I've been brewing for 4 years with local mountain spring water that flows 1 gpm year round. 70 batches and ~400 gallons later I have made a wide range of styles [most of the Belgians, most of the Brits, various Euro lagers, stouts, porters, scotch ales, kolsch, IPAs, IIPAs, APAs...] and I've never paid any attention to water chemistry and have never measured the pH of anything anywhere.
The brews are luckily turning out very close to what I am targeting. I usually use a couple of tsps of gypsum in my mash and batch sparge water when making a hoppy brew and a few times I have only added a Burton salts packet for a hoppy IPA. Not sure, but I think using only the Burton packet produces the better IPA.
After recently joining this forum and reading a lot, I took some spring water to my plumbing supplier who has a HACH drop test kit with the following results: pH 6.5, Total Hardness: 0-1 ppm Iron:0 ppm
They did the 3 tests right on the counter while I watched and said "ain't no problems with your water."
So I am of the opinion, IIABDFI, but I was wondering if you think I should mess with more testing and buying a pH meter or should I just assume my spring water is very soft "RO like" and experiment with some adjustments from that assumption.
Has anyone done a DOE study of mash chemistry that you could point me to?
The brews are luckily turning out very close to what I am targeting. I usually use a couple of tsps of gypsum in my mash and batch sparge water when making a hoppy brew and a few times I have only added a Burton salts packet for a hoppy IPA. Not sure, but I think using only the Burton packet produces the better IPA.
After recently joining this forum and reading a lot, I took some spring water to my plumbing supplier who has a HACH drop test kit with the following results: pH 6.5, Total Hardness: 0-1 ppm Iron:0 ppm
They did the 3 tests right on the counter while I watched and said "ain't no problems with your water."
So I am of the opinion, IIABDFI, but I was wondering if you think I should mess with more testing and buying a pH meter or should I just assume my spring water is very soft "RO like" and experiment with some adjustments from that assumption.
Has anyone done a DOE study of mash chemistry that you could point me to?