How do you mix your water???

[Sarrsipius]

This weekend I did my first brew with custom made water. Starting with RO/DI water I used the additions calculated by Beersmith 2.0 to create the Burton on the Trent profile. I mixed up 5 gallon batches of the profile water in a a bucket and stirred vigorously for 15-20 seconds and then poured the appropriate amounts into my mash tun and HLT.

I run a HERMS system and after sparging, the inside of my HLT and my HERMS (in the HLT) were covered with a fine layer of white powder. Did i not mix the salts and minerals sufficiently when I mixed the water? Is it normal to have this film when mixing water? How do you guys do it?

 

[hamiltont]

I generally blend the water and salts the night before to make sure the salts are dissolved and the water is at room temp. What salts did you add and how much? Cheers!!!

 

[Sarrsipius]

I'm not at a computer with Beersmith but from memory (per 5gal):

17.6g gypsum
6.3g MgS04
3.5g Chalk
.5g Calcium Carbonate
4g baking soda

These could be off as I'm going from memory. If you have a water calculator, run the additions to add to 5gal of RO/DI to create the Burton on Trent profile. I used the calculator in BS2.0.

 

[ajdelange]

I mixed up 5 gallon batches of the profile water in a a bucket and stirred vigorously for 15-20 seconds and then poured the appropriate amounts into my mash tun and HLT.

To begin with it is almost always a waste of time and effort to try to duplicate the water profile of a given region. One of the reasons for this is that you have little idea as to how the brewers in that region handled that water before brewing with it. IOW you are duplicating the water that came into the brewery. Not the water that the brewery used to make beer.

Second, duplication of the water of Burton requires an elaborate process in which chalk (calcium carbonate) is suspended in water through which CO2 is sparged for extended periods of time or alternatively the water is put under CO2 pressure and agitated. Most of the calculators and spreadsheets either don't know about this or do know about it or grossly over simplify the calculations because the exact calculations are complex. These will often recommend chalk but specify that it should be added to the mash, not the water because it will not dissolve in the water without the CO2.

So the first question I have is "Did you add chalk?" The second is "How much gypsum did you add?" and the third "Did it all dissolve?"

run a HERMS system and after sparging, the inside of my HLT and my HERMS (in the HLT) were covered with a fine layer of white powder. Did i not mix the salts and minerals sufficiently when I mixed the water? Is it normal to have this film when mixing water?

If your water (untreated) has high enough temporary hardness a film will be left anywhere the water is heated i.e. on shower heads, in tea kettles, in your home water heater... You would have probably observed this before starting brewing and might have has a water softener installed to combat this problem.

Next, gypsum isn't that soluble in water and is less soluble in hot water than cold so it is possible that you got all the gypsum dissolved in cold water and super saturated it when it was hot. In this case, the precipitate would be gypsum. To test, take some and put a drop of vinegar on it. If it doesn't fizz it is gypsum.

If you added sodium bicarbonate, calcium chloride and gypsum (and for Burton you would add lots of gypsum) you will have added temporary hardness to the water so that when it gets heated chalk precipitates (that's why it's called temporary hardness). In this case the pecipitatate would fizz when exposed to vinegar.

How do you guys do it?

The only time I will ever attempt to duplicate a profile is if I am giving a class and want the class to be able to taste the difference between beer made with "genuine" Burton water and an identical one made with plain old well water. In that case I do the whole elaborate CO2 thing as that is the only way one can do it properly. And, as soon as that water is heated in the HLT the bicarbonate and quite possibly a bunch of the gypsum as well precipitate out. This is exactly what would happen in a Burton brewery if they heated their water in an HLT before strike and that is why its a waste of time to simulate Burton water unless you know that the Burton brewers mashed in with untreated, unheated water. I'll also note that the two times I did this the class participants found the beer made with plain water prefferable.

I my normal brewing I only use calcium chloride and occasionally a bit if gypsum (if someone else is brewing on my equipment). I predissolve the calcium chloride in water such that 1cc of the solution represents the proper dose for 1" of water in the HLT. Then if I put 20" of water in the HLT I add 20 cc of the concentrate. If I top up with 5" water I add 5 cc. This works for CaCl2 a it is so soluble. Gypsum I just throw in. Last time I did this someone else was brewing here and they complained about how long they had to stir to get it to dissolve. That's just the way it is.

 

[ajdelange]

I'm not at a computer with Beersmith but from memory (per 5gal):

17.6g gypsum
6.3g MgS04
3.5g Chalk
.5g Calcium Carbonate
4g baking soda

These could be off as I'm going from memory. If you have a water calculator, run the additions to add to 5gal of RO/DI to create the Burton on Trent profile. I used the calculator in BS2.0.

