water treatment.

[marjen]

When do you add things like Calcium Chloride or gypsum to the water? It it prior to brewing or during the boil? I am going to be starting with RO water and I am looking for a soft water profile. I was told 1 tsp of each is a good place to start, just not sure when to add. Thanks.

 

[DurtyChemist]

I add mine prior to mashing. Check out BruNWater and you'll be on your way to greatness. Search for it here and youtube and you'll be on your way. It's an excel spreadsheet.

 

[HopHeavy]

I make all my additions to strike and sparge water so the mash is in the correct ph range. You can and should use a water app in which you enter your base water report, % dilution with RO (usually), and your grain bill. Then you can play with the salt and acid additions to get the profile you intend to create. Most calculators show the target profile and indicate how far you are from it, but they don't tell you exactly what salts to use to get there.

 

[kh54s10]

Get a copy of BruNWater and learn how to use it. Just adding things without knowing what the outcome should be is shooting in the dark.

There is also a good book about water. John Palmer, I think.

 

[marjen]

I wasn't planning on testing the water. I thought RO water was pretty much just h2o. So looking to make a "soft" water.

Also I will be doing extract brewing with seeped specialty grains if this matters.

 

[berndawg84]

Generally, with extract brewing it is recommended to not change your water chemistry. The LME has already brewed and so already has lots of the minerals present. In addition, you don't know how or if the manufacturer treated their water, so if you treat the water on top of that, you are shooting in the dark. I'll let someone else chime in, but that is what I've heard consistently, especially from guys like Jon Palmer.

 

[mabrungard]

While I won't deter brewers from using Bru'n Water, if you aren't interested in getting too deep into brewing water chemistry, using the recommendations presented in the Water Primer on the Brewing Science forum is a good option.

 

[BrunDog]

Too humble, Martin.

Use BnW... good stuff and if you have an interest in brew science, will help you understand water amazingly well.

 

[McKnuckle]

It's important to understand that soft water means water with low mineral content, namely calcium and magnesium. RO water is just short of distilled water in being absent of minerals. In other words, it is already extremely soft.

Salts are added to the mash to adjust pH. They also contribute a flavor or sensory component in higher concentrations. But if you are brewing extract, you have no mash; therefore you do not need to add anything to your RO water for that purpose. And adding a teaspoon each of those salts will not make your RO water soft, because the water is already soft. Adding them will harden the water.

Read the water primer that Martin referred you to.

 

[marjen]

RO water is just short of distilled water in being absent of minerals. In other words, it is already extremely soft.

Got ya. I will probably do nothing to the water for my first batch and see how it comes out before I start messing with it. I am just trying to make a good solid beer first time out and it seems for NE IPAs water composition is important. I am new to all this so it might have been a dumb question.

 

[TheMerkle]

I make my additions during the mash to help with pH adjustment, but not before; additions before dough ingredients in could precipitate out of solution.

 

[mabrungard]

I make my additions during the mash to help with pH adjustment, but not before; additions before dough ingredients in could precipitate out of solution.

Trying the thoroughly mix solid and liquid additions into a mash is extremely difficult to achieve. Its a little more achievable if you are recirculating the wort, but its still not ideal. It is far better to mix all water additions directly with the water prior to introducing the grain.

All additions do need to be stirred in order to get them to dissolve. Don't expect that you can throw a dose on minerals in the water and have them dissolve in a reasonable length of time. Stirring them helps them to dissolve more quickly. It does take a few minutes.

The calcium content would have to be very high for a precipitation reaction to occur. In addition, if the calcium content were that high, any precipitation reaction with phosphoric acid would not be detrimental to the ferment or the beer. Malt provides ALL the calcium that the yeast need for their metabolism. You can brew with distilled water without any added calcium salts and the yeast will ferment completely, but they may not flocculate very well.

 

[morbster]

Is there a time when different acids are better suited for a particular mash, or are they only used for managing pH and thus can be used interchangeably?

 

[mabrungard]

Most acids other than phosphoric have flavor impacts when used at concentrations greater than their respective taste thresholds. For some acids like citric, that threshold is fairly low. Lactic has a modest threshold, but a water with more than about 130 ppm alkalinity as CaCO3 (160 ppm bicarbonate) could be getting into that threshold.