A Brewing Water Chemistry Primer

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
ajdelange said:
Double means to double the baseline amounts. That was written in the days when people fancied that they wanted insane amounts of minerals in their beers (and some still do). I consider a tsp of CaCl2 per 5 gal a lot and 1 tsp each of CaCl2 and CaSO4 way to much but in those days that's what people used. I advise half that much so the baseline would be half a tsp of each or half a tsp of CaCl2 alone if you don't like sulfate.
Click to expand...

I have read this entire thread and it has helped me in making much better beers. I was putting way too much salt additions into my Chicago water and my beers got worse and worse. Since I have gone to using RO water and adding (much) less than a tsp of CaSo4 and CaCl2 per 5 gallons of brewing liquor, my beers have improved significantly.

I would like to thank ajdelange, dayooper, and martin brungard for their excellent coaching on how to make better beer through using better brewing water. Your continuous instruction throughout this (and other) threads are a HUGE contribution to the brewing community. THANKS!
 
ajdelange said:
Hefeweizen: Baseline

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.

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

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

So let me see if I'm reading this right, for a pale ale, I would

A) add 2 tsp of CaCl, and 1 tsp of gypsum, and 2% sauermalz?

Or

B) 1 tsp CaCl, 1 tsp gypsum, and 2% sauermalz?
 
Is anyone converting these values to grams instead of tsp?

I bought the LD Carlson version of the two chemicals (CC and Gypsum) and one of them is little balls instead of straight powder.
 
Usually we assume a tsp is 5 grams based on the fact that a tsp is now officially 5 mL. These salts are denser than water but they don't get packed very tightly if just filled into a tsp. And, of course, it depends on the water of hydration, whether the salt is powder or prills etc. But we are not trying to be very precise here as it isn't really necessary at the Primer level. If you have a scale, however, weight out the salts each time. If nothing else that will give you repeatability.
 
ajdelange said:
Usually we assume a tsp is 5 grams based on the fact that a tsp is now officially 5 mL. These salts are denser that water but they don't get packed very tightly if just filled into a tsp. And, of course, it depends on the water of hydration, whether the salt is powder or prills etc. But we are not trying to be very precise here as it isn't really necessary at the Primer level. If you have a scale, however, weight out the salts each time. If nothing else that will give you repeatability.
Click to expand...

Got it.

So basically, if I'm understanding this correctly:

Light blonde ales: 5 grams CC/5 gallons

Typical IPA: 5 grams CC & 5 grams gypsum/5 gallons

Light IPA (light color OG 1.04): 5 grams CC & 5 grams gypsum/5 gallons

Does this seem correct?
 
So I have a recipe in BeerMmith. It is a pale ale. I am using RO water. It is for a 10.5 gallon batch. calls for just under 15 gals of water. I put 3tsp of calcium chloride, 3 tsp of gypsum and 2% Acid malt in the software. According to BeerSmith with the ingredients to include the chemicals it says my Est Mash PH is 5.62
Any suggestions on how to bring RO water down to around the 5.2 level?

Thanks all.
 
1 tsp per gal was the original recommendation as at the time the Primer was written people wanted (or thought they wanted) huge mineral content. They have since (perhaps because of the high levels originally proposed) that they prefer lower mineral content and so we have dropped the recommendation to half of what is in the original IOW 1/2 tsp of each salt in 5 gal.

Don't put too much reliance on spreadsheets. Make a test mash and check its pH. If the result is too high add more Sauermalz.
 
mona said:
So I have a recipe in BeerMmith. It is a pale ale. I am using RO water. It is for a 10.5 gallon batch. calls for just under 15 gals of water. I put 3tsp of calcium chloride, 3 tsp of gypsum and 2% Acid malt in the software. According to BeerSmith with the ingredients to include the chemicals it says my Est Mash PH is 5.62
Any suggestions on how to bring RO water down to around the 5.2 level?

Thanks all.
Click to expand...

