does water really matter that much?

i've been brewing with RO water, which is pretty much free of all "impurities" like gypsum etc.

i know commercial breweries like to make a big deal about their water, like Burtonizing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewing_methods#Burtonisation or water from the Colorado Rockies, etc

but does such tiny trace amounts of additives make any noticable difference to the final taste really?

thx

Only thing I can say is since I started treating my water with campden tablets, CRS and gypsums ect I have found my brews have improved, its not like 50% better but they are clearer in appearance and the flavours are "cleaner" and just a bit more precise. The best analogy I can give it is its like giving a pencil a little sharpen.

When you say you brew with RO water, are you adding anything to that? Water treatment can make the difference between a good brew and a really good brew, but it won't make a bad beer good.

strange-steve said:

When you say you brew with RO water, are you adding anything to that? Water treatment can make the difference between a good brew and a really good brew, but it won't make a bad beer good.

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not currently. i used to have a bottle of burton salts but i can't find anything in my recent move, so i havn't bothered.

i'm just wondering if i should get something for my next batch

I've been doing a lot of reading around mash PH recently and the consensus is that it is very important to get within the recommended range. I haven't started looking in to other additions yet.

I used to brew with normal tap water - southeast very hard, chalky stuff - someone on forum described it as 'liquid rock'. Beer was drinkable and I thought OK. But now I filter it through one of those standalone drinking water filter systems you can get from B & Q. (And other places of course). The difference is noticeable. The finished beer is clearer and cleaner tasting I'd say. I doubt I've suddenly become a better brewer, that would be too much of a coincidence..!

the tap water in buckingham is pretty good. but I mix five litres of next to freezing ashbeck into the wort brew day along with say another five boiled with the steeped grains and any additional DME,LME. along with a campden tab and some finings my beer has improved no end.

I used to doubt it.

Despite that I recently became fanatical about the water, got Bru'n Water to help and comply with its results to the nth degree. My last brew was a "Burton bitter" (Marsden Pedigree clone-ish, well I come from Derby and grew up with Pedigree) and I used Bru'n Water's "pale ale" treatment. That's a hell of a lot of gypsum which wasn't easy to dissolve but still only 30g in about 75 litres of (very soft) water (amongst other mineral additions). And I could taste the result? Wasn't exactly that; the result "transported" me back to sitting in Pubs near Derby.

Bit of an extreme case, that much gypsum really does have an impact. But getting the water treatment right (with something like Bru'n Water) and you don't worry about Mash pH no more. I do not doubt now whether tiny amounts of water treatment minerals have an effect on the final beer. It does.

steveh2112 said:

not currently. i used to have a bottle of burton salts but i can't find anything in my recent move, so i havn't bothered.

i'm just wondering if i should get something for my next batch

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Well considering that you're using RO water I think you would see quite a noticeable difference. Get some gypsum for hoppy beers and calcium chloride for malty beers and you will definitely have fuller rounder flavours.

Mash ph is important but as peebee says you shouldn't have to worry about it too much. Generally it will fall into the correct range itself, exceptions being very light beers with high alkalinity water or dark beers with low alkalinity water.

well if you consider the lead pipes that water goes through and the chlorine and the fluoride, but what could these harmless things do ?

http://www.freedrinkingwater.com/images-new/education-page/image/fluoride-poison.jpg

Burton on trent water is harder than a Viking with Uzi and from what I've read even the brewery's their dont use it. They treat their water. I've also read not to try to replicate a particular area of the worlds water (aparenty a particularly American obsession) and just to treat you own water. To get it to 'make good beer'

My advice is, If your beer tastes nice dont bother to faff around with it.
I have hard-ish London water which is not very good to make pale beers with. Using my tap water I get a lingering bitter after taste not the clean bitteringyou want. So I now use bottles water with an alkalinity <30ppm, which solved the problem. However calculators recommend adding other mineral salts like gypsum too. I tried it and wasnt impressed with the results (perhaps I cocked something up, I'm not sure). So I just use untreated bottled water for my pales and my bitters have gone from very disappointing to 'a pint like from a pub but where the landlord really knows how to keep the beer'
My tap water alone is fantastic for Porters/Stouts so I just use that straight from the tap with doing a thing to it.

DoctorMick said:

I've been doing a lot of reading around mash PH recently and the consensus is that it is very important to get within the recommended range. I haven't started looking in to other additions yet.

