Is adding 1 gram/Gallon to my city water enough for a fairly good profile?

[MockY]

I have about 30 batches of full grain under my belt at this point and I have always been using store bought water from the machine they provide. As far as I understand, this is RO water and pretty much gives someone a clean slate in terms of building up a water profile.
I however have never done anything with this water and used it as-is, and I have started to see a pattern of result with my beer. Amber and stouts pretty much always turn out great but Pale Ales and IPAs generally comes out with a very harsh hop flavor, even in the lower IBU beers, with a multitude of off flavors. Nothing off putting but yet not where I want it to be.

I'm trying to get to the bottom of this and I now think water is the main culprit. So to test this theory, I'm switching fully to city water. I have yet to receive the report for 2014, but past reports look fairly similar, so I will go with 2013 report to have at least a start. You can find their report here:
http://www.cityofwestsacramento.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=10741

I entered the provided information into the Bru'n Water spreadsheet, and from the look of things, all I need to add is 1 gram of Gypsum per gallon of water as well as use part of a Campden tab to remove the Chlorine or Chloramine (I could not gather which one they use using the report).

I need a little help in order to interpret the report the city is providing. Is my analysis somewhat accurate?

As a side note, an employee at my LHS, uses 2/3 store bought water and 1/3 city water which he filters with a water filter which most stores seems to have for around $50. He then adds 5.2 pH Stabilizer to the grains after the dough in. His results according to him are great all the time.

I would like to know what method I should use. I prefer not to add yet another piece of equipment to my never ending list (hurts to spend money).

 

[agrazela]

IMO that's some mighty nice water you got there. Your tap water may as well be RO water compared to my tap water, I'd have to dilute with 75-80% RO to get down to your calcium, sodium and hardness levels.

I would want to know more about the alkalinity of your tap water, but I'd assume that it's probably pretty low in bicarbonates.

And you can be sure it's treated with chloramine, so I would suggest the campden (metabisulfite).

 

[edroberts]

pH 5.2 stabilizer only works for a very specific water profile. In most cases it's basically a false help.

I agree, your water is pretty darn good. RO wouldn't remove much from the water as there isn't a lot in the way of minerals to begin with. Gypsum would definitely help as it would add calcium to your water. Most pale profiles I've seen usually call for around 140 ppm of CA, and you're at 7.5.

My water is very hard with bi-carbonate at 300 ppm. I add a little lactic acid to my mash water (1mL/gal) to drop the pH and add 40% distilled water to help cut the hard water. Without these steps, most of my pales have a mash pH 6.2 - 6.3.

 

[MockY]

I was just gifted a recent water report of the tap water my city provides. Thanks to the very talented and hugely generous Bike Dog Brewery (just around the corner from my house), I now have more precise and up to date numbers. The report was conducted by Ward Laboratories in October, and some of the numbers look like this:

PH = 8.1
Sodium, Na = 11
Potassium, K = 1
Calcium, Ca = 12
Magnesium, Mg = 6
Total Hardness, CaCO3 = 55
Nitrate, NO3-N < 0.1
Sulfate, SO4-S = 2
Chloride, Cl = 6
Carbonate, CO3 < 1.0
Bicarbonate, HCO3 = 78
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 = 65
Total Phosphorus, P = 1.09
Total Iron, Fe = < 0.01

So I should not even add Gypsum to this water? The calcium level seems a bit low, and the PH much to high. If I only should add campden to remove the chloramine, then I feel like I just struck gold and I have wasted little over 30 batches of beer.

EDIT: Using EZ Water Calculator using what I will brew tonight, the estimated room-temp Mash went to 5.56, and that without treating the water at all. The desired range is 5.4-5.6. Adding 5 grams of Gypsum gets it to 5.51, which is in the middle of the range. Should I even bother doing anything to my water?

 

[AerationStation]

You'll wanna up the Ca to 50ppm minimum, which means adding CaSO4 or CaCl2. Id suggest a mixture of them to avoid pushing your sulfate/chloride ratio to far in one direction. Too much sulfate will give a harsh bitterness and too much chloride can tend to give a sort of rounded "flabby" flavor (sorry I dont have a better adjective haha)

The water pH really doesn't matter because the malt will set up a buffer system to stabilize the mash pH. What does matter is your bicarbonate level, which is in the low -mid range. Bicarbonate will push the pH of the mash up and out of range if not accounted for. You can acidify with those calcium salts usually. You might also need acid to get it neutralized completly.

