Water treatment.....or not

[masonsjax]

Calculating and targeting a specific water profile per recipe will always make better beer than guessing or doing nothing. Give it a try, it's worth the effort. Definitely if you're doing all grain batches.

 

[McKnuckle]

So what is considered as having a bad water problem at home?

Well water with extreme hardness (300+), sodium and chloride both over 100, bicarbonate over 200, and which actually looks slightly brownish-red when viewed through plastic pipe.

We soften it so it doesn't rot our pipes. But that makes it ridiculously high in sodium and still high in bicarb, very much unsuitable for brewing... or drinking, really. So we buy Poland Spring by the 5 gallon jug and have a water cooler in the kitchen.

That's a water problem at home.

I have a water distiller now ($75), which produces about a gallon at a time over 4 hours. I brew small batches, so I can easily stockpile 10 gallons of water to have ready for brewing. Cheap solution for me.

 

[Yooper]

So what is considered as having a bad water problem at home? We just drink water straight from the tap. It tastes great, no mineral flavor or anything. When doing extract batches I never treated it. Didn't even treat for chlorine anything like that and my beer turned out fantastic.

We have great tasting water here. It's hard (that's good for brewing) and alkaline (not good for most brewing) but it tastes great right out of the tap.

I can make a great stout with my tap water as is, but my kolsch made with tap water was harsh and not great.

It has to do with the mash pH. I can make fantastic dark beers (due to the roasted grains that help lower the mash pH), but my lighter grained beers had some water related flavor issues.

Most of us are living in areas where we have safe and usually good tap water, but for me that wasn't good enough for great beer. I starting mixing my tap water with RO water (after getting a water report from Ward Lab), or using 100% RO for some beers, and the beer is much better for it.

Mash pH is a crucial part of great beer.

 

[gspot]

Most of us are living in areas where we have safe and usually good tap water, but for me that wasn't good enough for great beer. I starting mixing my tap water with RO water (after getting a water report from Ward Lab), or using 100% RO for some beers, and the beer is much better for it.

+1. My tap water is actually pretty good for drinking--only moderately hard and not excessive with regard to minerals and chlorine. Makes good beer, too.

However, the beer is even better starting with RO and adding CaCl, lactic acid or sauermalz depending on grain bill, and possibly gypsum depending on style/hopiness.

I even prefer to drink RO water over my pretty good tap water because it tastes purer and fresher. So while water filtration and treatment is definitely a personal choice based on your water supply, I'm of the opinion that, done correctly, it can only help make better beer. I can't think of any downsides.

 

[Ale_Jail]

Thanks for all the advice. Sorry for going around in circles a bit....I am starting to understand it a bit. Going to get a ward labs report and use Bru'n Water. I've looked at it and it seems to be a good solution.

 

[Homercidal]

So what is considered as having a bad water problem at home? We just drink water straight from the tap. It tastes great, no mineral flavor or anything. When doing extract batches I never treated it. Didn't even treat for chlorine anything like that and my beer turned out fantastic.

For extract, if you like the taste of your water, and you and others like the taste of your beer, then tap water may be "fine".

For All Grain brewing, the pH of the mash is important for the enzymes to convert the starches to sugars.

I think my water tastes pretty good. The town adds Chloramine to prevent problems inside the pipes (google search Flint Water...) and although I don't really taste it in my water, the effect it has on fermented beer is much more noticeable. I add a half a campden tablet to each batch to ensure the chloramines are neutralized, even though I use RO water. I can't be sure the RO water I buy from the store has been filtered slow enough to remove the chloramines.

Beyond the chloramines, I need to reduce my alkalinity. The acids from dark malts cut this somewhat, but unless I'm brewing a very dark beer, it's usually not enough to get my pH down into the 5.2-5.4 range.

When figuring up what salts to add to get the pH down where it needs to be I generally end up just using RO water and starting from scratch. It also makes it much easier to repeat the next time since I don't have to worry about my home water profile changing down the road.

 

[Kampenken]

Thanks for all the advice. Sorry for going around in circles a bit....I am starting to understand it a bit. Going to get a ward labs report and use Bru'n Water. I've looked at it and it seems to be a good solution.