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You need to get the alkalinity right of your brew liquor. For the style of beer your wanting to make. Once your alkalinty is right, the mash PH will take care of itself

Don't brew with 100% RO water. It's likely worse than brewing with tap water. RO water has its uses for dilution.

You aim for certain ion levels in your liquor, most important being bicarbonate & calcium. In your own tap water, some ion levels might be too high, and some might be too low. If any (except for bicarbonates) are too high, for example calcium or sulphate, then you can't adjust for this with additions, you must dilute with water with lower levels of these ions, and RO water has very low levels and so is ideal for this purpose. If any ions are too low in your tap water however, you must add something to bring the ions back to required levels.

RO has everything at zero, so of you use 100% RO water, it's sure you are outside the recommended levels for all the ions. You will likely miss target mash pH and suffer other taste and yeast health issues.

In my case, the only thing that exceed maximum levels in my tap water is bicarbonates (alkalinity), and I address that by adding phosphoric acid. I'm well under target level on calcium however (35ppm against recommended minimum of 50), so I add calcium chloride and calcium carbonate to reach the needed calcium minimum. I use Brun Water free tool.

Fore is totally on the money with this :thumb:

When I started brewing in London where the water is very hard, my IPAs tasted like concrete, really bad and hugely bitter. I added CRS and epsom salts and they came out well. I still reduce the amount of bittering hops on any recipe as too much will harsh, but it did make a world of difference. I would usually stick to making lagers as they would come out really well.

Here in Ireland I've made IPAs, wheat beers, a lager, saison, Belgian style beers, and they all came out well without having to condition the water. The IPA was a bit on the harsh side, but that's probably more to do with my choice of bittering hops. I'm sure if I do condition the water my beers will come out better, but currently the costs and efforts involved are more than it's worth.

Water does play a part in the overall flavour of beer, depends on the profile.

Fore said:

Don't brew with 100% RO water. It's likely worse than brewing with tap water...

...so I add calcium chloride and calcium carbonate to reach the needed calcium minimum. I use Brun Water free tool.

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The only thing that would make me wince in Fore's fine reply is use of calcium carbonate (chalk). It's a real PITA. More than about 1g in 100L and it will sit undissolved at the bottom of the bucket laughing at all your careful weighing.

Chalk can be suggested for reducing acidity and acidity will help dissolve it... eventually. If I need to reduce acidity (or increase alkalinity) I reach for the Baking Powder (NaHCO3) or Slaked (Pickling) Lime first (careful though, Lime is hazardous in its powder form). Ebay is great for sourcing less common mineral salts like Lime (Magnesium Chloride is another).

Oops, I meant Calcium Sulphate. I don't need carbonates, I need to get rid of them, I have far too many at 258ppm. Never had to buy or use Calcium Carbonate therefore. And I bet it is a PITA. Trying to dissolve chalk in water can't be easy. Good remarks.

RO water is perfect for brewing with when 'built' back to a target water profile. The other good thing is any profile can be recreated. RO is also a very cheap and easy solution, if you are not on a water meter....

In simple terms (as I understand it!), the profiles are decided mainly by two things:

- the predicted colour of the beer, which gives you an estimate of the acidity contribution of the grist, and the profile required to balance this and achieve the optimum mash pH range. The darker the beer, the more acidic the grainbill...

- the 'style' of the beer. The sulphate/chloride ratio can be adjusted to suit a malty or a hoppy beer...

The good news. You don't really need to know any of this in detail. You can Google a good profile for your beer style, put the figures into something like Beersmith, and it tells you exactly how much of each chemical to add. They are simple chemicals too - gypsum, baking powder, epsom salts.... Buy some 'jewellers scales' from ebay for £3 and you are off.....

Or copy what someone else has done until you get into it... The following table is what I use, I've done about 60 beers with these figures now. (I've set it to 50 litres total water. Scale if you need to.) It has profiles for the range of beer colours, plus two US-style pale ale hop-forward profiles.



- Choose you beer colour (top left)
- Choose a profile
- Add the quantities from the bottom half of that profile column to your total water volume (add any chalk to the grains, add the rest to the water)
- Done

marlon said:

I used to brew with normal tap water - southeast very hard, chalky stuff - someone on forum described it as 'liquid rock'. Beer was drinkable and I thought OK. But now I filter it through one of those standalone drinking water filter systems you can get from B & Q. (And other places of course). The difference is noticeable. The finished beer is clearer and cleaner tasting I'd say. I doubt I've suddenly become a better brewer, that would be too much of a coincidence..!

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Its a good point, since the water here is 'ARD...BLOODY 'ARD