Boulder, CO Brewing Water

[SmirnoffIceman]

I've been browsing several websites, forum posts, and books in an attempt to learn more about water chemistry and I'm more lost now than when I began. I live in Boulder, CO and am trying to learn what the best approach to brewing water is for my situation.

Any advice is appreciated! Thanks!

 

[jescholler]

I live in Louisville, and I've been adjusting my water and measuring mash pH with a pH meter. What is it that you would like to know?

I have the water chemistry pretty much dialed in for a pale ale and a brown ale. I still need to do some adjustments to get a good dark beer (1st attempt was a black IPA).

The water is pretty soft in the foothills. I like to tell people that I tap the Rockies.

 

[SmirnoffIceman]

I am a complete newbie when it comes to thinking about water chemistry. We have been using water bought from the store thus far, but I too would like to tap the rockies

How would I go about adjusting the water? How did you come to your current adjustments as the best option for the Pale and Brown?

I was having a hard enough time looking for water reports for the area, and I am not quite clear on what I would do if I did have them.

 

[jescholler]

A good place to get some general knowledge about water chemistry as it applies to homebrewing is John Palmer's "How to Brew", chapter 15.
http://howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15.html

That will give you and idea of what you're trying to do and why. Once you have that, you can go about adjusting your water. For some quick tips, ajdelange gave a really good primer that is in this thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

For us in the foothills, you can assume our water is pretty close to distilled (no mineral content, very soft). If you want to get into more detail, you can get a water report from Ward Labs (http://www.wardlab.com/) and adjust from there. For your adjustments, you could use the EZ Water Calculator 2.0, developed by -TH-. You're shooting for a pH of 5.2-5.4.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/ez-water-calculator-2-0-a-195940/

I came to my current adjustments by starting with the EZ Water Calculator 2.0 to get a predicted pH between 5.2 and 5.4. Since our water is soft, we need to lower our pH for lighter beers (and probably darker beers such as brown ales). To lower the pH, I use a combination of calcium chloride and calcium sulfate (gypsum) because the calcium lowers the pH. Another tool that lowers the pH is acidulated malt (saurmaltz).

After taking my 1st stab at achieving the proper pH, I did a batch and measured the mash pH. I found that for my very light beers, I need to use some acidulated malt in addition to the calcium chloride and gypsum to get the pH in the 5.2-5.4 range. I also found that the prediction is very close for the lighter beers, but predicts too low of a pH for darker beers. For example, when I did a black IPA, the prediction was 5.26 and I measured 5.63. For my brown ale, the prediction was 5.26 and I measured 5.38. I've heard other people on here report similar results.

Hopefully that's enough to get you started.

 

[tasq]

I highly recommend you download Bru'n Water and read through it. I have learned a TON.

https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/

 

[SmirnoffIceman]

Great post, Jescholler. That definitely will help get me started, now I just need a home brew to dive into the extra reading material!

Tasq - Thanks for the link as well. I've downloaded it and will play around with it some this weekend after I bottle some of my recent batches. (They smell like I had hoped, and taste pretty good for being room temperature and flat)