LLBeanJ
Well-Known Member
It can be a bit complicated and I am by no means an expert. In fact, I probably know just enough to be dangerous. There are a couple of resident water experts on the forum who hang out in the Brew Science subforum who can answer specific questions and offer guidance.
To begin with, it requires knowing the mineral profile of your brewing water, which can usually be obtained from your municipal water provider or you can send a sample to a lab (e.g. Ward Labs) for analysis. Absent that, you could buy reverse osmosis (RO) or distilled water, which is essentially mineral free and then build it up from scratch using various salts/acid.
Once you have your water's profile, you can use one of the online spreadsheets/calculators (e.g. Bru'n Water, EZ Water, Northern Brewer's water calculator) to input your water profile, grain bill, mash thickness, and sparge volume to get a relatively close idea of where your pH will fall. The sweet spot is usually in the 5.2-5.4 range. If it falls outside of the range, you can add different salts to raise or lower the pH. Acid (usually lactic or phosphoric) and acidulated malt can be added to lower the pH. It's not uncommon to need a combination of salts and acid to get it where you want it. The style of brew will also play into the final water profile you should be aiming for, but pH control is the primary goal.
Finally, if you're tweaking your water you should have a reliable way to measure the pH so that you can verify what you ended up with is what you wanted. For that you can use test strips (not all that accurate, but better than nothing) or a pH meter.
For more info, take a look at the Brewing Water Chemistry Primer in the sticky in the Brew Science forum. It will get you pointed in the right direction.
To begin with, it requires knowing the mineral profile of your brewing water, which can usually be obtained from your municipal water provider or you can send a sample to a lab (e.g. Ward Labs) for analysis. Absent that, you could buy reverse osmosis (RO) or distilled water, which is essentially mineral free and then build it up from scratch using various salts/acid.
Once you have your water's profile, you can use one of the online spreadsheets/calculators (e.g. Bru'n Water, EZ Water, Northern Brewer's water calculator) to input your water profile, grain bill, mash thickness, and sparge volume to get a relatively close idea of where your pH will fall. The sweet spot is usually in the 5.2-5.4 range. If it falls outside of the range, you can add different salts to raise or lower the pH. Acid (usually lactic or phosphoric) and acidulated malt can be added to lower the pH. It's not uncommon to need a combination of salts and acid to get it where you want it. The style of brew will also play into the final water profile you should be aiming for, but pH control is the primary goal.
Finally, if you're tweaking your water you should have a reliable way to measure the pH so that you can verify what you ended up with is what you wanted. For that you can use test strips (not all that accurate, but better than nothing) or a pH meter.
For more info, take a look at the Brewing Water Chemistry Primer in the sticky in the Brew Science forum. It will get you pointed in the right direction.
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