Simple water additions

[ericbw]

I've looked all over, and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for. I know that water chemistry is "complicated," but so is every other aspect of brewing. I don't need to know all about it, I need to know HOW to do it. Is there somewhere that has suggestions for how to get the water you want for certain beers?

I don't need to know about ppm or that - I need to know how much (weight or volume) of any given substance to get the water where it needs to be.

I know that grains make a difference with pH, so it's obviously not as simple as always adding X amount of something, but it has to simpler thananything else I see out there.

Any suggestions?

What I want to do is say I'm making an Irish red ale with base, crystal, and a little roasted barley. I start with RO water - what do I need to add (per gallon) for an optimal water to make a malty red ale?

 

[don_bran321]

John Palmers (how to brew) has a section on water correction.
There is a diagram that you can use. Chose what profile and color of beer you want and draw lines between the points and it will give you an amount of how much of what you need to get where you want.
I haven't messed with it yet but it seems to be a semi simple way of figuring it out.

 

[MMP126]

Hey.

I am kind of in the same boat as you. I do not want to mess around too much, and get to overly complicated with my water chemistry...

So, what I did, was went to the brewers friend website, and used their water calculator page to make an excel spreadsheet that gives me g/gallon additions of all the brewing salts, based on a target water profile. I did this with 100% RO water, so it will be pretty close to spot on when I brew.

I have not tested this yet, but it makes sense to me.

Maybe others can confirm my theory...

 

[ericbw]

Hey.

I am kind of in the same boat as you. I do not want to mess around too much, and get to overly complicated with my water chemistry...

So, what I did, was went to the brewers friend website, and used their water calculator page to make an excel spreadsheet that gives me g/gallon additions of all the brewing salts, based on a target water profile. I did this with 100% RO water, so it will be pretty close to spot on when I brew.

I have not tested this yet, but it makes sense to me.

Maybe others can confirm my theory...

I messed with that a little, which is what led me to posting here!

OK, so I set it to 5 gallons, and selected the Balanced profile.

Everything is too low (because it's RO).

Do I just add random amounts to the additions boxes until it evens out? If I add something to raise Ca, it knocks So4 way over.

Why is there not a recipe that says

Malty red ale
Start with 5 gallons RO
Add X amount of ______
Add X amount of ______
Add X amount of ______

And then you end up with the balanced profile?

 

[soccerdad]

I assume that you have seen this .. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=198460 .. AJ is truly a water expert

In the OP he offers this ..

"The following recommendations apply to “soft” water. Here we will define soft as meaning RO or distilled water or any water whose lab report indicates alkalinity less than 35 (ppm as CaCO3 – all other numbers to follow mg/L), sulfate less than 20 (as sulfate – Ward Labs reports as sulfur so multiply the SO4-S number by 3 to get as sulfate), chloride less than 20, sodium less than 20, calcium less than 20 and magnesium less than 20. If your water has numbers higher than these, dilute it with RO or DI water. A 1:1 dilution reduces each ion concentration to 1/2, a 2:1 dilution to 1/3 and so on. If your water contains chloramines add 1 campden tablet per 20 gallons (before any dilution)

Baseline: Add 1 tsp of calcium chloride dihydrate (what your LHBS sells) to each 5 gallons of water treated. Add 2% sauermalz to the grist.

Deviate from the baseline as follows:

For soft water beers (i.e Pils, Helles). Use half the baseline amount of calcium chloride and increase the sauermalz to 3%

For beers that use roast malt (Stout, porter): Skip the sauermalz.

For British beers: Add 1 tsp gypsum as well as 1 tsp calcium chloride

For very minerally beers (Export, Burton ale): Double the calcium chloride and the gypsum.

These recommendations should get you a good beer if not the best beer."

 

[swampbrewcrew]

Deleted, didn't read the post above mine. He got what I pasted.

 

[springinloose1]

After spending the last 8 years brewing all grain, I've just now been getting heavy into adjusting water and spent a crap load of time reading, researching, playing with the different adjustment spreadsheets and water profile tools. My goal at this stage isn't to try and duplicate any type of specific water profile like Burton or Dortmund but to get my RO water into an acceptable range. I contacted my RO supplier for their water profile as a starting place and recommend you do the same if you're going to get into adjusting with salts.

Here's what it looked like with the additions I made to a 5 gallon jug of RO

RO Water
CA - .1, Mg - 0, Na - .7, S04 - 5, Cl - 5, HCO3 - 10

I added:
2g - gypsum, 2g - salt, 5g - Epsom salt, 5g - calcium chloride, 1g- baking soda,
2g - chalk
(You'll need to read up on how to dissolve chalk using C02. I purchased a carbonation cap, dumped 8g of chalk into a 1 liter bottle filled 3/4 full, squeezed the air until the liquid was at the top, hooked up the cap w/ C02, let it dissolve a couple days before brew day, split it up 4 ways and dumped into the jugs with the rest of the salts.)

