My water. What does it mean

[Srceenplay]

His is my city water. I know it's hard because I have a water softener.
Should I brew with the softener on or off?
I'm very ignorant when it comes to this stuff.


Alkalinity. 324. Mg/l
Calcium. 120. Mg/l
Chloride. 100. Mg/l
Corrosivitiy. .28. Lang
Hardness. 390. Mg/l
Iron. .024. Mg/l
Magnesium. 22. Mg/l
Manganese. .0013. Mg/l
Nickel. .003. Mg/l
Ph. 7.3. Ph
Phosphorus. .083. Mg/l
Potassium. 2.3. Mg/l
Silica. 27. Mg/l
Sodium. 90. Mg/l
Sulfate. 85. Mg/l
TDS. 650. Mg/l

 

[ajdelange]

The presence of a water softener is sometimes more an indication of a slick salesman than of hard water but that is not the case here. Your water is genuinely hard. More problematical is the high level of alkalinity.

Softening is detrimental to brewing as it reduces the calcium and magnesium which have a pH lowering effect but does not touch alkalinity which has a pH raising effect. As recently as a couple of years back you would have been given advice on how to soften/decarbonate this water with heat or lime. Today you are more likely to be advised to effectively abandon this water by high level dilution with RO or DI water.

 

[Srceenplay]

So I have to stop brewing with this water and start buying store water??

What problems will the water cause me? High ph which will cause tannin extraction?

 

[ajdelange]

"Stop brewing" implies that you are brewing with it now. How are the beers?

The main concern with this water is the high level of alkalinity. This is offset to some extent by a lot of calcium but even so the residual alkalinity is over 200 and the probably pH shift from this is around + 0.38. Thus if you use a base malt with distilled water mash pH of 5.75 (typical) you could expect mash pH of over 6. This is way to high. Yes, you might get a drinkable beer but it would be pretty dull and uninteresting.

Alteratives are

1. Decarbonate by heating or lime treatment.
2. Add enough acid to neutralize all the bicarbonate (this replaces it with the anion of the acid you use
3. Dilute with low ion water to the point where alkalinity is reduced to around 30

The last is the simplest on brew day but does require that you obtain low ion water from some source prior to brew day.

And yes, the water used for sparging will have to be decarbonated too or there will be tannin extraction.

 

[Srceenplay]

Only doing extract brews with steeping grains now. Just brewed my first pm this past weekend.

I've had 3 beers that I've brewed come to age. First one I made way to many mistakes. In drinkable and I dumped it.

Second one was fat Sam, a recipe from here. Has a weird bitter bite.

Third is Hopnog ipa. It also was has the weird bitter bite.

The second and third beers taste all most the same to me because of the bite. That is why I'm wondering about my water.

I have another ipa fermenting right now that I brewed with the softer off.
I'm also fermenting a midnight wheat stout with the softer on. Thought I'd try that to play with the water a bit. Won't know the results of this for a month or so yet.

Thanks for your time explaining this to me!!

 

[ajdelange]

The consequences in an extract brew are not as serious as they are with all grain as, presumably, the extract manufacturer used suitable water when he produced the extract. Nevertheless you will doubtless get a better result with softer water.

 

[flabyboy]

I'm in the same boat as the OP. I have Alkalinity of 280. All that darned limestone in the area.

 

[Srceenplay]

I'm in the same boat as the OP. I have Alkalinity of 280. All that darned limestone in the area.

So do you use your water as is or go a different route? Do you notice the effects on your beer?

 

[mabrungard]

That water is generally too mineralized for making decent beers. That weird taste is a consequence of that mineralization. Cutting the water as AJ recommended is probably the best solution since the sodium, sulfate, and chloride are all at levels I would consider at the upper limit. The combination of those ions IS detrimental to beer flavor and perception.

 

[Yooper]

1. Decarbonate by heating or lime treatment.

Could you guys "guestimate" the probable carbonate level if boiling and racking off the precipitate was done?

 

[Srceenplay]

Is there a thread, if it's even possible, to see what the limit of each of these variables are? I know different styles call for different waters but there still should be a limit right or even a sweet spot.

Say I found my brothers water report, he lives a town over. I could look at this "limit list" and see how good or bad it is?

