Tap water, chlorine, & chloramine.

Pardons as I am sure this has been talked about 1000 times before, but it's just too broad a scope to use a search engine reliably:

It is my understanding that municipal water treatment plants usually use either chlorine or, as I am finding out, more often chloramines as disinfectants in their water supplies. I know from a brief stint working with swimming pools that chlorine will evaporate all on it's own, given just a pretty short time. However, treatment plants that use chloramines do so because they won't just evaporate like chlorine, and are more stable overall for a longer length of time.

My question is, can chloramines be boiled off, or is using Campden tabs a necessity? I am getting tired of buying water, and the only reason I can see to not use my tap water is that it tastes & smells like swimming pool at times.

Getting Campden tabs is not a problem, and the small bag my LHBS sells would last me probably my entire life, as I only make 2.5G batches, but if it's not necessary...

TIA!

Chloramine won't boil off. For 2.5 gallon batches half a tablet will do it. I use a pill splitter to half one into 2 5 gallon jugs. Crush them with my fingers like a monster.

Thank you for the fast & succinct relpy!

slym2none said:

Thank you for the fast & succinct relpy!

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Thatswhatshesaid.gif

*arches a brow*

OK, to sorta piggyback on my water quality (and to not start a new thread, although I hope people see this one) I just looked up my water quality report for where I live. Here's the numbers:

Fluoride - 0.73 mg/L
Nitrate - <0.23 mg/L (as Nitrogen)
Turbidity NTU - 0.07
Total Organic Carbon in mg/l - Source, 7.09; Treated, 2.21
Alpha emitters - None detected
Beta/photon emitters - None detected
Copper - < 0.05 mg/L
Lead - < 0.003 mg/L
Chloramines - 2.0 mg/L (as Cl2) Running Annual Average
Chlorine - 2.0 mg/L
Sodium - 33.6 mg/L
Sulfate - 57 mg/L

Does anything stand out as being "bad" for brewing? Any styles I should avoid?

I really don't want to buy water anymore...

slym2none said:

OK, to sorta piggyback on my water quality (and to not start a new thread, although I hope people see this one) I just looked up my water quality report for where I live. Here's the numbers:

Fluoride - 0.73 mg/L
Nitrate - <0.23 mg/L (as Nitrogen)
Turbidity NTU - 0.07
Total Organic Carbon in mg/l - Source, 7.09; Treated, 2.21
Alpha emitters - None detected
Beta/photon emitters - None detected
Copper - < 0.05 mg/L
Lead - < 0.003 mg/L
Chloramines - 2.0 mg/L (as Cl2) Running Annual Average
Chlorine - 2.0 mg/L
Sodium - 33.6 mg/L
Sulfate - 57 mg/L

Does anything stand out as being "bad" for brewing? Any styles I should avoid?

I really don't want to buy water anymore, and a bag of Campden tabs only costs slightly more than what I pay for 2.5G of spring water from the store.

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That's mostly a contaminants analysis. Largely irrelevant for brewing...

In addition to the sodium (slightly high) and sulfate (okay, but may need some more for hoppy styles), you need calcium and chloride levels; as well as some measure of alkalinity (in order to determine acid needs for proper mash pH).

slym2none said:

My question is, can chloramines be boiled off, or is using Campden tabs a necessity?

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Yes, it can but it takes a long time. Much easier to use Campden tablets. The subject is discussed at length above at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=361073

AZ_IPA said:

That's mostly a contaminants analysis. Largely irrelevant for brewing...

In addition to the sodium (slightly high) and sulfate (okay, but may need some more for hoppy styles), you need calcium and chloride levels; as well as some measure of alkalinity (in order to determine a I'd needs for proper mash pH).

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Thank you... and dammit! Of course they don't list those in their report.

Time to get on the phone, I guess.

Again, thanks!

ajdelange said:

Yes, it can but it takes a long time. Much easier to use Campden tablets. The subject is discussed at length above at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=361073

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Thank you!

I just got off the phone with the water management department, here are some missing numbers:

7.5-7.6 pH average
Calcium - 4.9 mg/L
Chloride - 9.7 mg/L
Potassium - 2.2 mg/L
Zinc - .059 mg/L

Funny enough, after getting bounced around a bit, the guy I talked to was also a home-brewer and was interested in this info as well!

