Water questions....trying to up my brew

[Turfgrass]

Hi and thanks for reading. My AG brewing experience has been with water straight from the tap and I now want to learn about the water chemistry I'm using. I've read online to send out a sample for testing and adjust with Bru N' Water app. I also have a four stage ro/di filtration system from my marine aquarium days. What would you suggest I do as far as customizing my water profile? Thanks in advance.

1- send tap water sample to professional lab
2- carbon filter tap and then send to lab
3. Carbon filter and use homebrew test kit.

 

[jpakstis]

Where are you located? Recently I’ve been paying more attention to water adjustments and really go Bru’n Water to really click with me. I also use tap water. I didn’t send my sample away but relied on our water report published by our state and municipal water authority.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Problem with a single spot test or going off one water report is that seasonal swings can be dramatic- that water report is either an average or a sole point, and seldom or never represents what actually comes out the tap.

Your RO filter would be good as it'll reduce things down such that it doesn't matter any more.

I use my municipal water report, but averaged by the month (all figures reported monthly). It's still an averaged figure and not perfect but it accounts for seasonal swings.

Another option is to purchase a titration kit and test your water before each brew.

First thing is chlorine/chloramine when dealing with tap water. Carbon filter or treat with k-meta no matter what.

 

[chris000]

First thing is chlorine/chloramine when dealing with tap water. Carbon filter or treat with k-meta no matter what.

Typical carbon filters don't remove Chloramine all that well; determine if your municipality uses Chloramine first (more and more providers are switching over) and get the right filter for it.
RO water is more of a blank canvas, but if you want to be sure, better test to check it is really as pure as you think it is.
Regarding K2S2O5 for that purpose: Not overly convincing since you never know how much Chloramine you have at the tap that day and you always have to put way more in the water.
And before I forget: Seasonal changes depend on your water source. If you have deep wells as a single source you might not see much of a change, but if they blend and/or use lots of treated surface water, it testing/adjusting might be more of a moving target.

 

[Turfgrass]

Where are you located? Recently I’ve been paying more attention to water adjustments and really go Bru’n Water to really click with me. I also use tap water. I didn’t send my sample away but relied on our water report published by our state and municipal water authority.

I live in a suburb south of Boston. What do you use or recommend as a tap water test kit? Hoppy iPA’s are my goal.

 

[Turfgrass]

I believe there are multiple well points around town and also the town purchases water from a reservoir in the western part of the state. Now that I think about it, a test sample sent to a professional lab will only be a snap shot of my frequently changing tap water’s chemistry . It might be best to filter, test kit and adjust with Brun Water. I want to say from my aquarium days that the ph was always above 7 and the water was considered hard at the time.

 

[RM-MN]

Before you do anything else, buy some RO water (usually available at the grocery store or big box store) and use that for the base to build the water profile you want. Make your batch of beer with it and see if that is what you want before you commit to anything.

 

[Braufessor]

I would send a sample of the water you want to use to Ward Labs. It does not cost much, it is fast, it is reliable. Then you can assess what you are dealing with and go from there.

Don't worry about running it through a carbon filter first.... that really is not going to alter your water in any way that matters other than chlorine (which you do want to get rid of when brewing.) Above info on getting rid of chloramine is good too.

**Make sure you are not using water that has come from a water softener - that won't work well.

If you want to brew IPA's, your goal water profile for starting is generally going to be something that is low in minerals. Very low in bicarbonate/alkalinity. Something you can add gypsum/CaCl back to to build up a profile with Sulfate in the 100-300 range, calcium in the 100-125 range, Chloride in the 40-150 range..... kind of depends on what you are looking for in the beer.

Submittal sheet to Ward Labs: https://www.wardlab.com/download/sampleforms/InformationSheetForAllOthers.pdf

I would go with W-6 unless you suspect iron being a problem ( then do brewers test):
https://www.wardlab.com/water-services.php

You can just use a 16 ounce regular bottle that you would buy in a convenience store and dump out the water, rinse with source water several time. You don't need to get the full test kit from them. Fill, make sure lid is on tight (tape it), send in with form and check. Usually e-mail results to you within a couple days of receiving it.

Ultimately, unless you have water that is consistently in line with "RO Water" - your best bet is either to get an RO filter or get some 3-5 gallon jugs and refill them at walmart/grocery store. That eliminates the problems with chloramine and hardness.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Typical carbon filters don't remove Chloramine all that well; determine if your municipality uses Chloramine first (more and more providers are switching over) and get the right filter for it.
RO water is more of a blank canvas, but if you want to be sure, better test to check it is really as pure as you think it is.
Regarding K2S2O5 for that purpose: Not overly convincing since you never know how much Chloramine you have at the tap that day and you always have to put way more in the water.
And before I forget: Seasonal changes depend on your water source. If you have deep wells as a single source you might not see much of a change, but if they blend and/or use lots of treated surface water, it testing/adjusting might be more of a moving target.

Home carbon filters will work, just the flow rate has to be very slow and you never know how much might be left. But yes, more care needed with chloramine than chlorine. If they didn't remove it at all, then home RO wouldn't be possible either without continously destroying the membrane.