Sorry that this might not make sense but I really don't know what I'm talking about. Just thinking a reference might make life easy for me.

 

[ajdelange]

The general rule of thumb is that you can decarbonate/soften down to about 1 mEq/L i.e. 50 ppm as CaCO3 akalinity and 50 ppm as hardness. You can do a bit better with the alkalinity by making sure there is excess calcium and by adding some finely powdered chalk to serve as nucleation sites. Since after decarbonating this way you would want to supplement the calcium (to make up for the calcium dropped as the carbonate) I recommend doing that before the heating or lime treatment.

Ca++ + 2HCO3- ---> CaCO3 + CO2 + H2O

It's a simple matter of Le Chatelier's principle - boosting calcium on the left to push the reaction to the right.

 

[ajdelange]

Is there a thread, if it's even possible, to see what the limit of each of these variables are? I know different styles call for different waters but there still should be a limit right or even a sweet spot.

I came up with this chart a few years back:

ResAlk.JPG photo - A. J. deLange photos at pbase.com

I don't think it completely scratches you itch but it does give a partial picture of the relative properties of various waters WRT alkalinity, hardness and RA which are pretty important. It says nothing to sulfate or chloride.

With modern techniques it seems that perhaps the problem is not so multidimensional. You must establish mash pH and you can do that with or without the aid of a lot of calcium. If you do it with the beer will have a mineral characteristic. If you do it wihout (i.e. rely solely on acid) it won't. Then there is the question of sulfate and hops. Are the hops assertive or aren't they? And that leaves the question of chloride. Chloride character is a bit harder to describe - full bodied, sweet, round... And I guess a final property is "salty". If the beer is salty you'd want lots of sodium.

You can also research the beer and the area it is made in, read the AHA monograph on the style, visit breweries that brew the style and/or ask homebrewers who do it how they treat their water.

 

[Srceenplay]

Well I don't know If I completely understand all of that, gonna have to buy a book and teach myself I guess. From what I did gather my alkalinity is off the charts.

So it wouldn't be possible to state a value for anything as being too high as everything is decided based soley on proportions to each other?
What about alkalinity? Is there not a limit on that?

 

[flabyboy]

So do you use your water as is or go a different route? Do you notice the effects on your beer?

I've always used bottled spring water. Water chemistry is a new venture for me. Your not going to be able to use that water for lighter beers

 

[flabyboy]

Well I don't know If I completely understand all of that, gonna have to buy a book and teach myself I guess. From what I did gather my alkalinity is off the charts.

So it wouldn't be possible to state a value for anything as being too high as everything is decided based soley on proportions to each other?
What about alkalinity? Is there not a limit on that?

You could buy a reverse osmosis system for a couple hundred bucks. Otherwise you can buy some RO water and just cut that water down to more manageable levels

 

[ajdelange]

From what I did gather my alkalinity is off the charts.

Yes, it is and that should tell you something about the suitability of this water for brewing. Yet you could make beer with it. Not perhaps great beer but drinkable beer.

So it wouldn't be possible to state a value for anything as being too high as everything is decided based soley on proportions to each other?

You may have seen that the taste of beer depends on the ratio of chloride to sulfate and been lead to believe that beer made from water with 1 mg/L each of chloride and sulfate (ratio 1:1) would be the same as one made with water with 200 mg/L of each (still 1:1). This should strike you as absurd because it is absurd. Now there is the restriction that cations and anions charges must be equal which means that you cannot increase, say sulfate unless you increase some cation (sodium, calcium, magnesium). But there are no sharply defined lines beyond which an ion is "too much". As the chart shows, beers are brewed over quite a range of hardnesses and alkalinities. Anything off the chart could be considered "too much" but that would be an arbitrary definition.

To complicate things there are matters of personal preference. I most enjoy beers made with low sulfate water that come from the lower left hand corner ot the chart. Others here like beers from the lower right hand part of the chart with sulfate levels up to 300 mg/L. Does that mean 310 or 320 or 380 is too much sulfate? I don't think so. You can find in brewing texts statements such as "at levels above 300 mg/L chloride lends a pasty taste to beer". Presumably in that author's opinion 400 mg/L chloride would be too much.