I get similar results putting info in Beersmith....especially compared to the EZ calculator.
 
ajdelange said:
The current thinking is B (per 5 gal treated).
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that up. Here is the dilemma I keep running into. I fairly new to all grain, and my water supply here in DFW fluctuates pretty regularly with the exception of the PH (seems to be pretty regularly in the 8.1 range). The ions in my water authority's report don't balance out, so I feel like that's unreliable. I've done the ward labs thing, but that's just not something I want to do every few weeks. I do have a micro-filtration system set up with sediment, carbon block, and lead/cyst filters. Should I brew with 1:1 and follow the primer, or all purified water? I did buy a PH meter, so there's that...
 
ajdelange said:
1 tsp per gal was the original recommendation as at the time the Primer was written people wanted (or thought they wanted) huge mineral content. They have since (perhaps because of the high levels originally proposed) that they prefer lower mineral content and so we have dropped the recommendation to half of what is in the original IOW 1/2 tsp of each salt in 5 gal.

Don't put too much reliance on spreadsheets. Make a test mash and check its pH. If the result is too high add more Sauermalz.
Click to expand...

Thank you for everything you have done. So I will try 1.5 tsp of each and see how it goes. I do not have a way to check the PH so I am just trying to get close. So far the primer as originally stated worked well. This is a recipe i have made many times so now just trying to hone in the water part of brewing.
 
Just wanted to provide an update here regarding some questions I posted back in December. At the time, I was struggling with consistently coming in around 0.15-0.20 lower mash pH (room temp) than was predicted by the bru'n water tool. This was especially troublesome to be, since this happened using all types of different grain bills and base malts. It seemed like my only options were to just fudge the numbers or apply a 0.15 offset in my head to the number that bru'n water was showing.

After a couple more brews and seeing that the offset always seemed to hover around 0.15 actual vs. expected, I decided to take another look at my pH buffer solutions I was using for calibration. I'd been using some pH buffer solutions I bought from Amazon (manufacturer is Atlas Scientific). When I was at the LHBS this weekend, I picked up a new set of solutions from a different manufacturer and decided to check them against one another. What I found was that the new buffers tested 0.17 lower for the 7.0 solutions and 0.11 lower for the 4.0 solutions. Taking the average of these, that is almost exactly the difference I was seeing in my actual vs. measured result. Needless to say, I won't be buying anything from Atlas Scientific again. How hard could it really be to make a pH buffer solution within +/- 0.05 of what it claims to be?

That being said, does anyone know of a reliable and affordable option for buffer solutions that they'd recommend? I'm not doubting that the ones I bought from my LHBS aren't reasonably accurate, but given the huge different from the 2 manufacturers, I'm not sure how accurate I can realistically expect either of them to be.
 
cheesebach said:
I'd been using some pH buffer solutions I bought from Amazon (manufacturer is Atlas Scientific). When I was at the LHBS this weekend, I picked up a new set of solutions from a different manufacturer and decided to check them against one another. What I found was that the new buffers tested 0.17 lower for the 7.0 solutions and 0.11 lower for the 4.0 solutions.
Click to expand...

This is not possible (or at least very improbable). Whenever you see pH readings that don't make sense, suspect your pH meter or technique.

cheesebach said:
That being said, does anyone know of a reliable and affordable option for buffer solutions that they'd recommend?
Click to expand...
Get some buffer powder pillows from Hach. Mix them with distilled water and proceed to the pH meter stability test in the sticky on pH meter calibration. Those buffers are a known quantity (many if not most of the people here use them) and will make it easy to detect any problems in your meter or technique.

This is probably a good place to point out that any measurement you make on anything is a comparison between the response of your measuring device to the thing you are trying to measure and its response to a standard (standard weight, standard temperature, standard voltage, standard pH....). If the standard is off then every measurement made with an instrument calibrated to it will also be off.
 
ajdelange said:
This is not possible (or at least very improbable). Whenever you see pH readings that don't make sense, suspect your pH meter or technique.
Click to expand...