Metabite is effective, fast, and the dosage so small that airing on the side of more isn't a problem. You're adding a few ppm of a few ions. Far, far less than is used to stabilize in winemaking.

If the OP already has an RO system, I'd use it. It just takes too long for my taste.

In lieu of RO, I'd go metabite over carbon filtering for chloramine/chlorine though.

 

[user 246304]

Just curious, but what are you guys using for your titrations? Because I'm going to play with using my highly alkaline water and acid treatment, I was going to be using Salifert. Used to do it regularly, but been a long time so I don't recall which cheaper-kit I used at the time.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Just curious, but what are you guys using for your titrations? Because I'm going to play with using my highly alkaline water and acid treatment, I was going to be using Salifert. Used to do it regularly, but been a long time so I don't recall which cheaper-kit I used at the time.

All the various kits I've used have been LaMotte. They sell a brewing specific one targeted to homebrewers (available through the major HB retailers online or at least it used to be), that was good enough albeit not too precise (was someone elses and I ran a few tests, that's all). I use their peracetic, peroxide, and iodine titration kits regularly. In all cases within like 50ppm has been close enough. They all have ways to be more precise but I don't need to bother (required counting 75 drops instead of 15, for example). The water kit I played with didn't have instructions for higher precision if i recall, but each ion has a different precision, and I think they were all within 50ppm.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Well at least MoreBeer still sells it from a cursory search, looks like ~10ppm precision except sulfate which looks like ~20ppm. I recall that one being a pain to read as well. The others were more straightforward. One (sodium) is calculated from the others via ion balance, which is also gonna be an approximation, especially if the others are less than precise.

 

[Turfgrass]

Before you do anything else, buy some RO water (usually available at the grocery store or big box store) and use that for the base to build the water profile you want. Make your batch of beer with it and see if that is what you want before you commit to anything.

Sounds like a good idea if I can find RO water or even setup my filter. What are you using for testing water?

 

[Turfgrass]

I would send a sample of the water you want to use to Ward Labs. It does not cost much, it is fast, it is reliable. Then you can assess what you are dealing with and go from there.

Don't worry about running it through a carbon filter first.... that really is not going to alter your water in any way that matters other than chlorine (which you do want to get rid of when brewing.) Above info on getting rid of chloramine is good too.

**Make sure you are not using water that has come from a water softener - that won't work well.

If you want to brew IPA's, your goal water profile for starting is generally going to be something that is low in minerals. Very low in bicarbonate/alkalinity. Something you can add gypsum/CaCl back to to build up a profile with Sulfate in the 100-300 range, calcium in the 100-125 range, Chloride in the 40-150 range..... kind of depends on what you are looking for in the beer.

Submittal sheet to Ward Labs: https://www.wardlab.com/download/sampleforms/InformationSheetForAllOthers.pdf

I would go with W-6 unless you suspect iron being a problem ( then do brewers test):
https://www.wardlab.com/water-services.php

You can just use a 16 ounce regular bottle that you would buy in a convenience store and dump out the water, rinse with source water several time. You don't need to get the full test kit from them. Fill, make sure lid is on tight (tape it), send in with form and check. Usually e-mail results to you within a couple days of receiving it.

Ultimately, unless you have water that is consistently in line with "RO Water" - your best bet is either to get an RO filter or get some 3-5 gallon jugs and refill them at walmart/grocery store. That eliminates the problems with chloramine and hardness.

Iron the only difference between 6 and 5A?

 

[user 246304]

All the various kits I've used have been LaMotte. They sell a brewing specific one targeted to homebrewers (available through the major HB retailers online or at least it used to be), that was good enough albeit not too precise (was someone elses and I ran a few tests, that's all). I use their peracetic, peroxide, and iodine titration kits regularly. In all cases within like 50ppm has been close enough. They all have ways to be more precise but I don't need to bother (required counting 75 drops instead of 15, for example). The water kit I played with didn't have instructions for higher precision if i recall, but each ion has a different precision, and I think they were all within 50ppm.

Wow, I wasn't aware they could swing that wildly. By precision that high, I presume you mean you could do 3 different tests, and get them all as far as 50 ppm apart; not that they are inaccurate to that degree - yes?

I did look at the LaMotte tests, many thanks. Considering it. Truthfully, I'm planning on acid treatment almost entirely on my alkaline water, so want to check alkalinity, and hardness, to give me an estimate of how much Ca I've got and will have after gypsum and chloride addition.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Wow, I wasn't aware they could swing that wildly. By precision that high, I presume you mean you could do 3 different tests, and get them all as far as 50 ppm apart; not that they are inaccurate to that degree - yes?

I did look at the LaMotte tests, many thanks. Considering it. Truthfully, I'm planning on acid treatment almost entirely on my alkaline water, so want to check alkalinity, and hardness, to give me an estimate of how much Ca I've got and will have after gypsum and chloride addition.

Meaning that titrated measurements in multiples of 50ppm. As a titrated 150ppm would be somewhere between 125ppm and 175ppm.