 

[Srceenplay]

Well thanks for the help. Discouraging that my water needs work. Maybe I can talk to the wife in getting an RO system for under the sink.
Bad thing is, she all ways buys bottled water and I give her crap about it. " water is water ,you can never tell the difference. "
Till the I guess I will be buying jugs of water at the store.
Again thanks for your time.

 

[ResumeMan]

Well on the plus side you can now acknowledge that she was right all along That might buy you a little grace in arguing for the expensive water upgrade!

 

[ajdelange]

If Mrs is buying jug water anyway and you are contemplating brewing with it then it seems you are good candidates for an RO system. These cost anywhere from a bit over $100 up to several K depending on how fancy you get, the capacity you install, how big a pressure tank (if you use one)...

 

[solbes]

You have all the numbers in your water report that you need. First I would download the EZ water calculator 3.0 from this forum. All you need is Excel. You plug your numbers in , your beer recipe, salts/acid additions, and it outputs your mash pH, hardness, suflate, chloride, etc.

I have similar water to yours but with 2/3 the alkalinity, more hardness, and less chloride/sulfates. I plugged your numbers in for a typical Pale Ale recipe. If you add half unsoftened water with half RO water (Can usually refill for .40-.50/gallon at grocery stores), you have pretty good water. You will need some lactic acid or acidulated malt to drop your mash pH and offset the alkalinity. In your case, it recommended 3 mL of 88% lactic acid (which you can buy at your local brew shop). You don't want to add a lot of Lactic as you will reach a flavor threshold at some point. 3 mL should not be a problem though.

Can't seem to post the picture very well. But it would be mash pH of 5.52, 60 ppm calcium, 11 ppm magnesium, 45 ppm sodium, 50 pps chloride, and 43 ppm sulfate.

 

[ajdelange]

Diluting 1:1 with DI water will cut every ion concentration approximately in half. Adding 3 mL of 88% lactic acid would lower the pH to 6.28 but the alkalinity would still be 123 and the residual alkalinity 74. Thus the mash pH would be approximately 0.12 pH higher than the distilled water mash pH (base malt only mash). IOW 3 mL isn't enough to knock out all that alkalinity (6.47 mEq/L). To 0 the residual alkalinity yoy would need more like 6.87 mL - enough to taste.

If you contemplate making ales with water this alkaline then you should do as the Brits do and use sulfuric and/or hydrochloric acids. These will replace the 6.47 mEq of alkalinity with 6.47 mEq/L SO4-- and Cl- ions. Those do, of course, effect flavor but in a way that is acceptable for British ales.

This does not mean that I recommend you go to the hardware and auto parts store. I specifically recommend that you do not do that. Those acids should only be used if a food grade product like CRS is available (and it isn't this side of the pond) and you are trained in the safe handling of strong acids.

It is much safer and much easier to simply dilute more than 1:1 with RO.

 

[Srceenplay]

So don't go strait RO because then I'll have to build it up. Don't dilute 1:1 because it's not enough.
So how much do I want to dilute? I can't use ez cal because I don't have a spread sheet program.

 

[ajdelange]

So don't go strait RO because then I'll have to build it up. Don't dilute 1:1 because it's not enough.
So how much do I want to dilute? I can't use ez cal because I don't have a spread sheet program.

Your alkalinty is 324. That's just a whole lot. We usually like it under 50 and under 30 is better still. An n:1 dulution cuts everything by the factor n+1 so a 9:1 dilution would get your alkalinity down to 32 and that's what I would recommend for you. Now this will also reduce everything else in your water by the same factor so that your calcium, for example, would go from 120 down to 12. That's a bit low so you will need to build it back up by addition of calcium sulfate or calcium chloride or both. See the Primer for guidance on how to do that.

 

[mabrungard]

So don't go strait RO because then I'll have to build it up. Don't dilute 1:1 because it's not enough.
So how much do I want to dilute? I can't use ez cal because I don't have a spread sheet program.

You don't need to own Excel to operate the typical brewing water programs. You can download and install a free spreadsheet program. I recommend a program named LibreOffice and you will find the link to that program on the Bru'n Water website. Bru'n Water will also provide you with much more information on what to adjust with your brewing water, how to do it and why you're doing it. There are no other programs that do that.