Chalk and calcium carbonate are the same thing so we'll just take it that you added quite a bit of chalk. That's a mistake. Adding bicarbonate exacerbates the problem (the problem being that all this alkali will result in high mash pH - you want to lower the pH, not raise it). The amount of gypsum you added would should dissolve but the calcium from it will combine with the bicarbonate (which also should not be added to brewing water except in special cases) and precipitate when the water is heated. This is actually good news - you want that bicarbonate out because of its pH raising effect but in your system I'm guessing quite a bit gets carried over into the mash.

To brew a Burton ale with RO water just add a tsp of calcium chloride and a tsp of gypsum to 5 gal RO/DI water and a bit of sauermalz to the mash. See the Primer in the Stickies.

 

[Sarrsipius]

ok. So the water profile calculators are pointless then. My goal was to be able to use them to create water that was better suited to a given style. This weekend I was making an IPA so I chose the Burton profile. Sounds like trying to do this is pointless.

My water is very very hard and we don't use a softener. In the past i've cut the tap water with RO water but I was hoping to fine tune my process and start focusing on the water.

As for the additions, the Calcium Carbonate should have been labled Calcium Chloride (I think. It's whatever the other addition is in the calculator).

Am I just wasting my time?

 

[ajdelange]

ok. So the water profile calculators are pointless then.

No but they can lead one down the garden path because they do not model carbonate and bicarbonate properly and that's because if they did you would run from the room screaming when you saw what they looked like. The calculators etc. are fine as long as you stay away from bicarbonate and carbonate. That's why I think beginners should do something simple until they understand the principles involved. That why the Primer was written. At the same time one is brewing with the Primer he can use the spreadsheets or calculators to play "what if" games but stay away from chalk and bicarb. You would only need those when doing dark beers and their addition should be determined by measurement of mash pH.

My goal was to be able to use them to create water that was better suited to a given style.

I understand that because I have been there and maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and let you go there too but it seems silly not to try to share concepts that will get you to good beer much faster.

This weekend I was making an IPA so I chose the Burton profile. Sounds like trying to do this is pointless.

I really think it is but others may have different opinions. Another note: it's pretty clear that the modern beers coming out of that part of the UK are not made with water that is nearly as mineralized as the general impression homebrewers have as to what Burton is like.

My water is very very hard and we don't use a softener.

That explains some of your film then (assuming it is temporary hardness)

In the past i've cut the tap water with RO water but I was hoping to fine tune my process and start focusing on the water.

You can still do that! Doing it from the perspective of adding stuff to low ion water (starting with a clean sheet of paper as many like to say) is much simpler than trying to decarbonate by the tradition means.

As for the additions, the Calcium Carbonate should have been labled Calcium Chloride (I think. It's whatever the other addition is in the calculator).

Probably calcium chloride. So that still a whole bunch of chalk and unecessary, and in fact detrimental.

Am I just wasting my time?

No! You can make passable or even good beer without understanding much about water (and that's what the Primer is designed to let you do - in most cases) but you will never make really good or great beer if you don't get the water just right. If you were learning to play the piano you'd work on the Two Part Inventions before tackling the Goldberg Variations. Same idea here.

 

[Sarrsipius]

Thanks for your feedback. I do make very good beer (if I do say so myself). One of the elements I have the least control over right now is my water so I decided I wanted to start working on that aspect of my brewing. I'm starting to think though that it may not be possible as I had thought (thinkin if I just follow the recomendations of the water profile calculator I could duplicate water each brew and make more specific profiles for each style).

Oh well, I'll see how this brew comes out and then decide how to procede.

 

[Sarrsipius]

So my memory sucks. The additions I used for 5 Gal of RO/DI water were:
CaSO4: 17g
MgSO4: 10.7g
CaCl: .8g
NaHCO3: 4.6g
CaCO3: 3.8g

I went back and re-read Ch. 15 of Palmer's book and also reviewed the primer. I feel confident that the film I asked about in my original post was probably chalk and it's apparent that I don't need to add that to the sparge water anyway. If I were to do it over the only thing I would change at this point would be to eliminate the chalk in the HLT water.

When I said my water is very very hard I meant my tap water. Not the mixed water as that was made from RO/DI. I've never had that film when using tap water cut with RO in the past so I'm confident it was as the result of what I was doing with the mixed water.

We'll see how this brew turns out and I'll make adjustments from there. Thanks again for all the feedback. This is part of the fun of brewing. Just when you have everything figured out there is a new element to explore and experiment with!