Anyway, again - is this good or bad? As always, thanks in advance.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/water-profiles/

this'll give you an idea of what you're playing with

Durham, NH 10/14/15
Ca+2 Mg+2 Na+ Cl- SO4-2 Alkalinity pH
8 1 17 15 2 50 (HCO3) 7.4
Ward labs

That's a year older than the info I just got. But thanks for the source!

What you want to know are, more or less in order:
1) Alkalinity
2) Calcium
3) Magnesium
4) Sulfate
5) Chloride
6) Sodium
7) Potassium
8) Nitrate
9) pH
10) Total phosphorous
11) Iron
12) Silica
13) Manganese

Thread hijacking with another water treatment question:
I want to address chloramines in my brew water. My city reports a chloramine level of 3.79 mg/l. I have a 2 oz (weight) bottle of powdered potassium metabisulfite from LD Carlson. The directions recommend 1/4 tsp per 6 gallon of must to kill wild yeast and 2 oz to sanitize 1 gallon of water. Any suggestions for the appropriate amount to treat 5 gallons of brew water?

Thanks.

Discussed at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=361073

Thanks.

ajdelange said:

What you want to know are, more or less in order:
1) Alkalinity
2) Calcium
3) Magnesium
4) Sulfate
5) Chloride
6) Sodium
7) Potassium
8) Nitrate
9) pH
10) Total phosphorous
11) Iron
12) Silica
13) Manganese

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What I need to know is where is the guide that tells me what numbers are good in what categories for which beer.

slym2none said:

What I need to know is where is the guide that tells me what numbers are good in what categories for which beer.

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I've been happy with any of the style profiles found in Bru'N water...

Genrally.....

darker, less hoppy beers = more chloride and less sulfate
lighter, higher hopped beers = more sulfate (up to 200-300ppm) and less chloride (~50ppm)

Keep your sodium and magnesium low (under 20ppm or so) and get your calcium up to ~60-125ppm.

I am still clueless in what the baselines for each style is. Where can I find such a thing? SOme of these threads here have thousands of posts & I don't know where to start looking....

slym2none said:

I am still clueless in what the baselines for each style is. Where can I find such a thing? SOme of these threads here have thousands of posts & I don't know where to start looking....

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john palmer's how to brew website below is a link and you can scroll down and click on (Gallons, SRM Version 4.0) an excel sheet will download and it breaks it down by style. hopefully that will answer some of your questions. I also agree with the Bru-n water

http://howtobrew.com/book/section-3/understanding-the-mash-ph/residual-alkalinity-and-mash-ph

Ah! Thank you very much, good sir!

slym2none said:

I am still clueless in what the baselines for each style is. Where can I find such a thing? SOme of these threads here have thousands of posts & I don't know where to start looking....

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The reason you can't really find it is because there really isn't a good baseline for each style.

A good general rule of thumb is to get your calcium to 50-100 ppm for good yeast flocculation, and get your mash pH to 5.3-5.5 for all beers.

Everything else is "for flavor". What I mean is this. It's like asking how much salt to put in your chicken soup. I like more salt than your neighbor. It really is mostly a "to taste" thing.

The important thing is the mash pH.

The next general rule of thumb is to use some chloride, in the form of calcium chloride, especially for malty beers. I generally hear recommendations of 50-100 ppm on that as well. That's a good place to start.

As far as sulfate, some folks love a higher sulfate level in very highly hopped beers. I do, too, to a point, but generally no higher than 135-150 ppm even in an IPA, while others (mabrungard springs to mind) loves 300 ppm in those beers.

So, start with the idea that "less is more" until you know what YOU love. It's better to have less mineral additions (think less salt in the soup) because the worst you will have is a beer that might "pop" more with more salts. Using too much, and not paying addition to mash pH, may make an undrinkable beer. Just keep that in mind- usually, less is more.

For specific "what does THAT do?" questions, read this page: https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/water-knowledge

Read it three or four times, especially if you scroll down and start where it says "Mineral content". I still read it over once in a while, to remind myself of these things. It takes a while to master water chemistry, so just relax and ask any questions you may have. And read this three or four times.......