Just plug these numbers in to your perferred profiler and it should spit out what you need to add. Just remember to add to both strike and sparge water!

 

[MockY]

Thank you AerationStation for the directions.

In EZ Water Calculator, for 9 gallons of total water for batch sparge (4 mash, and 5 sparge) I added my grain bill (fairly light as it's a Pale Ale) as well as 3 grams of Gypsum and 3 grams of Calcium Chloride. The final number the calculator spit out are as follows:
Calcium = 110
Magnesium = 6
Sodium = 11
Chloride = 102
Sulfate = 117
Chloride/Sulfate ratio = 0.87

Everything is green except Magnesium. After looking around, most voices says to stay away from adding any magnesium, even if it's low as it can have to much of an effect. The benefit seems to be aiding in the fermentation as the yeast apparently loves it.

So from the look of things, adding 3 grams Gypsum and 3 grams Calcium Chloride to all the water while heating it up seems to be a great improvement from where I originally came from (untreated store bought water only).

EDIT: Added the missing 0 for calcium, as AerationStation pointed out

 

[AerationStation]

Calcium = 11

I'm assuming you're missing a 0 here, 110 is right in the middle for Ca so that's good. Mg2+ levels being low could have an impact on the health of the yeast over the course of several generations but personally I don't worry about it.

Make sure you're in the right estimated pH range in your program for the mash as well. When you go to brew you'll want to make sure to check the room temp pH(not mash temp pH) as that is what most strips and meters calibrate to.

You may find you're pH is a little higher or lower than software suggests when you actually go to brew. It's fine, just record the pH over a few batches (of the same beer), average the +\- change from the expected, and adjust your additions accordingly (ie, adjust a little higher or lower than the mash pH says in the program).

Lastly consider pushing the sulfate/chloride ratio (S/C) more towards sulfate for hoppier beers that want to be a little crisper. For your pale ale maybe 3.5g CaSO4 and 2.5g CaCl2.

You can also push the S/C ratio towards chloride to round off the bitterness. This will allow the malt flavors of you're more malt forward beers to shine through.

Adjusting water is tricky and takes alot of repetition and patience to nail. The more you do it the easier it will be to adjust. Once you've got it down though, it can really amp up your beers.

Best of luck!

 

[MockY]

Thank you all so much for your help and advice.

Considering I used to use untreated store bought RO water, I assume that I will see a huge difference in the finished beer. If I don't..well, at least I save money and effort of not having to buy water anymore.

This turned out to be a good day as I've now gained this information.

 

[MockY]

EZ Water Calculator and Bru'n Water differ greatly in the result using the same information. I simply have to play around with both to see why they differ, but EZ Water Calculator seem to be more straight forward and harder to screw up, so I'm going to trust that one for now.

 

[AerationStation]

I use EZ personally, but all the software calculates the acidic contribution of kilned malts slightly different so any numbers they come out with are only estimates

 

[klaggy]

I was informed here in folsom that for an amber ale or of the like...3.5g calcium chloride and 5 g gypsum in the mash and same amount in the the brew kettlefor a 6.5 gallon boil volume..... I must say Hit the mark and made for a very good beer... If folsom and west sacramento is about similar...

 

[MockY]

I assume the entire city of Folsom gets their water from the lake, which is a reservoir filled by the river. Then we have pretty much the same water source since West Sac grabs its water from the river. But the two cities probably treat their water differently, or the lake itself changes the chemistry of the water.
If I added 5g Gypsum and 3.5g Calcium Chloride, my water profile would go outside optimal range. That hints that the water that comes out of our faucets is slightly different even though the source is essentially the same since that is the only addition you made to the water.

Davis on the other hand, which is located just 12 miles away have terrible water. They use groundwater as their source, and I have no idea what they do to treat it, but it tastes foul...something many of the Davis residents I know agree with. I'm lucky it's not reversed.