Newbie needs help with water additions

[Chris-18]

Hey all,

So I have been reading a few books about brewing science lately, and water chemistry keeps coming up as vitally important. I never really bothered with water chemistry, as the water we have here in Denmark where I live, is neither chlorinated or anything nasty, like I ha e experienced abroad, so I figured it was fine as it is.

However, I have been checking the local water source lab analysis, and some stuff is quite interesting, but I don't know how to interpret the data, in terms of what I need to treat or add to the water.

All I know for sure, is that we have a very high bicarbonate level here, it's 353 mg/l.

Can any of you give me some advice on what to do with the water we have, in terms of any additions I need to put in the water etc?

The lab data is:
pH 7,6
Calcium: 110 mg/l
Natrium (sodium): 18 mg/l
Chloride: 33 mg/l
Bicarbonate: 353 mg/l
Sulphate: 43 mg/l

Thanks!

 

[mabrungard]

Pre-boiling that water will result in a huge amount of sediment in the kettle. The water decanted off the sediment will be far better for brewing than the tap water. That is a simple treatment that you can employ. Lime softening is another method, but it takes more equipment and knowledge.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

For the case of using your water straight-up: Depending upon what you are brewing, and how big your batches are, you may have to add up to about 200 grams (7 ounces) of acidulated malt (Sauermalz) to the grist to knock out that much alkalinity and bring the mash pH into a decent range (for the example of a light colored beer, with an anticipated 7 gallons collected pre-boil). The rest of the numbers look fine.

If you are extract brewing none of this will likely matter. The starch to sugar conversion is already complete for that case.

 

[ajdelange]

You have about 5.8 mEq/L alkalinity (balanced by about 5.5 mEq/L calcium hardness). This is far too much for most brewing purposes and the usual advice would be to throw it away and use RO water. You would install a water softener and connect the RO system to the output of that.

There is really nothing you can add to this water to make it acceptable for brewing except perhaps a lot of slaked lime which will cause much of the alkalinity (about 4.8 mEq/L) to precipitate taking the same amount of hardness with it. Heating to near boiling or boiling will have the same effect but is even more of a nuisance than lime softening.

It has recently occured to me (see Sticky) that one might be able to add sufficient (about 5.2 mEq/L) phosphoric acid to a mash made with this water on the basis that malt contains so much phosphate already that a dose of even this size might not be noticeable.

No matter how you look at it this is not good water.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

AJ, putting aside for a moment whether this is sensible and practical or not, for a mash using 5 gallons of this water, would on the order of ~65 ml of 10% phosphoric acid be required here? Ditto, about ~6 ml of 88% lactic acid? Ditto about 7 ounces of acidulated malt (malt laced with lactic acid)?

This may have some relevance: In a recent Brulosophy experiment 19 ml of 88% lactic acid was added to the mash water of a 5 gallon batch which was brewed side by side with an otherwise identical batch that did not contain the lactic acid, and a panel of 22 testers could not statistically distinguish between them.

http://brulosophy.com/2017/01/30/wa...he-impact-of-low-mash-ph-exbeeriment-results/

 

[ajdelange]

AJ, putting aside for a moment whether this is sensible and practical or not, for a mash using 5 gallons of this water, would on the order of ~65 ml of 10% phosphoric acid be required here? Ditto, about ~6 ml of 88% lactic acid? Ditto about 7 ounces of acidulated malt (malt laced with lactic acid)?

Since he has about 5.8 mEq/L alkalinity he's going to need about 90% of that, 5.22 mEq of acid for each liter treated. If he mashes a 20L (~5 gal) batch with 15 L of water he'd then need 78 mEq of acid. As 88% lactic acid is about 11.5 N to mash pH that implies he'd need 6.8 mL of that. Note that this is for the water alone. Additional would be needed to overcome the alkalinity of the malts. As 10% phophoric acid is approximately normal he'd need 68 mL of that (for the water alone).

 

[Chris-18]

You have about 5.8 mEq/L alkalinity (balanced by about 5.5 mEq/L calcium hardness). This is far too much for most brewing purposes and the usual advice would be to throw it away and use RO water. You would install a water softener and connect the RO system to the output of that.

There is really nothing you can add to this water to make it acceptable for brewing except perhaps a lot of slaked lime which will cause much of the alkalinity (about 4.8 mEq/L) to precipitate taking the same amount of hardness with it. Heating to near boiling or boiling will have the same effect but is even more of a nuisance than lime softening.

It has recently occured to me (see Sticky) that one might be able to add sufficient (about 5.2 mEq/L) phosphoric acid to a mash made with this water on the basis that malt contains so much phosphate already that a dose of even this size might not be noticeable.

No matter how you look at it this is not good water.

That's a bummer.

However a RO system is just not in my budget. The cheapest system available here that is approved for food use, costs more than $1500 and that's way way outside my budget.

I have tried to use acid malt before, since my mash pH is always too high (5,5-5,8), and the time I used it, I actually hit the target pH.
I could buy distilled water and use AccuMash water minerals, but again we are looking at a cost of over $40 for a 20L batch, and that's just the water.

I have had some trouble making a good IPA, they always end up more bitter than I expect, so maybe the high bicarbonate level is why. Might experiment with some lactic acid as well in the future.

 

[Horseflesh]

Even with international shipping, you could buy an RO system from the US and save $1000.

 

[NSMikeD]

Even with international shipping, you could buy an RO system from the US and save $1000.

I use an RO/DI unit that I connect to the faucet in my kitchen sink to make water for my reef aquarium. I make 10 gallons at a time. It takes 3 hours and the unit cost under US$100. At 10 gallons every two weeks, the cartridges should last more than two years before needing replacement

When I am done, I disconnect the unit and store it away.

i can also buy ro/di water from my local aquarium shop for less than US$1/gal


Given that the US reef hobby gets most of its ideas from the European hobbyists, I would think these portable economic units are available in Europe since they share the same water concerns and budget constraints.

See if you can find a local aquarium shop that carries live corals (i.e., saltwater reef). They would likely have suggestions since their clients would need inexpensive ro/di water on a regular basis

 

[ajdelange]

That's a bummer.

However a RO system is just not in my budget. The cheapest system available here that is approved for food use, costs more than $1500 and that's way way outside my budget.

Don't despair. You still have some options. You could decarbonate by heating or lime addition. You could try phosphoric acid. You could dilute with some RO after decarbonation etc.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

My homes well water has 532 mg/L Bicarbonate. I recently brewed using it at 1/3 well, plus 2/3 RO, plus lactic acid. The beer was dull at 2 weeks into bottle carbonation, but now I'm at nearly 4 weeks of bottle carbonating and it is turning out to be quite good. It's nearing time for me to take it down to about 34 degrees F., and "bottle lager" it for a few weeks. The process of blending the well and RO plus acidification was actually more work than just using 100% RO with minerals, and in the end I had serious concerns regarding iron and manganese.

The batch I currently have in the fermenter (an amber lager, roughly 15 SRM) was made from straight RO water and added minerals, with no acidification (sans for very mild acidification of the sparge water), and no added bicarb. This will be my process from here forward. Beers at other color levels will for me require acid (lighter color) or bicarb (darker color).