How do you treat your water?

[kdreese]

I used to buy all my water because I never trusted the ancient water pipes in Philadelphia. Now I live where the water system is much better and it has me looking into how people treat their water.

I'm interested to hear how other people deal with city water in what city they live in.

 

[tjmac5071]

Contact the town for a water report and ask about the source water, if it is consistent or changes during the year. My town pulls from a ton of sources and it changes frequently so I decided it was easier to spend 25cents a gallon at a fill your own spring water place with great water for brewing.

 

[Steveruch]

Contact the town for a water report and ask about the source water.

Also ask if they use chlorine or chloramines.
I used to filter all my water until I checked and found out my water company uses chlorine. Now I just leave the volume of water I'll need set uncovered overnight. About all I ever do to treat my water is mix it 50/50 with distilled water when I brew a Czech pilsner.

 

[whovous]

I installed a small RO system and build up my water from scratch.

 

[Kampenken]

.. I'm interested to hear how other people deal with city water in what city they live in.

In Lansdale here in Montco. My water source I'm told is consistently from one reservoir and the water company provided me a report and thanks for the reminder to ask for a new one! I use these report values with Bru'n Water to adjust my water per style I'm brewing. All I read is the most critical is pH, the rest is nice, and I do aim for these other levels, but pH is key I've read.

 

[kdreese]

This is going back to my pool operator days but the only difference between chlorine is chloramines is that chloramines have been attached to ammoni molecules. Which may be benifficial to drinking water but has similar affects in brewing as chlorine. Both or meant to kill living organisms that can make us sick but can also kill yeast or provide off flavors. The guy at the home brew store said the same thing about leaving the water sit for a day for chlorine. (I don't believe this works as good with chloramines) and the half life of chlorine is ridiculously long especially if not exposed to direct sunlight (like a pool) and I believe GAC filters will in fact remove both chlorine and chloramines. Thoughts?

 

[kdreese]

I've heard pH is most important. I guess finding out the consistency of the source is step one. Thanks!

 

[kdreese]

What RO system do you use?

Is it hooked to a sink or your house or is it stand alone?

Do you have any issues if you use it only periodically to brew?

And how fast can you fill your system?

Thanks!

 

[whovous]

What RO system do you use?

Is it hooked to a sink or your house or is it stand alone?

Do you have any issues if you use it only periodically to brew?

And how fast can you fill your system?

Thanks!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I0ZGOZM/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

It is hooked to my sink. The biggest issue for me is that I don't have a lot of room there with both a garbage disposal and an Insta-hot already installed.

I use it only periodically to brew. I get a little over three gallons at a time from it. Typically, I draw three gallons the day before I brew, and a few more on brewing day. I don't know how long it takes to refill, though I suppose it is at least a few hours. It probably would not be big enough for those who brew 10 or more gallons at a time, but I like the peace of mind it gives me for my small batches. I don't trust DC city water.

 

[ajdelange]

The differences between chlorine and chloramine are pretty fully set out at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=361073
with tips on how to tell whether you have chloramine or not and what to do about it if you do.

The pH of the water itself is not terribly important as long as it is within reasonable bounds and you know what the alkalinity is and how to control it.

For your survey: I take the easy way out and process all my brewing water through an RO system.

 

[dyqik]

I've heard pH is most important. I guess finding out the consistency of the source is step one. Thanks!

Mash pH is important. To oversimplify things, the water's pH is not so important, but the amount of alkalinity is, as that's what determines mash pH.

How stable the water's pH is _may_ tell you how stable mash pH will be, but for low alkalinity water, the water pH may well vary with small variations in the mineral content and alkalinity, and result in only much smaller variations in the mash pH.

For water treatment - I use half a campden tab in 5 gallons to remove chloramine (twice the commonly recommended amount, because my town often goes overboard with the chloramine, and I've had the PVC taste that results from the ). I have moderate mineral levels and alkalinity, so I don't bother adjusting the mineral content or dilute for typical ales, I only use mineral additions or RO dilution for beers that need very low minerals or a lot of sulfate.

I use lactic acid for mash pH control and sparge water acidification (typically around 0.5ml per gallon is required for the mash in my case).

 

[IslandLizard]

Not gently... I must admit.
I splash, pour, pump, dump, shake, stir, whisk, beat, and spill it. It also gets heated, even boiled, for hours, then chilled rapidly, and occasionally frozen after which it sometimes gets ground up, smacked on the floor, or hammered... Now I think about it, I feel terrible.

+1 on using RO water (bought or self-generated) if your water composition fluctuates much, or contains large amounts of minerals making it unsuitable for brewing (or other uses) as is.