Can you explain what you mean by this comment? You don't believe that it is possible that there is a ~0.14 difference in the pH of 2 different buffer solutions for the same pH from different manufacturers? I wouldn't have thought so, but that is certainly the case.

It seems less likely than the alternative explanation that they are actually the same pH but that my meter measures them differently. My meter was rock-solid on both measurements when it locked in and only fluctuated up and down by 0.01. If this is indeed what you are suggesting - is there something that could cause a pH meter to measure that the pH of 2 solutions, which are actually nearly identical in pH, to be so far apart? I wouldn't think that relative measurements of buffer solutions would be a difficult task for a $100 meter.

Method-wise, I'm not sure what could possibly go wrong here. The samples were at the same temperature, tested in glass containers that had been rinsed well with DI water, same volume used for each sample, and tested back-to-back (rinsing well with DI water in between).

It seems I'm not the only one who's noticed that these Atlas buffer solutions are off either:

https://www.amazon.com/Calibration-Solution-Test-Kit-4-0/dp/B007X5KAV4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486412379&sr=8-1&keywords=pH+buffer+atlas

ajdelange said:
This is not possible (or at least very improbable).
Get some buffer powder pillows from Hach. Mix them with distilled water and proceed to the pH meter stability test in the sticky on pH meter calibration. Those buffers are a known quantity (many if not most of the people here use them) and will make it easy to detect any problems in your meter or technique.
.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion - I'll take a look at these. It would be nice to have something like this on hand as a sanity check if I start to doubt the accuracy of any of the cheaper solutions that I buy online or from the LHBS in the future.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
cheesebach said:
Can you explain what you mean by this comment? You don't believe that it is possible that there is a ~0.14 difference in the pH of 2 different buffer solutions for the same pH from different manufacturers?
Click to expand...
No, I don't or at least I think it very unlikely. I did change from impossible to very unlikely because with the cheap stuff that comes in from China it is indeed possible though one would think if this particular brand of buffer was so far off someone would have flagged it (which is of course what you are doing if your hypothesis is correct).

cheesebach said:
I wouldn't have thought so, but that is certainly the case.
Click to expand...
Well it isn't certainly the case yet but what we hope to do is either determine that it is certain or that something else (the meter) is involved.

cheesebach said:
It seems less likely than the alternative explanation that they are actually the same pH but that my meter measures them differently.
Click to expand...
Given what I knew at the time I posted it is actually much more likely that the meter was involved. Lot's and lot's of people who post here have a $15 Chinese pH meter and wonder why they get fishy readings because they know they followed the calibration procedure precisely when they got the thing 6 mos. ago.

cheesebach said:
My meter was rock-solid on both measurements when it locked in and only fluctuated up and down by 0.01. If this is indeed what you are suggesting - is there something that could cause a pH meter to measure that the pH of 2 solutions, which are actually nearly identical in pH, to be so far apart? I wouldn't think that relative measurements of buffer solutions would be a difficult task for a $100 meter.
Click to expand...
Many meters in that price range and below are unstable meaning that they don't hold a calibration for more than a few minutes. If you calibrate your meter and then read the 4 buffer every couple of minutes and that series of readings is stable over the period of time it takes to make all the measurements then the comparison (difference) measurements are reasonable even if the calibrating buffers are off. It stability we need.

cheesebach said:
Method-wise, I'm not sure what could possibly go wrong here. The samples were at the same temperature, tested in glass containers that had been rinsed well with DI water, same volume used for each sample, and tested back-to-back (rinsing well with DI water in between).
Click to expand...
All sounds good but you hadn't mentioned that in the previous post. Bad technique is responsible for lots of bad pH readings. I recently posted in another thread that a new user of a pH meter will find that his pH readings become mysteriously better (more consistent) as he gains experience with it.

