Brewing Water Analysis Help

[PintoBean]

My well water is terrible, so I typically buy water for brewing. Sometimes, if I'm in a patient mood, I will draw 10 gallons out of my fridge which has a filter, and use that, but I usually use Ice Mountain water from the store. Here's their analysis...unfortunately, the ranges seem awfully big to make a good analysis of how to treat. Any suggestions on both what I should add to treat it and also what numbers to base it on? Maybe take the average of the range? Any input is appreciated. I am mostly an ale brewer.

Calcium 5.4-59
Sodium 2.4-4.8
Potassium ND
Flouride ND-0.072
Magnesium 2.2-19
Bicarbonate ND - 240
Chloride 4.5-8.2
ph 6.2-8.2
Sulfate 8.4-17.8
TDS 40-230

 

[jetmac]

Start here EZ water calculator

I started out pretty crazy with lots of water adjustments, now,
I typically use a 50/50 mixture of RO water and tap water but I get city water. Adding 50% RO water knocks down the bad stuff in the water then I add back gypsum and calcium chloride to the mash in varying amounts according to style.

EZ water calculator can help you there.

Add salts to the mash when you want calcium to be available or need to control pH
Add salts to the boil for flavor impact.
Calcium Chloride is most neutral.
Calcium Sulfate can enhance hoppyness but can add dryness.
Calcium Carbonate>Avoid unless you need to increase pH.
Chloride to sulfate ratio: For hoppy beers, favor sulfate. Malty beers, favor chloride

 

[SS_Brewing_Co]

I just buys 8 gallons of distilled water. Works good. 88 cents/g.

 

[PintoBean]

Start here EZ water calculator

I started out pretty crazy with lots of water adjustments, now,
I typically use a 50/50 mixture of RO water and tap water but I get city water. Adding 50% RO water knocks down the bad stuff in the water then I add back gypsum and calcium chloride to the mash in varying amounts according to style.

EZ water calculator can help you there.

Add salts to the mash when you want calcium to be available or need to control pH
Add salts to the boil for flavor impact.
Calcium Chloride is most neutral.
Calcium Sulfate can enhance hoppyness but can add dryness.
Calcium Carbonate>Avoid unless you need to increase pH.
Chloride to sulfate ratio: For hoppy beers, favor sulfate. Malty beers, favor chloride

Good info, thanks for that.

I just buys 8 gallons of distilled water. Works good. 88 cents/g.

Yeah, I was considering just starting to buy distilled so I could create whatever water profile I wanted

 

[ajdelange]

For about $130 you can have an RO unit capable of producing the small quantities of water typically used by a home brewer. Assuming you use 10 gallons to produce 5 gallons of beer that's about the cost of DI/RO water from many sources. It is definitely something worth considering.

And just how terrible is your well water? The filter in your refrigerator won't do a darn thing to it except remove earthy smells/tastes so it may not be that bad after all.

 

[PintoBean]

For about $130 you can have an RO unit capable of producing the small quantities of water typically used by a home brewer. Assuming you use 10 gallons to produce 5 gallons of beer that's about the cost of DI/RO water from many sources. It is definitely something worth considering.

And just how terrible is your well water? The filter in your refrigerator won't do a darn thing to it except remove earthy smells/tastes so it may not be that bad after all.

It has a ton of iron in it, and that rotten egg smell (Hydrogen Sulfide). Everything in my house is stained orange. I do not get that iron taste or H2S smell when I drink water from my fridge tap.

I'm interested in the RO unit. Sometimes I brew 3 batches in a single day, what type of unit would I need to supply that quantity of water (30 gallons)?

 

[ajdelange]

Both iron and H2S can be removed by simply aerating the water and filtering it through sand. Whoever services you well should be able to supply a unit which does that (or oxidizes the water chemically). In any event you should invest in a Ward Labs analysis (not expensive) to see where you stand.

RO units vary from 5 gallons per day to thousands with price tags commensurate. The little units available at any Home Depot (made by GE) are inexpensive but generally limited to about 5 GPD depending on water's mineral content (osmotic pressure which the feed water pressure must overcome) and your bladder tank's pressure setting (which is the major factor as osmotic pressure is usually only a couple of pounds). If saving money is the most important factor then you can buy one of these small systems and collect water over the course of the week. I did that for years and there is nothing wrong with it except that on more than one occasion I made a yeast starter but forgot to collect water and wound up running off to the drug store to buy all the distilled water they had.

Moving up from 5 GPD most guys here seem to go to the reef aquarium suppliers. I believe they have systems that will provide 30 gpd or so for not terribly much more than the 5 gpd ones.

 

[PintoBean]

Both iron and H2S can be removed by simply aerating the water and filtering it through sand. Whoever services you well should be able to supply a unit which does that (or oxidizes the water chemically). In any event you should invest in a Ward Labs analysis (not expensive) to see where you stand.

RO units vary from 5 gallons per day to thousands with price tags commensurate. The little units available at any Home Depot (made by GE) are inexpensive but generally limited to about 5 GPD depending on water's mineral content (osmotic pressure which the feed water pressure must overcome) and your bladder tank's pressure setting (which is the major factor as osmotic pressure is usually only a couple of pounds). If saving money is the most important factor then you can buy one of these small systems and collect water over the course of the week. I did that for years and there is nothing wrong with it except that on more than one occasion I made a yeast starter but forgot to collect water and wound up running off to the drug store to buy all the distilled water they had.

Moving up from 5 GPD most guys here seem to go to the reef aquarium suppliers. I believe they have systems that will provide 30 gpd or so for not terribly much more than the 5 gpd ones.

Awesome, thanks man. It'd be nice to get rid of the iron and H2S for not only brewing purposes, but because it also sucks on a daily basis.

 

[PintoBean]

Both iron and H2S can be removed by simply aerating the water and filtering it through sand. Whoever services you well should be able to supply a unit which does that (or oxidizes the water chemically). In any event you should invest in a Ward Labs analysis (not expensive) to see where you stand.

AJ, another question...do I want to have my water tested pre- or post- water softener? I was thinking pre-. I would probably install an RO unit in the water line after my whole house sediment filter, but pull a line off to feed the RO unit before it goes through the softener. Does this make sense?

 

[ajdelange]

A water softener pulls out cations (calcium, magnesium, iron...) and replaces them with sodium ions. You would never want to brew with post softened water so logically the place to test the water is before the softener. It is then pretty easy to figure out what the post softened water is like by zeroing out the reported cations and adding in an equivalent amount of sodium ions.

The one place post softened water does have a use in brewing is when an RO unit is connected. Encrustation of the membrane with calcium carbonate can occur with hard water just as encrustation of anything else can under those conditions. Whether it is necessary to connect pres or post softener depends on how hard the water is and that's one reason for getting a pre softener report. Given that the house is plumbed to the softener and it can't hurt to feed the RO unit with softened water you will doubtless connect it to the softened supply as you can put the RO unit anywhere. If your refrigerator filter reduces the iron taste that indicates that at least some of it is in the Fe(III) state which forms a gel. That's what the filter traps. You don't want that gel on the RO membrane so it is important that you go through the sediment filter first. The RO unit will have it's own particulate filter and the softener also serves as one to some extent. The backwash not only removes the cations but any sediment which has been stopped by the resin bed.