It's a huge deal as far as I'm concerned. I used to use pure spring water which unbeknownst to me and my rookie palate, was giving off a pretty strong astringency from leaving me with to high a mash pH. Now using all RO water and bru'n water it's made a significant difference in a much improved final product. It can be a bit overwhelming to get into but once you figure out bru'n water and what the mineral additions actually do for the beer it's probiably one of the biggest things one can do to improve the overall quality of their beer. If your not doing water chemistry now your not making the best beer you can, it helps that much.
Does anyone else ignore their water?
- Thread starter corycorycory09
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
ArthurDigbySellers
Well-Known Member
I filter my tap water and then use campden tablets to remove the chlorine/chloramine but other than that I don't make any adjustments. I'm going to be buying a cheap PH meter soon to help with making sours so I'll use that to test my mash ph on regular beers as well to see what kind of numbers I am currently getting. If it looks like I need to make adjustments based on that, I'll probably start digging into water chemistry more.
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2013
- Messages
- 806
- Reaction score
- 345
I'd run it through a 1 micron sediment filter, 1 micron Chloroguard carbon block, then 0.5 Chlorine Grabber.
Others can comment better than I re the Campden tablets.
Russ
Speaking of this sort of thing, I was watching Beer Diaries last night & this one brewer mentioned that he had to get the PH of a kreik to 3.8 to maintain the nice red color of the cherries. He brewed it to mix with another one & wanted to keep the ruby red color. Just thought I'd pass this on...
If you are producing beer that you like, water is one of the last things you need to look at to improve the beer. Assuming you are using extract, the water is much less important than with all grain brewing. Either way, doing a full boil, controlling fermentation temperature and pitching an adequate amount of healthy yeast are things you want to address before worrying about the water.
The way I look at it, there's no water profile that's perfect for all styles. If you only like to brew a limited style range, and your water works for that range, then sure. But even as an extract brewer, water can cause off-flavors so tap water should at least have the chlorine/chloramine removed (carbon filtration, campden tabs, whatever), but beyond that it's not critical (but still could make the difference between good beer and great beer with extract brewing). With all-grain it's a little more important, but again if your water is middle range enough that you can slide with pH on both light beers and dark beers (that's tough to do though, and in both cases pH would necessarily be towards the opposite end of what you'd ideally want for the best beer), then again fine. But ultimately you won't be able to consistently brew any style you want up to the highest quality levels without dealing with your water. If you want to brew your absolute best no matter what you're brewing, it's something you MUST tackle period.
That said, water's complicated, and if you're happy with your results carry on. And even then, unless you're brewing to the absolute extremes, or have absolutely TERRIBLE brewing water, you can often manage enough with most water sources to make beer for most beers. As such, water's probably one of the last things I'd tackle.
That said, water's complicated, and if you're happy with your results carry on. And even then, unless you're brewing to the absolute extremes, or have absolutely TERRIBLE brewing water, you can often manage enough with most water sources to make beer for most beers. As such, water's probably one of the last things I'd tackle.
normonster
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2014
- Messages
- 1,484
- Reaction score
- 409
I ignored mine for far too long. Now that I've done it and discovered how easy it really is I would encourage everyone to consider it. All else aside, I picked up significant efficiency with a managed pH.
Cheers'
Cheers'
Yes! But that profile is pretty useless for brewing. It shows you that it is safe to drink, but doesn't include the content of things we care about- calcium, sodium, magnesium, sulfate, chloride, carbonate, and alkalinity.
petey_c
Senior Member
This thread just made me think about brewing in Flint, Mi.... 
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2013
- Messages
- 549
- Reaction score
- 75
I am following in your exact same steps. Just bought a bunch of minerals, distilled H2O, oxygenation kit @ have been studying my Bru'n water for the last 2 weeks......taking things to the next level!!!:rockin:
This is exactly the problem I was having when I started paying attention to water chemistry. Something always seemed off with anything dark in color that I brewed. The roasted and crystal malts drive the mash PH down so you need to add something to bring it back into the appropriate range. I use pickling lime now for raising PH. Order yourself some of that in addition to gypsum, calcium chloride, Epsom salt, and some form of acid (I keep acidulated malt and lactic acid on hand). Then, set aside a little time to play around with Bru n Water. I think you'll be surprised how easy it is once you get familiar with it.
I bought bottle water for the first couple of brews but that gets kinda expensive. My tap water tastes ok so I just treat it with a Campden tab and go for it for now. I'm pretty green at this so I'm just trying to zero in on consistent mash results. Somewhere down the trail I may look more closely at my water but for now, I'm enjoying my beer...
SeraW
she/her
I'm a couple of years into brewing now, but this is an area I'm a bit willfully ignorant on. I check a water report every year and find the chlorine and chloramines well under threshold to be an issue, similar with the other elements present. I've been checking mash pH for awhile now, but I keep staying out of trouble there, too. And because the beer keeps coming out well, I have near zero motivation to bother with it.
I think this is something I need to start paying attention to. I've been brewing ag for a few years and never did anything to the tap water. but most beers have been stronger and/or darker with good results. lately I've achieved ferm temp control and have been trying lighter, cleaner beers to try to really pin down any off flavors. sure enough, all of these beers have just been a bit off. I guess my strategy is working lol. it's hard to pin down the flavor but my gut is saying it has something to do with my water and perhaps a campden treatment will be just the trick.
next batch up is a mild so hopefully my experimentation works. just requested a water report from the city.
next batch up is a mild so hopefully my experimentation works. just requested a water report from the city.
Same deep waters as you, except no lighter beers. I'm such a procrastinator though. I could do some of that stuff. Nah, I'll have a beer instead.
normonster
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2014
- Messages
- 1,484
- Reaction score
- 409
If you use RO for one batch to check it out, it's a snap man. In BruN Water you can just set the dilution to 100%, pick a water profile and match it with (in many cases, only) Calcium Chloride and Gypsum. A little acid in the Sparge and you're set! If I make a new recipe (like I did last night) I can workout the water additions in like 10 minutes (and I've only done it a few times yet) and its a fun part of making up a recipe, which most of us love to do.
Cheers!
I ignore my hops more than my water :-D
I pretty much have a honed routine for acid and gypsum based on what I'm going for. On the other hand, when it comes to hops, got plenty of recipes where I don't particularly care what do I add. All hops are nice and different. All water is definitively different, but not always nice.
I pretty much have a honed routine for acid and gypsum based on what I'm going for. On the other hand, when it comes to hops, got plenty of recipes where I don't particularly care what do I add. All hops are nice and different. All water is definitively different, but not always nice.
It's completely reasonable to be happy with your beers without them being as good as they can be. There are probably a dozen broad areas of concern in beer making. Some of them are learned skills and others just align in lucky ways. One example of being lucky is getting into brewing in a season where the place you put the fermenter happens to sit at 65F the whole time. Did you know how important it was? No, because come summertime your beer tastes like fusel alcohol. Water can be just good enough such that you don't get any major off flavors. Knowing what I know doesn't let me ignore water anymore.
Similar threads