Good call, you won't be disappointed! Lots of good advice here you're receiving. For 100% extracts water is not as critical, no mash.

I brewed once at my brother's house with his water. He's always low on OG, on his light color brews it turned out, thought it was something in his process / equipment, but I was low too (on light color brew) with my equipment. Turned out to be his alkalinity kept his mash pH too high. He is adjusting now and is hitting his OG! Amazing the difference.

Yooper suggested Bru'n Water over Brewer's Friend water adjuster, which I was using, due to BW's mash & sparge water addition profiles, and that she found worked best for her. It is working great. Thanks Yooper!

One more word of advice- Read through BW, if you use it, before brew day to get your plan down. Lots of good information there, it may take awhile to absorb, but it really does end up being very straight forward- at least at the homebrew level!

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

So I have been searching on here for awhile on this topic. I read the sticky on water treatment in the science of brewing. But I also keep seeing people say of you have good tasting water....you will make good tasting beer.....

I am currently brewing extracts but I am planning on going to BIAB now. How important is water treatment and do I really have to do anything to my water to get good tasting beer? Will the beers I brew now taste the same when I do an all grain batch instead of extract? I currently brew cottage house saison and a very popular sweet orange wheat I found on this site....they were all-grain recipes but I was able to convert them to extract using beersmith2 and they turned out great.

So I guess my main question is.....how important is treating your water if you have good tasting tap water right now?

Probably the biggest misconception in brewing. I wish I could kick the person in the nuts who started that. Knowing basics about water would have saved me so much time/effort/money in the beginning.

 

[mabrungard]

Probably the biggest misconception in brewing. I wish I could kick the person in the nuts who started that. Knowing basics about water would have saved me so much time/effort/money in the beginning.

Thanks for the confirmation! The only truth that can be inferred from that adage is that: if the water tastes bad, you can't brew with it. Taste is not likely to indicate if a water is suited for brewing.

It sounds like you are one of the people that found out the hard way, that their water had certain characteristics that resulted in some poor brewing results. The typical culprit is excessive alkalinity.

Water is the #1 ingredient in brewing, but it isn't the typical source of flavor in beer. Malt, hops, and yeast are. But if you don't attend to your water, it can screw up the rest of those flavor producers.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Thanks for the confirmation! The only truth that can be inferred from that adage is that: if the water tastes bad, you can't brew with it. Taste is not likely to indicate if a water is suited for brewing.

It sounds like you are one of the people that found out the hard way, that their water had certain characteristics that resulted in some poor brewing results. The typical culprit is excessive alkalinity.

Water is the #1 ingredient in brewing, but it isn't the typical source of flavor in beer. Malt, hops, and yeast are. But if you don't attend to your water, it can screw up the rest of those flavor producers.

Yup. High alkalinity. Here is my water analysis from Dec 2013 (post filter water).

Its probably time to get another test to see if anything has changed.

I'm currently just using straight Distilled water with additions, but thinking about a Coffee Oatmeal Stout with either 50/50 Tap/Distilled or 25/75 Tap/Distilled.



pH 8.5

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 266
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.44
Cations / Anions, me/L 5.1 / 5.6

ppm
Sodium, Na 38
Potassium, K 3
Calcium, Ca 61
Magnesium, Mg 4
Total Hardness, CaCO3 169
Nitrate, NO3-N < 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 9
Chloride, Cl 18
Carbonate, CO3 16
Bicarbonate, HCO3 244
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 226
Total Phosphorus, P 0.16
Total Iron, Fe < 0.01

 

[mabrungard]

Wow! If you boil that water, you'll get a ton of sediment in the pot!

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Wow! If you boil that water, you'll get a ton of sediment in the pot!

Yea, we have to run CLR through the coffee machines regularly, use special cleaners in dishwasher, and cleaners in washing machine. It's time for a new hot water heater too. I'm interested on how the bottom looks.

Btw, how would that tap water work with an oatmeal stout, say at 50/50?

 

[mabrungard]

Undiluted, it is likely to be too alkaline for even a stout. No guess on how much dilution would be needed, but that happens to be what certain software is for!

 

[MaryB]

My water reads great until I get to 405mg/l of sulfate... yeah major wrench in the works. I am going RO and adding back needed minerals and salts.