Denver Water Woes (pH)

[putorious]

I have just recently started to really pay attention to water Chemistry and such for brewing different styles of Beer. I live in Lakewood, CO where we have Denver Water as the supplier of our water sources. I had our water tested last fall, so that I could start making additions with brewing salts to hit specific targets based. I was making adjustments using the results from the water test and the calculator that is built in to BrewFather. I had noticed an immediate improvement in the body and flavor of my beers... Yay!

I brewed another batch this weekend and noticed the water out of my tap now has a pH of 9.0! I had to add almost 2x as much Phosphoric acid to hit my Target pHs for both the Mash, and sparge water as I had originaly calculated using my old pH value.

Did a little research and it seems it's intentional by Denver Water:

https://www.9news.com/mobile/article/news/health/denver-water-ph-level-lead-reduction-plan/73-c112d2ea-c694-4285-a7b4-e94b2ccab7f5

It seems they are using Sodium Hydroxide as to increase the pH. My simple TDS meter is only showing 175ppm of TDS in my tap water though. Now I'm contemplating buying RO water on Brew days from the store (seems like a pain), or installing an RO system in my garage (and waiting hours to collect enough water to brew). Not sure if I'm overreacting or not... maybe I just start substituting some of my base malts acidulated malt?
Thoughts?

 

[day_trippr]

Two thoughts: brewing became much more reliable once we got off the commercial water company, on our own well, with a 100gpd RO system.
And unless you're brewing very small batches or have a very large RO system, it'll take a bit more than "an hour" to collect your brew day needs. My system produces at 4-1/4 gph so it takes 5 hours for water needed for a ten gallon batch (including the excess to cover the hex in my hlt).

tl;dr: RO System FTW

Cheers!

 

[putorious]

Two thoughts: brewing became much more reliable once we got off the commercial water company, on our own well, with a 100gpd RO system.
And unless you're brewing very small batches or have a very large RO system, it'll take a bit more than "an hour" to collect your brew day needs. My system produces at 4-1/4 gph so it takes 5 hours for water needed for a ten gallon batch (including the excess to cover the hex in my hlt).

tl;dr: RO System FTW

Cheers!

Hah, true about the waiting... I was looking at the 3-4 gph systems and was thinking I should normally be able to collect enough water for a mash, and while I was doing the infusion, I would collect the water for the sparge, etc... I'm generally making batches that put 5.5 gallons in to my fermenter.

I'm amused at many systems that are designed for "under the sink" and have a separate spout like you would want to drink it. I actually don't care for the taste of straight RO water, and I think it makes horrible coffee / tea as well, as compared to water with an "appropriate pH" mineral content, as evidenced by the fact that we add brewing salts to RO water to make good beer too. Generally, I like the flavor of my water after the chlorine products are filtered out. I'm mostly annoyed by the pH and having to use more acid additions now, as I do think that using lactic or phosphoric acid changes the flavor of the final product, especially in larger quantities.

My thought was to just get an "under the sink rig" that I could just hook a garden hose up to on brew day, until I started understanding that flow rates on those are not at all fast.

 

[day_trippr]

In your case don't worry about the intrinsic pH of the treated water; what the resulting residual alkalinity is will be more significant wrt dialing up brewing liquor that meets your desire. If you can obtain a municipal water report with the level of detail found in a "brewer's report" (ala Ward Labs) you can account for that and whatever else is in your water supply...

Cheers!

 

[camonick]

we have Denver Water as the supplier of our water sources.

You mean it’s not Rocky Mountain Spring water??

 

[putorious]

Yeah, I did the Ward labs thing last fall, when I started getting in to brewing water chemistry... pH was in the mid 7's when I had the analysis done. So are saying that having such a high starting pH shouldn't be of significant concern, even though it requires having to add "more stuff" to correct it? I've been using 10% phosphoric acid, to try and hit a pH of 5.3 in the mash, and around 5.8 for my sparge water... Was just surprised and disappointed how much it takes now.

 

[day_trippr]

Generally you're not really trying to correct pH, but instead strive to adjust "residual alkalinity", and a high pH will be supported by a high RA, requiring some form of acid to knock down to desirable levels.

And, fwiw, even using my RO water with a near zero RA I still have to use ~10ml of 25% PA on my light colored 10 gallon recipes to get the mash pH in spec. That's the grains doing their part - the water has virtually zero ability to impact the mash pH because the ionic content is zilch...

Cheers!

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

And just to add to the confusion... pH MUST be measured onsite. I know Ward Labs reported a pH result from the sample you shipped to them, but that result should be taken with a large grain of salt.

 

[Buckeye_Hydro]

One of the good things about a correctly configured RO system is that although they do produce purified water slowly, that issue fades when you set you system up with an automatic shut off. For example - it can make the needed water overnight while you're sleeping.

Russ

 

[putorious]

Generally you're not really trying to correct pH, but instead strive to adjust "residual alkalinity", and a high pH will be supported by a high RA, requiring some form of acid to knock down to desirable levels.

This is enlightening and not something I picked up on when I originally (finally) decided I wanted to pay attention to my water chemistry. I was in the mode of getting the numbers, plugging them in to the calculators and just following the instructions.... Seems I may be over-reacting a bit to the sudden increase in pH in my water. I had brewed a Saison this weekend with a very pale color - which is the first in a while, and my previous brew a few weeks prior was an IPA that hit its mash pH target with requiring acid additions (which is often the case). Reading about RA, and how the different brewing salts interact with what the the grains are doing make a lot more sense. Thanks!

 

[Brettomomyces]

You mean it’s not Rocky Mountain Spring water??

It's primarily mountain runoff

 

[camonick]

It's primarily mountain runoff

I know... I was just being a wise guy. Coors’ claim to fame is their Rocky Mountain spring water... now most likely city of Golden municipal water. I would guess the water quality in Denver varies greatly depending on the season since it is all mountain runoff. Now that we aren’t having as much of a drought in Colorado and Dillon reservoir (the primary storage reservoir for Denver water) and some of the other mountain reservoirs are much fuller, the water chemistry might be different.

Edit: I see you’re in Thornton so you’re already aware of our weather patterns. I’m in the northeast corner and our weather and water situation can sometimes be much different.