wyeast, specifically) at a rate of 1g/L of starter volume
• Gypsum at a rate of 0.4g/L of starter volume for Calcium
• Straight RO Water to volume
• 1 drop/L of Fermcap-S to keep the starter from boiling over on the stove

My hope is to achieve ~100ppm calcium with the Gypsum, and then the nutrient would take care of the other trace minerals.

So far, this works. I have not noticed any differences in the rate or amount of yeast growth vs. tap water only, but I don't have a way to actually count the cells. There have been too many other variables to know if this makes my beers better or worse at all. It just seems like the right thing to do, and the fermentations appear to behave the same.

Rather then yeast growth, the differences will be taste related. I use RO all the time for starters. DME has all the chemistry you need to created easily fermentable wort for the yeast to digest. Typically the volume of your starter to you total batch volume will be minimal, so taste isn't that big of a deal for starters, but like many brewers, I view it from a perfectionist's viewpoint, I want it perfect from the first drop in my starter to the last drop from the keg....so I do it anyway. Chorine does boil off, but not many people boil their starters for an entire hour, so using the RO is probably wise.

Edit: I do use yeast nutrient in my starters, and I also oxygenate them and put them on a stir plate. I don't use gypsum, since I'm not hopping my starter, and I really don't need to add sulfate if I'm not using it to showcase hops. I can see using a touch of Calcium Chloride, but honestly, I leave the real water chemistry for the actual brewing liquor.

 

[bja]

Rather then yeast growth, the differences will be taste related. I use RO all the time for starters. DME has all the chemistry you need to created easily fermentable wort for the yeast to digest. Typically the volume of your starter to you total batch volume will be minimal, so taste isn't that big of a deal for starters, but like many brewers, I view it from a perfectionist's viewpoint, I want it perfect from the first drop in my starter to the last drop from the keg....so I do it anyway.

I do use yeast nutrient in my starters, and I also oxygenate them and put them on a stir plate.

I'm confused. You say you want perfection but yet you add the well oxygenated starter wort to the fermenter. Why not cold crash, decant and pitch only the yeast?

 

[jbaysurfer]

I'm confused. You say you want perfection but yet you add the well oxygenated starter wort to the fermenter. Why not cold crash, decant and pitch only the yeast?

Because I don't always have time to cold crash, and I propagate at preferred fermentation temps so I don't have a bunch of off flavors in the starter wort to begin with.

"I view it from a perfectionist standpoint" is a pretty vague statement. Not an invitation for a peer review of a scientific breakthrough.

Edit: Also, when I DO have time to cold crash and decant, and I make time when the starter is especially large...I DO cold crash and decant.

I have two beers in primary as we speak. The one on the left was a 1.8L starter into 5.5G of wort. The one on the right had a starter that I cold crashed and decanted, also, since it was already asked in another thread, the lightbulb is not connected to the power in this picture.

 

[tgmartin000]

I use RO when I brew, but tap for my starters, even though I have chloramines. I almost always decant, but could phenols from my starter make it into the fermentor even if the yeast is decanted?

 

[butterpants]

Tap for starters. Decant.

 

[cscade]

I forgot to mention in the OP that I use a stirplate as well.

So it looks like we're all over the map here. Nutrient, no nutrient, O2, no O2, Tap, and RO. Seems they all work well.

I brewed a Black IPA yesterday that required a 4L starter of WLP001. I tasted the decanted "beer" before pitching, and there was a very noticeable tartness to the starter. Not a dryness, but a tartness. I'm thinking this could be attributed to using nothing but Gypsum for calcium in the starter wort. I decant anyhow, so there's no harm done.

@jbaysurfer; You said "DME has all the chemistry you need to created easily fermentable wort for the yeast to digest.".

I've seen this stated many times here and elsewhere, but I have not seen anything to back it up? From my understanding DME is the equivalent result of a mash. The only thing we don't know is what kind of water they are using at the factory that produces the DME. If the mash water at the factory contains sufficient calcium, I can see some of that ending up in the finished DME, but only as a ratio to the amount of wort that was actually dried down.

In other words, say they mash their grains with water that has 100ppm calcium. They then take X amount of wort and dry it down. Later, if you were to add that DME to twice that volume of RO water to make a beer, now you only have 50ppm calcium (just theory here - I have no clue if any of this is true).

I wish that DME manufacturers would provide mineral contents on the packaging, but that's never going to happen.

 

[MNDan]

One nice thing is your RO "waste" water is carbon-filtered water with just 20% more hardness then your regular tap water - mix it 50/50 with your RO water and you'll have plenty of minerals along with no chloramines.

 

[jbaysurfer]

I forgot to mention in the OP that I use a stirplate as well.

So it looks like we're all over the map here. Nutrient, no nutrient, O2, no O2, Tap, and RO. Seems they all work well.

I brewed a Black IPA yesterday that required a 4L starter of WLP001. I tasted the decanted "beer" before pitching, and there was a very noticeable tartness to the starter. Not a dryness, but a tartness. I'm thinking this could be attributed to using nothing but Gypsum for calcium in the starter wort. I decant anyhow, so there's no harm done.

@jbaysurfer; You said "DME has all the chemistry you need to created easily fermentable wort for the yeast to digest.".

I've seen this stated many times here and elsewhere, but I have not seen anything to back it up? From my understanding DME is the equivalent result of a mash. The only thing we don't know is what kind of water they are using at the factory that produces the DME. If the mash water at the factory contains sufficient calcium, I can see some of that ending up in the finished DME, but only as a ratio to the amount of wort that was actually dried down.

In other words, say they mash their grains with water that has 100ppm calcium. They then take X amount of wort and dry it down. Later, if you were to add that DME to twice that volume of RO water to make a beer, now you only have 50ppm calcium (just theory here - I have no clue if any of this is true).

I wish that DME manufacturers would provide mineral contents on the packaging, but that's never going to happen.

I responded twice to this post, and both of them failed to show up! LOL!

You bring up an interesting point. It's something I've always taken for granted.

I guess my rationale is as follows:They're making a product for people using all different water types to brew, and they would certainly use mash chemistry in their commercial mashing process, just as any food manufacturer (like a craft brewer) would do...it would increase efficiency, and product quality.

Product quality HAS increased too. And while I don't have proof, I take an entire generation of homebrewers who say this is so at their word.

I know that it produces good fermentable wort though, because I use it with RO all the time to make my starters, and my starters are always clean and healthy providing I pitch good yeast into them.

I concur that nothing I've said amounts to "proof" but sometimes deduction and common sense gets me as close as I'm likely to get.

good discussion. I do think you're right, they'll never label mineral content, and some of the reasons (regulatory headaches and legal/laboratory expense) are obvious....I also notice that Pellegrino doesn't label their mineral content either.

That said, I haven't brewed a full extract batch in sometime, but the last time I did, I used all RO with a little calcium chloride and got a pretty good product out of it. I also have brewed extract with all tap water and got a pretty crappy product out of it, but as we well know, what's in my tap water is going to affect that product considerably.