Water help plssss

[braindead]

Planning on brewing Heady Topper clone this weekend.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=390082
Just not to sure about water additions as I want it spot on.
Anyone recommend what additions I should add please as i`m not to sure about bru n water
thanks

Ive attached my water profile.
Shooting for a Ph of around 5.2

 

[azmark]

To get it spot on you'll have to start with RO or distilled water. Water from any public utility will vary greatly from day to day, or times of the year.

 

[McKnuckle]

"Spot on" is not likely. But this is very soft water with low mineral content. From that perspective alone you can treat it like spring water or even RO without a huge margin of error. Follow the water primer sticky on HBT.

The only issue is that alkalinity is not mentioned in the report, so it's next to impossible to know how much pH buffering the water will offer against a given grain bill, therefore one can't guess at how to adjust mash pH.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I'd take a wild stab at alkalinity of ballpark 20 ppm and bicarb of ballpark 24 ppm. It would be interesting to see what the actual analyticals for these are.

 

[mabrungard]

Without the alkalinity value, the water report isn't useful for brewing. But since the other typical major ions in drinking water are reported, you can make an educated guess that the missing bicarbonate content is whatever it takes to balance the cations and anions. In this case, it appears to be about 26 ppm bicarb.

 

[cire]

Or just measure your water's alkalinity with a kit like that shown in the link below.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Salifert-KH-Alkalinity-Profi-Test-Kit/220553608222?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D49129%26meid%3D533257e8ee4d4990a62af4a0206fac7d%26pid%3D100011%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D280710794480&_trksid=p2047675.c100011.m1850

 

[Hanglow]

Your water is great for brewing, you'll want to add some calcium in the form of calcium chloride or calcium sulphate for most beers

You can get a salifert alkalinity test to get know your alkalinity more accurately on the day, it's about £10 or so and can do 50 or so tests with it

edit - yeah that one ^ even more tests

 

[ajdelange]

It's pretty clear from the given data that the alkalinity is about half a mEq/L (it takes 0.46 mEq/L or 23 ppm as CaCO3 to balance the other ions in the report). The Salifert kit advertises precision of 0.1 mEq/L (5 ppm as CaCO3) so it will probably take 5 or 6 drops to get a positive color change from which the user would conclude the alkalinity is 0.5 to 0.6 or 50 to 50 ppm as CaCO3. IOW, as is, the kit isn't going to supply information that he doesn't already have. But a simple trick when the alkalinity is low can halve the precision. Just double the volume of indicator and water. IOW, if the instructions say to collect one tube of water and add a drop of indicator, collect 2 and add 2 drops of indicator. The precision is now 0.05 mEq/L i.e. each drop of acid counts as 0.05 mEq/L instead of 1. Or use 4 tubes and 4 drops of indicator for precision of 0.025 mEq/L per drop of acid (1.25 ppm).

More to the point, at this level of alkalinity one doesn't need precise information. It doesn't much matter whether the actual alkalinity is .4 or .6. In a typical grist the difference between estimated pH's for mashes made with those values is about 0.01 pH.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

So for three educated guesses gleaned from the data provided we have come up with alkalinity (as CaCO3) at:

20 ppm
21.3 ppm (calculated from 26 ppm bicarb)
23 ppm

Not a highly significant difference overall, given the min/max range of the data.

 

[Yooper]

Nice water! So, first get rid of the chlorine by allowing the water to stand at room temperature for a bit or use a campden tablet to get rid of it instantly.

Then you can use a little calcium chloride and calcium sulfate (gypsum) to provide calcium and chloride and sulfate to your water. You can plan on using about 3.5 grams of each, in a 19L batch, if you're unsure if you prefer more chloride or more sulfate. It will give you a nice beer, likely with an optimum pH, that way.

 

[braindead]

Thanks so much for your time and replies guys.
Much appreciated

 

[braindead]

Got a reply about my Alk its 18.1
Hardness is 38.5
Ph is 7.4
Calc 11.3

 

[ajdelange]

Got a reply about my Alk its 18.1

Not too far off from our WAG of 23.