I know you said you're not interested in what the ppm is but those weight additions is what got me into the acceptable range of:
Ca - 139, Mg - 26, Na - 57, S04 - 167, Cl - 198 HC03 - 111

I brewed a light beer, and the range with the additions is good for 3-8 SRM beers. Mine was 5.7 SRM. It'll have to be adjusted further if you are brewing a darker beer.

Sorry so long winded but wanting to know exact weights per volume to get PH into check is what I wanted to know as well as what's acceptable for the salt additions and all I kept finding was resources wanting to teach me how to calculate it. I'm glad I took the time and frustration to understand the spreadsheets because now I can adjust RO to suit any style I'm brewing, but these additions are a heck of a lot better than brewing with just RO and you'll do fine copying them. Add a little acid malt to that grain bill too.

 

[Jimbodaman]

Say you got 8 gallons of your total RO brewing water. Add 1 tsp gypsum and 1 tsp calcium chloride.

Pale beers add 4-5ml of lactic acid

Amber beers add 2-3 ml lactic acid

Dark beers add none.

Reference: playing around with brewers friend calculator. Should get a "balanced" profile.

Double gypsum for "better" hop character, while leaving calcium chloride fixed. For better " malty" beers double the Calcium chloride.

 

[McKnuckle]

Here's a suggestion for "simple." Don't follow programs that tell you to add so many things to the water. Achieve 50 ppm of Calcium. And worry less about style and regional profiles, and focus only on hitting mash pH in the 5.3-5.5 range.

I do very well with three categories of additions:

- Gypsum (Ca and SO4) and calcium chloride (Ca and Cl) for minerals and some lowering of pH;
- Lactic acid, when pH is still not low enough; and
- Baking soda, when pH is not high enough.

No table salt, no epsom salt, no chalk - ever.

This is simple. If you want to create Burton water or something, you need to learn more.

 

[Rob2010SS]

In my opinion, Brewers Friend is the easiest calculator to use to get your water where you want it. I simply adjust the gypsum and CaCl values until all of my targets are displayed as "Green". The typical rule of thumb I've heard was a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio of CaCl to Gypsum for drier beers (I could have that backwards..). Bru'n Water is a bit more technical but once you read through it and play with it, it's easy to use and now I prefer it to Brewers Friend.

 

[MSK_Chess]

Get to know bru n water, its not that difficult and calculates how much you need to add to your water for you to achieve the correct acidification and has water profiles. I learned from this series of videos below, Bobby from New Jersey explains everything in an easy to follow three part video series. He uses a different piece of software but the principles are exactly the same and explains how to use a water report and everything.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1n7-RjEJEM[/ame]

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I don't need to know about ppm or that - I need to know how much (weight or volume) of any given substance to get the water where it needs to be.

I know that grains make a difference with pH, so it's obviously not as simple as always adding X amount of something, but it has to simpler thananything else I see out there.

Any suggestions?

What I want to do is say I'm making an Irish red ale with base, crystal, and a little roasted barley. I start with RO water - what do I need to add (per gallon) for an optimal water to make a malty red ale?

This reply in a slightly longer post may be what you're looking for.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/75rsfs/ro_water_standard_salt_additions/do9np9m/

 

[acidrain]

In my opinion, Brewers Friend is the easiest calculator to use to get your water where you want it. I simply adjust the gypsum and CaCl values until all of my targets are displayed as "Green". The typical rule of thumb I've heard was a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio of CaCl to Gypsum for drier beers (I could have that backwards..). Bru'n Water is a bit more technical but once you read through it and play with it, it's easy to use and now I prefer it to Brewers Friend.

Totally agree with this.

 

[ericbw]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I will continue to play with these and try to figure it out. I just want easy

 

[nobadays]

Might try this thread as well... https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=597703 There was quite a bit of discussion but the overall approach is a starting place. DO READ through the posts as there is good advice.

Cheers! Don

 

[ericbw]

Might try this thread as well... https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=597703 There was quite a bit of discussion but the overall approach is a starting place. DO READ through the posts as there is good advice.

Cheers! Don

I'll check it out, too. Thanks!

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I explored this a lot over the last year as I started brewing. I eventually realized you have two options. The "super easy" option listed in the earlier posts. That will get you 60% of the way there or more, depending on the style you're brewing and where in that style you're trying to land.

I never went that route. I spent about a month reading everything I could find. I took chem in college, but that was 35 years ago and I don't remember much, so I pretty much glazed over the details. I just tried to get the concepts enough to be able to used a tool like bru'n water effectively.

Even with that, the first time using it was a challenge, but now I can zip right through it. I was trying to brew great NEIPAs and I figured water was an important part, so I wanted it right. I borrowed a ph meter for the first few mashes and quickly realized that bru'nwater did a really good job with ph, so I don't even measure it anymore.

Honestly, the tricky part is finding out what profile to target. Getting there is pretty easy once you know where you're headed. Most recipes don't list water profiles and I think it's the closely guarded secret for a lot of the best beers. At least that's how it feels.

I did a stout this summer and spent another couple weeks researching water profile aspects to get the flavors I wanted (less "roasty", thick mouthfeel, etc.)

So far all my beers have turned out great.