Yet another water thread

[beertroll]

I got the results from a Ward analysis of my water, and I've been furiously reading up on water chemistry over the past couple of days. I'm not sure I've completely wrapped my head around it, so I'd like to think aloud and hopefully somebody can let me know if I'm on the right track or way off.

First off, my report:
pH: 8.1
TDS: 235
Electrical Conductivity: 0.39
Cations/Anions: 3.9/4.4
Sodium: 89
Potassium: <1
Calcium: <1
Magnesium: <1
Total Hardness: <1
Nitrate: 0.4
Sulfate: 3 (I should use a value of 9 for this in any calculations, correct?)
Chloride: 8
Carbonate: 6
Bicarbonate: 227
Total Alkalinity: 196
Total Phosphorus: 0.67
Total Iron: <0.01


I guess I now know why my stouts tend to turn out better than my pales. If I grok what I've read so far, I can use my water basically as is for things like dry stouts and Russian imperials, but it's outright terrible for an IPA. Is that correct, or is the sodium still high enough to be a problem? My pale ales always turn out way to dark and kind of cloudy. I'm sure most of this is my grain bill, and I've made some changes there (dropped Caramunich in favor of crystal 20, and increased the proportion of base malt), but from what I've read my water alkalinity may also be a factor.

I'm going to be brewing a pale ale in the reasonably near future. The grain bill is 80% pale malt, with the remaining 20% a mixture of munich, carapils, and crystal 20. I'm tempted to just go with all distilled water; unfortunately, it's $1.19/gal at my local supermarket, so I'm thinking of a 1:1 dillution. According to BeerSmith's water profile tool, that will bring the sodium and bicarbonates down to a more reasonable 44.5 and 113.5 respectively. Since everything else is so low, the dilution shouldn't have a noticeable affect on the other minerals, correct? Several of the sources I've seen recommend fairly high levels of calcium and sulfates for a hops-forward beer like a pale ale, so I definitely need to add some gypsum, but the quantities I'm coming up with seem high. 1 gram per gallon gets me just barely over 60ppm calcium and 150ppm SO4, so I might need to go as high as 1.5-1.7g/gal. That seems like a lot of salt to me, but maybe it's fine since I'm effectively at 0 to start with.

My plan for this weekend is to brew a dunkelweizen. It seems like a good first crack at water adjustment, because if I understand things correctly malty beers are a little more forgiving of high bicarbonates and the chocolate wheat malt should help lower the pH. I'll be monitoring pH with strips (a meter is on my to-get list). It'll be my first time paying attention to mash pH as well as my first time adjusting water, so the simpler I can keep this, the better. I probably won't be able to pick up any sauermalz in time (my LHBS is an hour's drive from me), but I think I can get lactic acid locally. The mash calls for 9.3 gallons of water total. I'm thinking of trying 4 gallons of distilled to 5.3 gallons of tap, and then tossing in 2 tsp of CaCl (7 grams? I thought somebody posted that CaCl is about 3.5g/tsp). This would put my final numbers at 54.2 Ca, 0 Mg, 50.7 Na, 5.1 SO4, 100.5 Cl, and 129.4 HCO3. When combined with acid additions based on mash pH measurements, does that look like a good starting point for a dunkel?

I guess the safest thing to do would be to play around with some dilutions and salt additions in my tap water before brew day to see how the water's flavor is affected. Is there any guideline to what baseline brewing water should taste like, beyond "not rubbish"?

 

[afr0byte]

This looks like it's from a water softener. If that's that case, you'll want to use the bypass valve on your softener. Your water should be treatable with lime softening if you want to go that route. Otherwise, your water is too alkaline to reasonably expect to get your mash pH down to 5.4-5.6 (room temp) for most beers. As you've found out, though, your pH is going to be closer to ideal with your stouts/etc.

 

[beertroll]

I do indeed have a water softener. I'm going to betray my utter ignorance of all things plumbing: is this bypass valve something I can turn on and off at will or would I need to have a dedicated line and tap installed?

 

[mabrungard]

Most exterior hose bibs for a house are typically unsoftened. That may be an easy way to bypass the softener. The taste of the water should be quite different from inside and outside the house. If the outside water has a blood or rusty taste, then there may be an iron problem with the water supply. You'll have to move to a RO treatment or another supply if that is the case.

 

[ajdelange]

Most modern household water softeners have a bypass valve built into the head of the unit. Obviously, if you can locate the unit's manual that's the best. But around my house you never can. It's often possible to find manuals on the manufacturer's website.

Barring that, the bypass is often in the form of a shuttle. Look behind the control head for a piece of plastic which sticks out of one side of the head with a knob on it. Pushing this knob results in the thing sticking out of the other side of the unit.

If there is no shuttle you can check for an outside bib as Martin suggested. This may necessitate tracing the plumbing from the bib to where the main comes into the house. Another approach is to obtain and install a saddle (piercing) valve (of the sort used to hook up ice makers) on the softener's inlet line.

Once you have obtained un-softened water your options are several. Yet another option is to hook up an RO unit to the softened line.

Your proposed additions will give you more or less what you have calculated. The calcium and chloride will be somewhat less as the calcium chloride you buy from the home brew shop contains about 80% calcium chloride (the rest is water). The result is still quite alkaline (about 110 ppm as CaCO3 - bicarbonate about 134 mg/L) so were I you I'd dilute more. This bicarbonate can be driven off with acid and were you in the UK that would be what you would do bringing up the chloride and sulfate (the product, CRS, the Pommies use to do this is a blend of hydrochloric and sulfuric acid). In the US you would probably use phosphoric acid as enough lactic to dispose of 110 ppm of alkalinity might be enough to taste. But then it might not or the taste might not be objectionable. You could acidify a test mash and check the flavor effects. Simpler to just use more distilled water, IMO.

 

[beertroll]

Good information. Thanks, guys. I fear that my unsoftened water probably has a substantial amount of Fe. The first year we had a lawn, the grass would be stained orange with rust after a heavy rain. I think I'll try my next pale ale with all distilled water, following the addition guidelines in the primer sticky. If I like the results (and I suspect I will), I'll look into an RO system. Given the price of distilled water around here, it should pay for itself in 10-15 brews.

 

[beertroll]

I now have 2 brews in the works using AJ's recommendations (mostly; I used 2ml of lactic acid instead of acid malt, but that's probably roughly equivalent). My mash pH has been damn near perfect, according to the strips. And wow, what a difference! Neither brew is finished yet, but they are both much, much, much clearer than anything I've made so far. The yeast appear to be loving it too; I've actually needed to use a blow-off because the krausens have been so huge. My primary is a 6.5 gallon carboy, and I usually have plenty of headroom, but these batches are pushing right through the airlock. I can't wait for the finished product. I'd like to offer a huge thank you to AJ and the others who have helped me figure this stuff out.

 

[GotPushrods]

...mash pH has been damn near perfect, according to the strips. And wow, what a difference! ...

There's a good chance you're still a tad high, but I bet it's so much closer you already taste a difference. Fun when that happens!

 

[beertroll]

Yeah, I've seen much grumbling about the strips on this forum. I'll pick up a meter sometime, but until then the strips are certainly better than not measuring at all. I'm extremely pleased with the improvements I'm seeing. Now I just need tighter control over my fermentation temperature.