QUOTE=cheesebach;7871124]It seems I'm not the only one who's noticed that these Atlas buffer solutions are off either:[/QUOTE]

They could be. Let's find out.




QUOTE=cheesebach;7871124]Thanks for the suggestion - I'll take a look at these. It would be nice to have something like this on hand as a sanity check if I start to doubt the accuracy of any of the cheaper solutions that I buy online or from the LHBS in the future.[/QUOTE]

Compare the Atlas buffers against the Hach buffers using a meter that has passed the stability test and if you find a difference then shout it from the rooftops.
 
ajdelange said:
Compare the Atlas buffers against the Hach buffers using a meter that has passed the stability test and if you find a difference then shout it from the rooftops.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clear explanations. I definitely plan to do this, although I am nearly positive that there is a difference. If this were a stability issue, I don't think it would be possible to get the same results on both consistently, which I did by:

1) Test Atlas 7.0 buffer -> wait for stabilization, measure 7.00 (makes sense, since this was the buffer I calibrated to)
2) Test other 7.0 buffer -> measure 6.83
3) Re-test Atlas 7.0 buffer -> measure 7.01
4) Re-test other 7.0 buffer -> measure 6.83

In the above, there is maybe a minute at most between each measurement. So my issue/question now is how to determine which solutions are correct? I hope that the Hach buffer packets will closely agree with at least one of the calibration solutions to help me get some confidence in figuring out which ones I can trust.
 
ajdelange,

Do you happen to know how long the Hach powder pillows are good for before they expire? And what the shelf life of the solutions are once mixed? I'm about to order from their website, but I'm trying to decide what quantity to go with, since the shipping costs will be a large portion of the bill.
 
I know what it says on the box but I'm thinking to myself that these powders are sealed in a capsule protected from air, oxygen, moisture.... And I am, therefore, guessing that the expiration put on the package is probably pretty conservative. To verify this one should, of course, buy some fresh and check against some that have been kept well past their 'best by' dates but I haven't done that. Do I use them beyond expiration for brewing? You bet. Do I use them beyond the expiration date for lab work that I'm going to publish? No.
 
Then should I not use the popular spreadsheets? Because when I enter the baseline recommendations plus extra gypsum and calcium chloride in distilled water and the spreadsheet is telling me my estimated mash pH is down to 4.89 and that didn't include the acidulated malt. Add 1% acid malt and that drops the estimated mash pH to 4.73.

Also should I forget the whole high sulfate to chloride ratio for IPAs? Because these new recommendations now show a higher chloride to sulfate ratio. I am so confused because literally for the last 2 weeks until about 2 hours ago, I have been overzealously studying Water and listening to the Brew Strong Waterganza podcasts so I could be ready for my first all grain brew session using distilled water.
 
ajdelange said:
If you know you like the effects of sulfate then its OK but I always advocate starting with a much lower amount of sulfate and working your way up in subsequent batches.

Try to put the chloride:sulfate ratio concept out of your head. The proper amount of chloride and the proper amount of sulfate for the beer you like best are independent variables. Their ratio will fall where it may depending on the beer and your palate.
Click to expand...
Is it still true that sulfates will enhance the bitterness and dryness while chloride will round out the maltiness of the beer?
 
StYak,

You are missing the point of the primer. It is meant to be a simple (and minimal ) approach to water chemistry. It is for those that are just starting on the topic or those that want to keel it simple.

The spreadsheets are great, and tuning your water for flavor is a legit technique. If you want to work with those advanced techniques then go right ahead. Just don't expect the primer to hold up when you do them. It's not for that.
 
I just ordered a brewers water test kit from Ward Labs. I've been just filtering my tap water through a 5 micron water filter. My question is....should I send the filtered water or send unfiltered water in to have tested?
 
I forgot to mention.....I have city water which is really hard & we run water through a water softener. I was thinking the same as Brewski_59
 
If using a softener definitely do not send a post softener sample. You will never brew with softened water. Send the source water in order to determine what, if any, filtration or other processing may be necessary.

