Help! Hazy Water!

[hehawbrew]

I’ll admit, I’m not the smartest man alive. I’ll also admit that I’m not a big hazy Neipa fan, but it kills me that my beer starts to clear after a few weeks.
I think my issues were too low of a ph...... but, I’m hoping people who are much smarter than I am, could give me some advice after looking at my water report.

thanks!

 

[VikeMan]

I really don't know if that water is causing your problem with hazy beers not staying hazy. I kind of doubt it.

But that water appears to be the result of a water softener. Unfortunately, you don't have any hardness (calcium and magnesium) to offset the alkalinity in the mash. Normally, Calcium and Magnesium react with phosphates from the malt, making protons, thus reducing pH. With most grists (including typical IPA grists), your mash pH (left untreated) would be too high, not too low.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

@hehawbrew sharing your recipe's hop and grain information would provide clues as to what may have caused your issue.

 

[Vale71]

Definitely a water softener. The total lack of calcium is not conducive to the yeast flocculating on top of all the other issues of using100% softened water. By the way, water softeners have a bypass valve that allows to reintroduce a small amount of untreated water with its original salt content. It appears to be completely closed in your system and that is not good for corrosion.

 

[hehawbrew]

Yes- on a water softener.
I do add cal chlr and gypsum.


I’ll throw my receipt up today. I have done some reading and think I may have found my issues, but I’ll share to see what the general consensus is.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Do you have a water analysis for the pre-softened water?

 

[hehawbrew]

I do not.

My grain for the recipe is:
70% pils
20% flaked white wheat
8% flaked oats
2% acid.

amarillo and mosaic at whirlpool

and then i dry hop with the same at day 5 and day 10.

After some reading, next week I’m going to decrease the pils and substitute with malted wheat.

also, I’m going to up my dry hop percentages and do the entire dry hop at day 3.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

If it were me I would avoid brewing with water sourced directly from a water softener. I would get a water report for the source water before it enters the water softener and go from there. It might be made suitable enough for brewing after diluting it with RO water.

As far as changing up your dry hop schedule and adding them on day three that is a good idea. Try splitting all the hop additions between the whirlpool and dry hopping then eliminate any other kettle hop additions. As an example for a 10-gallon batch, I get great results using 20 ounces of hops for an unmistakable hop aroma, flavor and bitterness.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

His softened water report lists cations at 4.9 mEq/L.

Water with the following mineral mix also has cations at 4.9 mEq/L:
Ca++ = 74 ppm
Mg++ = 8 ppm
Na+ = 12 ppm
K+ = 1 ppm

Just speculating as to what it might look like before it goes through the softener unit....

 

[hehawbrew]

Not sure if this helps...... but here is my towns water before my filtration.

im definitely going to get a “from the source” test.

I’ve been brewing for like ten years now, but water is something I’ve never really started exploring until last year.

ive been using beer smith and adjusting with calcium chloride and gypsum to get within idea ranges on BS. It’s helped, but I’m still not 100%grasping everything.

ive ready Palmer’s book, but i typically fall asleep.

so, any podcast or YouTube videos anyone can recommend?

 

[VikeMan]

Not sure if this helps...... but here is my towns water before my filtration.

Unfortunately, that's a water quality (i.e. safety) report, and doesn't include the ions you need to know for brewing purposes:

Ca
Mg
Na
Cl
SO4
HCO3
Total Alkalinity

 

[hehawbrew]

Yesterday I ordered a new water test kit from Ward. I’ve also been reading this book, which is already pointing me in a better direction.