And thank you, Yooper! That also helps a lot.

Seems I need more calcium & sulfate to make a hop-forward beer using my tap water, but I will do as you suggest & start at the bottom of the suggested ranges.

slym2none said:

And thank you, Yooper! That also helps a lot.

Seems I need more calcium & sulfate to make a hop-forward beer using my tap water, but I will do as you suggest & start at the bottom of the suggested ranges.

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To start, just use gypsum to get the calcium to between 50-100 ppm and the sulfate to 125-150 ppm (more or less, don't sweat it), and the mash pH for a light colored hoppy beer at 5.3-5.4.

Then, when you drink that beer, you can even add some gypsum to the glass to see what it does.

What sulfate does is bring a "dryness" to the finish, if that makes sense. Not mouth puckering like astringency (although when it's very high, that is what I get out of it), but a dry finish in the swallow that brings out the bitterness. It keeps things like IPA or DIPA from being "cloying" in the finish.

For things that aren't highly hopped, more chloride brings a "fullness" to the beer. Not exactly a sweetness, but it brings forth some malt sweetness.

You can do the same thing as the gypsum- add a pinch to your glass of beer and see what you think. Add more, and see what you think.

You can always add more in the next batch, but you can't take it out.

slym2none said:

I am still clueless in what the baselines for each style is. Where can I find such a thing? SOme of these threads here have thousands of posts & I don't know where to start looking....

Click to expand...

Bru'N water.

slym2none said:

I am still clueless in what the baselines for each style is. Where can I find such a thing? SOme of these threads here have thousands of posts & I don't know where to start looking....

Click to expand...

The best you can do is to start researching the various beer styles and a good place to do that is with the Brewers Publications series of monographs. In some of them, e.g. Continental Pilsner you will find that Bohemian Pils is made with very soft water but German Pils isn't. If, conversely, you look at the Weizen beer monograph you will find that wheat beer is made with all sorts of water as it is made all over Europe.

At the same time you have to recognize that you don't have to slavishly adhere to what the brewers at the Pilsn brewery used for their water. Maybe their beer would have been better if the water had a little more chloride in it, for example. Or maybe not. The advice I always give is start with the less is better philosophy. Find out what, e.g., nominal Helles water is like, go to the lower limits of the range, brew and brew again working up in salt additions. Or save yourself the trouble of messing with spreadsheets and calculators. Put 1/2 gram of calcium chloride in each gallon of RO water and brew with that. Then add more (or less) salts from there. But keep good records and tasting notes!

OK, so - (yes, I know that's a terrible way to start a sentence; deal with it) I drew off 4.5 gallons of tap water earlier today for an IPA I am brewing tonight, hit it with a half a tab of Campden (crushed) and then later, hit it with 1 teaspoon of gypsum. This should change the water some, but not hugely. If this isn't enough, I will try 1-1/2 tsp next time & go from there.

I will say, the rye pale ale I just bottled up had a nice hops hit to it, and that was only tap water treated with Campden, I didn't have the gypsum yet. An ounce of whole-cone Cascade in the boil, 2 oz in a hop-stand, then .5 oz each Columbus & Centennial pellets in the dry-hop and it is VERY hoppy! Not bitter, somewhere in the 30-35 IBU range, but very hoppy. I hope I get that much back out of it in 2 weeks when it will technically be ready.

If my little gypsum addition brings out even more hoppiness (and even bitterness) in this IPA, all the better! This recipe calls for an additional 2 ounces than what I put in my pale ale, including a whole ounce each of Citra & Simcoe in the dry-hop, to (hopefully) compliment the experimental hops I am using in the boil for flavour & aroma, and in the hop-stand. I am expecting anywhere between 55 & 68 IBUs, based on 6% AAs on the low end, 12% AAs on the high.

Thanks again for all the advice, everybody!

slym2none said:

I am still clueless in what the baselines for each style is. Where can I find such a thing? SOme of these threads here have thousands of posts & I don't know where to start looking....

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John Palmer's Water book has a couple tables with generic water baselines for different beer styles.

http://www.brewerspublications.com/books/water-a-comprehensive-guide-for-brewers/

You can get it cheaper at amazon.