I mean that when I do spot checks of sanitizers, the effective range is so wide that a quick imprecise titration is sufficient to make sure it's in range. I could do a far more precise titration to get an exact figure, but I don't worry about it. 10ppm precision simply isn't necessary. When it comes to brewing ions, being more precise is a little more important. But even then, 10ppm precision should be sufficient. I'd be more hesitant with wider precision.

 

[user 246304]

OK, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification, Qrumphf.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Ahh, its what I get for recalling off the top of my head. Peroxide is indeed 50ppm. The PAA titrator has multiple precision ranges elaborated, 6, 15, or 300, but I use 15 but quick and dirty it 60ppm at a time (as I'm typically looking for ~150-200ppm PAA). The iodine one far more precise, but the effective concentration is much smaller. I don't use that one as much.

Point being every test is different, and concentrations can be adjusted to measure different precisions, just either need instructions or the chemistry knowledge to know how to do so properly.

 

[ajdelange]

Not much knowledge needed to figure this out. In the normal lab alkalinity test, for example, you put indicator into 100 mL of sample and add 0.1 N acid until the color change takes place. If the alkalinity is x mEq/L then you have x/10 mEq in 100mL and as each mL of 0.1N acid contains 0.1 mEq of acid the alkalinity is simply the number of mL of acid used (multiply by 50 for ppm as CaCO3). If the alkalinity is low, e.g. 0.05 mEq/L then the color change would take place after adding 0.05 mL which may be hard to measure accurately. So take 10 times as much water (and add 10 times as much indicator) and then add acid. It will, obviously, take 10 times as much acid in this case 0.5 mL which may be easier to read.

This works for any kind of titration. To increase the sensitivity by a factor of m, increase the volume by m. Then take the result (number of drops, number of mL) and divide by m.

 

[user 246304]

Hahah - well, I have a burette from my cheesemaking days, when I measured TA. Crazy thing is I didn't make any association that I could use it equally well here. Thanks, AJ.

 

[ajdelange]

See http://wetnewf.org/pdfs/measuring-alkalinity.html for tips on how to use a burette in the alkalinity titration.

 

[user 246304]

Awesome! Many thanks, AJ. Had never even heard of a thistle funnel until now - and could have used one for those alpine cheeses, lol.

Will put this to good use. Thanks.

 

[Turfgrass]

So, I’m considering the use of RO water from Walmart on some future brew date. What should I expect from this water profile or is there a predictable water adjust? I want to get into the hazy, hoppy, ipa style beers.

 

[jpakstis]

I live in a suburb south of Boston. What do you use or recommend as a tap water test kit? Hoppy iPA’s are my goal.

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, but we were traveling for Thanksgiving. I assume you get your water from the MWRA (i.e. from the Quabbin Reservoir)? If so they have monthly water reports going back to 2001 so you can probably get a good sense of what is in the water. Then I think you can check with your specific town to see what their reports say. I know that our town water report is essentially the same as the MWRA.

The thing I couldn't figure out before with Bru'n Water, and had a lightbulb moment recently, was trying to input the Bicarbonate and Carbonate concentrations. Of course not being terribly inclined with these things I barely glanced at the Bru'n Water input sheet and didn't pay attention to the alkalinity conversion calculator, since the MWRA only lists the pH and alkalinity measurements. The good news is even the monthly reports list historical data going back January for these levels:

So I took an average of the alkalinity (I made it 40 since it seems pretty close) and pH (9.5) and inputted those in that calculator and I was off to the races. For a hoppy IPA I recently brewed, i.e. the Heady Topper clone discussed here, inputting the grain bill (88.5% pearl malt, 5.8% white wheat, and 5.8% cara-malt) Bru'n Water indicated that I would want to add 10.6 grams of gypsum and calcium chloride (approx. 1-1.5 tsp each) and 2ml of lactic acid (EDIT: forgot to mention these water additions are to a full 8.5g volume BIAB for a 5-6g batch). This got me to a pH of 5.33. And 1/2 tab of campden to kill the high amounts of chloride in our water. MWRA water is pretty soft, so gypsum and calcium chloride add hardness. For HT I was going for that hard bite for lack of a better word. When I made some Trillium clones, I didn't make any additions because the mouthfeel for those is so soft.

I would avoid something like 5.2 stabilizer. I tried it in one batch and the beer tasted salty, almost like Gatorade.

These inputs confirmed an earlier question I had asked where members came up with the same answer so I felt confident in my usage of Bru'n Water. Incidentally one of my co-workers used to work for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and constantly reminds all of us that MWRA water is the best municipal water in the country.

 

[jpakstis]

Just to follow up on my explorations of MWRA water. I tried a sample of the Heady Topper clone yesterday with the water additions that I made (2ml lactic acid, 1 tsp each of gypsum and calcium chloride) and I was very happy with the results. Not carbonated yet, but it really has that hard IPA bite that I've been looking for. I'm very encouraged by that sample and I think I could probably even up the gypsum and calcium chloride to 1 1/2 tsp each, which was what Bru'n Water recommended but I was a little nervous adding too much at first.

 

[ajdelange]

Try tasting this beer while adding a little of each of those to it.