Water chemistry
- Thread starter Joon1975
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
Tpost704
Active Member
Living in Tennessee now, but lived in the Joliet/Shorewood area for most of my life. I only did extract batches while I lived there so I'm not sure I have a great answer for you. My suggestion would be to send in a water sample to Ward Labs. There is also a brewery that went in at the Joliet train station. It's called MyGrain brewery. Maybe you could pop in there and pick some peoples brains on the water. Hope you find some answers.
PIEHOLEBREWINGCO
Well-Known Member
Water quality reports are on line unless you are on a well
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2014
- Messages
- 13,403
- Reaction score
- 23,213
Congratulations on your beer improvement quest. Water chemistry makes such a huge difference in the quality of one's beer. Playing with tap water can be challenging so if you have access to cheep RO such as a grocery store fill station, I'd go that route.
You should be able to access an online report but your best bet is to gather a sample and send it in for analysis. There's online resources and other's said it's only $30. The only issue is tap water can change overtime. Sticking with a known base water solves the issue. It cost me $1.75/5gal of RO, worth every penny. I use Brew'n Water for the calculations also. Good luck!
Last edited:
The water were I live at is hard and very cloudy, we never drink it. I always use RO water when I brew but never treat it. The guy at my local
brew shop recommended ACCUMASH. He said added to the RO water when mashing. I’m brewing a Golden as we speak, let’s see how it turns out.
Has anybody use ACCUMASH?
Dcpcooks
Well-Known Member
Are you on Lake Michigan water? If so you have really good water for brewing most styles. All you’d really need to do is remove chlorine.
I know for a fact that pipeworks, off color, begyle don’t do anything more that charcoal filter for chlorine and adjust acid for ph.
I brewed for several years with just a charcoal filter. I’m in Libertyville on lake water.
Eventually I got to where you are now and I decided that I wanted to dive in a bit deeper. I tried playing with additions and used the bruNwater spreadsheet.
Ultimately I ended up with an RO filter from buckeye hydro. It’s very easy to hit ph and salt addition levels with RO. I love the water primer information in the brew science section. It really works well as a simple primer for all styles. I can vouch for the estimated accuracy since I got a good ph meter last year and don’t really need it since my ph is pretty much spot on using RO and the water primer as a guide. So if your really interested in making up water profiles per style I highly suggest an ro set up, bruNwater and a good read of the material covered in the water primer. A good ph meter is nice to have to verify your hitting target levels. It depends on your budget though.
I know for a fact that pipeworks, off color, begyle don’t do anything more that charcoal filter for chlorine and adjust acid for ph.
I brewed for several years with just a charcoal filter. I’m in Libertyville on lake water.
Eventually I got to where you are now and I decided that I wanted to dive in a bit deeper. I tried playing with additions and used the bruNwater spreadsheet.
Ultimately I ended up with an RO filter from buckeye hydro. It’s very easy to hit ph and salt addition levels with RO. I love the water primer information in the brew science section. It really works well as a simple primer for all styles. I can vouch for the estimated accuracy since I got a good ph meter last year and don’t really need it since my ph is pretty much spot on using RO and the water primer as a guide. So if your really interested in making up water profiles per style I highly suggest an ro set up, bruNwater and a good read of the material covered in the water primer. A good ph meter is nice to have to verify your hitting target levels. It depends on your budget though.
Tpost704
Active Member
What brew shop are you going to out there? When I was living there I would always go to Chicago Brew works in Plainfield. Awesome group of people with a lot of knowledge. They have an awesome selection too.
You should add something to your RO water but you will doubtless do just as well or better with a few cents worth of calcium chloride and perhaps a bit of gypsum as well. See the Primer in the stickies in this thread.
Dcpcooks
Well-Known Member
I have not used ACCUmash. It seems like it’s prepackaged brewing salts that are scaled to hit predetermined water profiles. You can do the same thing easily with RO water cacl gypsum and acidulated malt or acid additions. I’m not sure what they charge for the product but I’m assuming it’s more. It may be great and a simple no brainer, don’t know. Since your not on lake water I highly suggest you start with a tds meter and RO from the big box store or get an RO set up for your brewery. I don’t miss going to the store for jugs of water and I don’t miss going to get propane. Electric brewing and a home RO set up is fricking awesome!
It supposedly also buffers to mash pH using what it describes as phosphate buffers. After some correspondence with the manufacturer (who wouldn't tell me what's in it unless I signed an NDA which I wasn't willing to do) I concluded that he was using pyrophosphates (SAPP) because orthophosphates don't buffer at mash pH.
Hey guys, still trying to get info on water chemistry. I’m going to start using Lake Michigan water and here is the profile:
I plan on brewing a porter tomorrow, not sure if I will be messing with the water chemistry. I’ve been playing with brewers friend and here are a couple of snapshots. Hope you can read them.
Please let me know, if I’m headed the right direction.
Cheers!!!!
I plan on brewing a porter tomorrow, not sure if I will be messing with the water chemistry. I’ve been playing with brewers friend and here are a couple of snapshots. Hope you can read them.
Please let me know, if I’m headed the right direction.
Cheers!!!!
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2014
- Messages
- 13,403
- Reaction score
- 23,213
IMHO there's too many things going on counteracting eachother. Yooper told me once that less is more...believe it. Your lake water looks great! Filter it and use Gypsum and Calcium Chloride for sodium at 70 and choride at 90. You should be good. With darker beers, in general, no need to add acid. Alkalinity looks ok to me. In general if you can drink it then brew with it. Austin water is 9.5pH so I use RO and remineralize.
Similar threads
