What's In The Water

[keyman]

Not sure if this the right forum for this question but here it is. I just moved to a different town and got my brewing all set up. I went to boil about two quarts of water in a pan for ten minutes to sterilize it for adding to a yeast wash. As I was boiling this water it turned a milky white (Bad). I canned up a pint of the water and when it cooled it had what looked like a white slurry type substance on the bottom of the pint that separated out of the water (Approx 1/2 Tsp). Is this lime or something else. Very confusing since I never had this happen before. I cleaned everything up and tried it again and same thing happened. How do I compensate for this when making my brew. I do have a carbon filter on my water line and still get this. Any suggestions?

 

[phuff7129]

How does it taste? If it tastes good and you brew extract then go ahead and use it. If you are an all grain brewer I would get a water report from the whoever supplies your water or send of for a report from Ward Labs. Until then I would use distilled or RO water and build it up from scratch. You can see the water chemistry primer under the Brewing Science forum on this website on how to build your water.

 

[keyman]

I brew All Grain only. I found out this afternoon that the city I live in has pretty hard water. The only way I can eliminate this problem is to buy a water softener. I may have to anyway since I have an electric water heater. They say hard water is very hard on Heat elements. Got a print out from the city on other additives as: Nitrate = 1.6, Sodium = 33.6, Barium = 0.0317, Chlorine = 1.8 all in PPM. Looks like most in in range.

 

[Roadie]

Not sure you want to use water out of a water softener to brew. May be time for an RO system if the water is that bad

 

[dyqik]

A water softener is not good for brewing beer (although I forget why, something to do with the calcium being replaced by sodium in the softener?). But hard water isn't necessarily a problem for brewing, particularly English styles (London and Burton water is pretty hard). You need a more detailed analysis to get the relative levels of calcium, magnesium, carbonate, sulfates etc, to see which styles your water is suited for. For styles needing softer, low mineral water, you may have to cut your tap water with RO water.

 

[keyman]

Thanks for the help. I may get the softer anyway for the house but have a bypass for brewing water. I can filter that through a good carbon filter for the brewing system. I will also get a sample sent in to be tested. Any good suggestions where I can get a good water test for brewing?

 

[jhoyda]

Any good suggestions where I can get a good water test for brewing?

https://producers.wardlab.com/BrewersKitOrder.aspx

 

[KIAKillerXJ]

and a filter for brewing still won't change any ion concentrations. Would need a reverse osmosis system for that. And that would ideally be fed by the softened water if I remember correctly.