If your water is too bad you may decide to install an RO system in which case you will want to know the sodium content in the post softener water (as that is what you will connect your RO system to). That is trivial to calculate from the pre softener water report.
 
Pretty new to water adjustments.

I'm trying to do a double strength brew in my Grainfather then diluting post boil to get me 11 gallons total.

Just confused as to what to do about salt additions. Should I add amounts as if I was brewing 5.5 gallons of beer? Or do I add salts assuming 11 gallons as it will be diluted?
 
So does this "soft water baseline" apply to 100% pure ,0 TDS RO/DI water as well?? I sure hope so because I just made a blonde ale (classic styles ) and a BM sterling gold with 100% pure water and only added one tsp.calcium chloride and 2% acid malt. Hope I'm ok....?
 
A friend of mine has a Lamotte test kit and so I ran my water through it.



These are the test results:



Chloride: 90ppm

Sulfate: 0ppm

Alkalinity: 200 ppm

Hardness: 260 ppm

Calcium Hardness: 150ppm

Magnesium: 26.4 ppm

Sodium: 31.51 ppm

Residual Alkalinity: 141.43ppm



Any advice would be appreciated. I do know the water supply is treated with chlorine but this is my base water right out of the tap. I'd assume if I boiled it to remove chlorine or used Sodium Metabisulphite to remove it the water profile would change but I think I've got something I can work with here.
 
I'd say reject it an use RO water. The alternative is to dump in ~ 3.6 mEq/L acid for each liter just to neutralize the water alkalinity. You will then need additional acid to neutralize the base malt alkalinity. People do this and brew acceptable beer but why not go for the best?
 
ajdelange said:
I'd say reject it an use RO water. The alternative is to dump in ~ 3.6 mEq/L acid for each liter just to neutralize the water alkalinity. You will then need additional acid to neutralize the base malt alkalinity. People do this and brew acceptable beer but why not go for the best?
Click to expand...


Thanks. Glad I asked. I hadn't yet run the water profile in the Brewers Friend water calculator so I didn't know the amount of acid needed to overcome the RA. That's the downside of depending on calculators and not doing things the old fashioned way...

I currently brew 2.5 gallon batches and want to bump up to 5 gallon batches. While my 5yr old daughter enjoys playing with the Poland Spring jugs leftover after brew day, I was hoping to avoid buying water or a system for the bigger batches. Looks like I'll be shopping for an RO system.
 
Getting a couple 5 gallon jugs filled with RO water at the grocery store is the easiest/cheapest way to do it. I usually get mine at Whole Foods for $0.40/gallon I think.
 
cheesebach said:
Getting a couple 5 gallon jugs filled with RO water at the grocery store is the easiest/cheapest way to do it. I usually get mine at Whole Foods for $0.40/gallon I think.
Click to expand...


I would do that but our grocery store doesn't have it. Wish they did.
 
Yooper said:


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 very minerally beers (Export, Burton ale): Double the calcium and gypsum....
Click to expand...


So in this instance, i'm brewing EDWORT's hauls pale ale, would I be following the very minerally beers profile? And if so, what amount of gypsum am I using? it says double, but I'm not sure what amount I'm doubling. As for the saurmalz, I don't have any of that, but I do have 10% phosphoric acid.
 

Similar threads

K
Bru'n water sparge acid and kettle hardness calculations
Replies
15
Views
1K
VikeMan
VikeMan
3
Water Report Question
Replies
4
Views
746
CascadesBrewer
CascadesBrewer
N
Is my tap water usesless for brewing?
Replies
22
Views
2K
CascadesBrewer
CascadesBrewer
Zippy123
Reality check on Water Chemistry
Replies
27
Views
2K
WortMonger
WortMonger
C
Artesian well suitability
Replies
3
Views
596
mabrungard
mabrungard
SSBrew 300

Latest posts

Back
Top