Water treatment advise

[wsmith1625]

I got my water report back from Ward Labs last month and I'm questioning if my treatment choices are okay. The 2 beers I have made with the newly adjusted water turned out good, but they're new recipes so I have nothing to compare them to. I used Brewer's Friend Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator and chose a Balanced Profile hoping it would give a good balance to the hop and malt flavors. Below is the result of my water analysis, which I added 4 grams of gypsum and 4 grams of Calcium Chloride (dihydrate). Is that okay or could I be doing better? Thanks!

PH - 7.5
TDS EST ppm - 124
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm - 0.21
Cations / Anions, me/L - 1.8 / 2.0

Results are ppm
Sodium, Na - 6
Potassium, K - 6
Calcium, Ca - 18.7
Magnesium, Mg - 4
Total Hardness, CaCO3 - 64
Nitrate, NO3-N - 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S - 3
Chloride, Cl - 6
Carbonate, CO3 - < 1.0
Bicarbonate, HCO3 - 101
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 - 83
Total Phosphorus, P - 0.03
Total Iron, Fe - < 0.01

 

[VikeMan]

Congrats on venturing into water treatment.

It would be helpful if you could list the resulting post-treatment mineral concentrations (can't even guess at this without knowing the batch size/water volume), the predicted mash pH, and the style of beer you brewed (to see if the resulting water is a good fit flavor-wise).

 

[wsmith1625]

Congrats on venturing into water treatment.

It would be helpful if you could list the resulting post-treatment mineral concentrations (can't even guess at this without knowing the batch size/water volume), the predicted mash pH, and the style of beer you brewed (to see if the resulting water is a good fit flavor-wise).

I'm not sure how to get post treatment mineral concentrations without sending another sample out to Ward Labs. Is there a way to get this at home? I brew 5 gallon batches with full water volume in the mash and no sparge. Below are the last 2 beers I brewed.

Raleigh Brewing Company: City of Blokes Clone (English Bitter All Grain Kit) (atlanticbrewsupply.com) - Came out awesome. Nice caramel flavors.
WHAM!ber Ale (American Amber All Grain Kit) (atlanticbrewsupply.com) - Kegged 2 days ago and force carbed at 25 lbs. for 24 hours. Nice hop aroma and flavor, but needs more time.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, that report looks enviable from someone with a 400 TDS and RA over 200

Whatever calculator you used should provide a "finished brewing water" profile...

Cheers! ("RO All The Way" here)

 

[VikeMan]

I'm not sure how to get post treatment mineral concentrations without sending another sample out to Ward Labs. Is there a way to get this at home?

As @day_trippr mentioned, any water calculator should show you that result. It should (hopefully) closely resemble the profile you were aiming for.

 

[wsmith1625]

Ah, I guess this is what you're looking for. Here is what I got after my brewing salt additions. I did not input the grain from the recipes.

 

[wsmith1625]

fwiw, that report looks enviable from someone with a 400 TDS and RA over 200

Whatever calculator you used should provide a "finished brewing water" profile...

Cheers! ("RO All The Way" here)

Yeah, my beer tasted good without treating the water, but after treating it, the back of the tongue bitterness seems to have mellowed. Again, these are new recipes to me so I don't have a true comparison.

 

[VikeMan]

Flavor-wise, that profile should be okay for the styles you brewed. Personally, I would probably increase the SO4 for the Bitter and the Cl for the Amber.

Also, in the future, it would be a good idea to enter the grain bill to see where the predicted pH lands. There's no one size fits all addition scheme that will land every grist's pH within an ideal range.

 

[thehaze]

That's great water for brewing any style, with the right adjustments and process. For malt centric beers, I would up the Cl in the mash ( and sparge - if you sparge ) to around 150-200 ppm, and making sure that sulfates stay lower, but not much lower. Something like 75-125 ppm would be fine.

But you do need to experiment to find out what exactly you like and suites your taste and palate. I for one - took me a couple of years - found out that I like beer with a slightly higher mineral content. Cheers!

 

[Beermeister32]

Lately I've been pre-batching the mineral profile during the week prior to brewing. You can go online to Brewers Friend and determine and balance out the appropriate minerals for your weekend brew, then I do up a water recipe sheet on the computer. I was able to get the water report for local mountain spring water, so some of my sheets factor them in, some use distilled water only to build from.

The water here in Southern California is terrible. It is stored in water reservoirs and has an organic smell to it, so I am on bottled water, some people use RO.

The sheets are great, they are a water recipe sheet based on the style I'm brewing, so I have both a beer recipe sheet and a water recipe sheet.

You can jug up a gallon holding all the minerals during the week, then use that gallon along with the others at brew time. Works great!