To remove all chlorine within minutes, I stir a nip, yep, that's 1/2 a smidgen, a 1/4 pinch, 1/64 tsp (think about it, 1/16 of 1/4 tsp !) of Kmeta powder in 5 gallons of water. You could use 1/4 Campden tablet instead, which in some cases could be considered an "overdose." If your water company uses Chloramine to the max, you may need to double the amount, which really isn't all that much to start with.

 

[TorMag]

I talked to the brewers at a couple of local micro breweries, both places said our water is great and all they do is filter it. So that is what I do. I bought an RV water filter and drinking water hose on Amazon.

http://amzn.to/2hM6TSA

http://amzn.to/2iEytWl

 

[highland_brewer]

I sent out a sample of my water to Ward labs and got a complete water profile. As a few of the others have stated my most common additions would be lactic acid. I also use gypsum and some calcium chloride depending on what type of beer I use the bru'n water spreadsheet. I do not filter I do use campden tablets the water profile seems to be perfect for Porters and Stouts I've had up to 89% efficiency on those styles straight out of the tap no additions.

 

[z-bob]

I use a mix of city water and RO water, and sometimes I use just RO water. The city water is very alkaline and is only suitable for brewing stouts and porters without a lot of work. One of these days I'm going to figure out how to decarbonate it using slaked lime.

I treat any city water with vitamin C to neutralize the chloramine. I have a big bottle of expired vitamins.

 

[Steveruch]

This is going back to my pool operator days but the only difference between chlorine is chloramines is that chloramines have been attached to ammoni molecules. Which may be benifficial to drinking water but has similar affects in brewing as chlorine. Both or meant to kill living organisms that can make us sick but can also kill yeast or provide off flavors. The guy at the home brew store said the same thing about leaving the water sit for a day for chlorine. (I don't believe this works as good with chloramines)

Chloramines don't gas off like chlorine and need to be reapplied less often making them cheaper to use.

 

[Radboud]

What RO system do you use?

Is it hooked to a sink or your house or is it stand alone?

Do you have any issues if you use it only periodically to brew?

And how fast can you fill your system?

Thanks!

I have a small portable 3 stage system (kind a like the HbrewO RObrew thing but tinkered together myself for far less money) which can produce about 2gal/hr. When I just got it after using it I left it alone for a few weeks and when I wanted to use it again the waste water smelled really bad, upon inspection a biofilm had formed on the inside of the RO filter housing. Once I cleaned that it was fine again. Now I flush it every week or so. I get 11ppm of total dissolved solids which I was told is typical for my system.

 

[Kampenken]

..The pH of the water itself is not terribly important as long as it is within reasonable bounds and you know what the alkalinity is and how to control it.

For your survey: I take the easy way out and process all my brewing water through an RO system.

Yes I understand the pH of the water isn't the most important, rather that of the mash developed, and then the sparge water as well (I use Bru'n Water).

My alkalinity is low(ish) at 51 (Mg/L) reported by water company (I wonder how frequently and to what degree that changes?). Two questions, is this considered low to you? And reading how to measure alkalinity, it appears you need a pH meter as well as titrate sulfuric and/or hydrochloric acids, is this a test home brewers should/can take on, or left to a lab? The titration doesn't sound complex (I can count ) but not sure in practice how this works.

...How stable the water's pH is _may_ tell you how stable mash pH will be, but for low alkalinity water, the water pH may well vary with small variations in the mineral content and alkalinity, and result in only much smaller variations in the mash pH.

I use lactic acid for mash pH control and sparge water acidification (typically around 0.5ml per gallon is required for the mash in my case).

Same thing, what is low alkalinity water to you? Mine is 51mg/L.
Yup, I use lactic too to maintain Mash & Sparge pH. I do think since the last year of using Bru'n Water I've improved beer quality, especially on the lighter colored beers (no surprise I'm guessing)!

 

[dyqik]

Same thing, what is low alkalinity water to you? Mine is 51mg/L.
Yup, I use lactic too to maintain Mash & Sparge pH. I do think since the last year of using Bru'n Water I've improved beer quality, especially on the lighter colored beers (no surprise I'm guessing)!

I was thinking of what used to be my water in Arlington, MA, from the Boston MWRA system, which is around 40-43 mg/L CaCO3 (0.8 mEq/L*), and pH 9.4-9.6 last month. You can get full reports for that from the MWRA, including what looks like ~daily samples of alkalinity and pH graphed for the year - e.g. page 6 of http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/monthly/wqupdate/pdf/cy2016/122016.pdf

Now I'm in Maynard, on the town system, with a Ward Labs result of 86 mg/L CaCO3 (1.63 mEq/L) for alkalinity, although I know the water varies a fair bit through the year. Using lactic with Bru'n'water and my new pH meter on Sunday, I aimed for pH 5.4 in an ESB, and got 5.31 at room temp, so pretty good, I think, given the variation in grain and water.

*yes, AJ, I did read your post about mEq/L. Hope I got this right...