What to do about water?

[andrewrmunro]

I am a novice homebrewer with 5 all grain brews under my belt.

So far I have been using the water out of my kitchen sink which has gone through a water softener. From what I have found online it looks like using softened water isn’t great for brewing with. Looking to make improvements on my water profile.

I live in the city of Regina in Canada. The city issues a water quality report annually.

The key numbers in the report are (mg/L):
Ca: 54
Mg: 36
Na: 96
Sulfate: 277
Chloride: 43
Alkalinity: 153

I like make American wheat ales, Amber ales, and blondes. Non of which are very hoppy.

What should I do about my water? At a minimum should I stop using water from my water softener and use the city water before it goes through my softener?

After that some options I have seen are:
A) have a water test performed by Ward Labs and add water treatments using Bru’n Water
B) use a RV water filter (not sure what the water profile of this would be)
C) use RO water and build the water profile using Bru’n Water

What should I do for my water to help improve my beers?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

I'm presuming you are making "all grain" batches, and not extract. From the analyticals you've provided above I presume (from balancing cations and anions) that your waters alkalinity is in the ballpark of 150 ppm. The first thing you will need to do is knock out your alkalinity via acidification until your water reads 5.4-5.5 pH. For every 5 gallons (19 Liters) of your water this should require about 4.4 mL of 88% Lactic Acid, or about 49 mL of 10% Phosphoric Acid. Then on top of this add Acidulated Malt to your recipes at 2% of grist weight.

 

[Redpappy]

I would suggest to go ahead and get Brunwater and start using it. if you are not sure where your water PH is starting off at, I would also get a PH meter. I sent my water in to wards lab, so they gave me a starting point of where my ph is. Unfortantly I have not gotten a ph meter.

With that being said, I am still learning, so take my advice with a grain of salt.... My first brew that I have actually did more than acid adjustment should be ready to drink in about a week, in which I am anxious about.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

If your local water authority adds Chlorine or Chloramines (or both) to your water as bactericides, you will also need to add 1/4 of a crushed Campden tablet (potassium metabisulfite) to every 5 gallons to knock these out of the water.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

I'd try mixing non-softened water 50/50 with distilled or RO water and brewing a batch just to get started.

 

[day_trippr]

[...]
What should I do about my water? At a minimum should I stop using water from my water softener and use the city water before it goes through my softener?

After that some options I have seen are:
A) have a water test performed by Ward Labs and add water treatments using Bru’n Water
B) use a RV water filter (not sure what the water profile of this would be)
C) use RO water and build the water profile using Bru’n Water

What should I do for my water to help improve my beers?

wrt bypassing the softener: without knowing what the source water contains I would hesitate to go that route. One should expect there was a good reason for the softener as frankly they're a bit of a pita.

- Get a Wards report for the city water. Know what you're dealing with.

- Skip Option B entirely, you'll have no idea what effect if any it would have and thus you really can't adjust the product water chemistry with much confidence.

- You could go with Option C while waiting for the water report and have a solid foundation for building style-compatible brewing liquor.

Cheers!

 

[andrewrmunro]

I'm presuming you are making "all grain" batches, and not extract. From the analyticals you've provided above I presume (from balancing cations and anions) that your waters alkalinity is in the ballpark of 150 ppm.

You were bang on, its 157, well done!

The first thing you will need to do is knock out your alkalinity via acidification until your water reads 5.4-5.5 pH. For every 5 gallons (19 Liters) of your water this should require about 4.4 mL of 88% Lactic Acid, or about 49 mL of 10% Phosphoric Acid.

How do you know this? Did you put it in Bru'n Water? Do I need to know what the starting point of my water pH is?

Then on top of this add Acidulated Malt to your recipes at 2% of grist weight.

I have never heard of this before, will have to inform myself of it more.

 

[andrewrmunro]

If your local water authority adds Chlorine or Chloramines (or both) to your water as bactericides, you will also need to add 1/4 of a crushed Campden tablet (potassium metabisulfite) to every 5 gallons to knock these out of the water.

Thanks, yes they do add chlorine to the water here, and I have been doing a half a Campdem tablet for my 5 gallon batches which looks like a bit too much but to my understanding shouldn't hurt.

 

[andrewrmunro]

I'd try mixing non-softened water 50/50 with distilled or RO water and brewing a batch just to get started.

That is a good suggestion. Thanks!

 

[andrewrmunro]

I'm presuming you are making "all grain" batches, and not extract. From the analyticals you've provided above I presume (from balancing cations and anions) that your waters alkalinity is in the ballpark of 150 ppm. The first thing you will need to do is knock out your alkalinity via acidification until your water reads 5.4-5.5 pH. For every 5 gallons (19 Liters) of your water this should require about 4.4 mL of 88% Lactic Acid, or about 49 mL of 10% Phosphoric Acid. Then on top of this add Acidulated Malt to your recipes at 2% of grist weight.

I asked the local craft brewery in my area and asked what they do for water and they said they used to use RO water however now they just use city water and add some CaCl and have found it didnt make a difference for the beers that they make.

 

[NeverDie]

If your local water authority adds Chlorine or Chloramines (or both) to your water as bactericides, you will also need to add 1/4 of a crushed Campden tablet (potassium metabisulfite) to every 5 gallons to knock these out of the water.

Or, alternatively, you could use a specialty carbon filter: http://www.purewaterproducts.com/img/docs/manuals/310106_Chloramine_Reduction.pdf

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

You were bang on, its 157, well done!

How do you know this? Did you put it in Bru'n Water? Do I need to know what the starting point of my water pH is?

I have never heard of this before, will have to inform myself of it more.

I have developed my own free and complete mash pH assistant software, which can be downloaded via clicking on the link below, so I do not use Bru'n Water.

Alkalinity is not related to water pH, and the waters initial pH is highly irrelevant to the task of eliminating alkalinity, as well as being irrelevant to the process of mashing a grist and bringing it to a desirable mash pH (which is 5.2 to 5.6 pH, with 5.4 being most commonly targeted).

For lighter colored beers (be they lagers or ales) which are predominated by base malts, some acidity is generally required to move the grist to an acceptable mash pH. This is because base malts range from about 5.57 to 5.85 in pH when mashed in DI water (as set via clicking on the "drop down" cell for this which is located in the lower right hand corner of my spreadsheet), and this range of pH's is above the most typically desired mash pH target of 5.4 pH. The typical choices for this downward pH adjustment are to use Lactic Acid, Phosphoric Acid, or Acid Malt (also called Acidulated Malt, or Sauermalz). The 2% suggestion I offered you was for adding Acid Malt (which in these modern times can be seen as a base malt that has been sprayed with Lactic Acid to a concentration of ~3% by weight, though some will contend that it is actually sprayed with Sauergut). Acid Malt gets added to your grains at the time of crushing. The liquid acids get added into your mash water before hand, generally along with any minerals you will be adding to it.

For darker beers, the caramel/crystal and deep roasted grains provide their own acidity, and if a recipe becomes highly weighted in these malt types its pH swings the other way around and subsequently needs to have Baking Soda or Pickling Lime added to the mash water to raise the grists/worts pH to 5.4 during the mash.