Aaaargh...Water Help Please

[pgl150]

Hi all.

I'm about to embark on my very first AG brew and whilst I'm awaiting answers about my recipe (under the Greg Hughes Black IPA topic) I'm trying to figure out what water treatment I'll need as it's currently off the scale past 6.2 on John Palmers Nomograph!

My water report gives me the following:

Calcium 157 mg/l
Magnesium 10.5 mg/l
Sodium 30.1 mg/l
Sulphate 144 mg/l
Chloride 51 mg/l

and wait for it...CaCO3 at 435.25 mg/l :lol:

I've looked at the Brewers Friend and Beersmith calculators and then came across the Old Forum Water calculator which seems to be in a bit plainer English.

From what I can tell I just need to either boil the water and/or add a Camden tablet (or part of one); do I need to do both or just one?

Then I just pump the figures into this tool and see what comes out? Note: I compared it with stout rather than IPA as it's a much darker brew, hence the name. I assume this is ok?

Doing this gives me 51.9ml of CRS to add to the total water volume, 3.08g of table salt to add to the boil and 2.28g of Calcium Chloride to add to the boil.

Does this approach sound ok?

Thanks

Paul

 

[TartanSpecial]

wow.. is the the CaCO3 figure total hardness or alkalinity?...normally water companies report total hardness. Your water is even harder than mine (Epsom).
You can either boil to get rid of the excess carbonate or use CRS...not both. Using some approximations (guesstimates) of alkalinity to total hardness ratios, crosschecking with Calcium to alkalinity ratios based on my water (which I test with salifert kits), then using graham Wheelers calculator , assuming a total brewing liquor volume of 35 litres then for a stout (and your black IPA has a fair amount of chocolate in it) I get 51mls CRS and 3 grams Calcium chloride and 4 grams sodium chloride which is spookily close to your numbers.
Personally I'd want to confirm that the water is currently really that hard..it can vary seasonally, by testing with a salifert alkalinity test kit.

 

[HisDudeness]

Wow that water is double b*stard hard! :evil: I have recently been experimenting with water treatment myself so I am far from expert but I would advise the following:

The campden tablet is to dechlorinate the water which is worth doing regardless, boiling can drive off free chlorine but not chloramine which is what a lot of water is now treated with so best bet is the campden.

Boiling can also reduce the hardness by causing CaC03 to precipitate out as chalk (limescale) so actually its a choice between boiling or CRS that you need to make.

Comparing with a stout is not ideal for a black IPA as you will get additions that promote a more malty end result, whereas for an IPA you would generally want a more bitter/hoppy result. This is also why it is suggesting salt and calcium chloride to increase the chloride to sulphate ratio. At the moment the balance of sulphate to chloride will already promote a quite hoppy/bitter beer and all the other chemistry is within normal levels (apart from CaCO3). So I would suggest leaving out any salt additions and just focusing on using CRS or boiling to drop that alkalinity down as this is your major issue water wise.

 

[TartanSpecial]

Comparing with a stout is not ideal for a black IPA as you will get additions that promote a more malty end result, whereas for an IPA you would generally want a more bitter/hoppy result. This is also why it is suggesting salt and calcium chloride to increase the chloride to sulphate ratio. At the moment the balance of sulphate to chloride will already promote a quite hoppy/bitter beer and all the other chemistry is within normal levels (apart from CaCO3). So I would suggest leaving out any salt additions and just focusing on using CRS or boiling to drop that alkalinity down as this is your major issue water wise.

Yeah you're right... for an IPA you wont want the sulphate/chloride of a stout (sorry my reply wasn't fully thought through ) so concentrate on stripping out the carbonates. Given the water already has loads of sulphate it should be a reasonable starting point.

 

[H0PM0NSTER]

When should you add the campden tablet? With the mash water or as part of the boil?

 

[HisDudeness]

When should you add the campden tablet? With the mash water or as part of the boil?

To your total water volume (mash and sparge water) before you have done anything else

 

[TartanSpecial]

unless you are using water that goes through an activated carbon filter.....never thought about brewing when we got one fitted for our drinking water but now glad we did :smile:

 

[MyQul]

Tartan has outlined all the options for reducing the alkalinity. Or you could do what I do and just buy bottled water.

 

[pgl150]

wow.. is the the CaCO3 figure total hardness or alkalinity?...normally water companies report total hardness. Your water is even harder than mine (Epsom).
You can either boil to get rid of the excess carbonate or use CRS...not both. Using some approximations (guesstimates) of alkalinity to total hardness ratios, crosschecking with Calcium to alkalinity ratios based on my water (which I test with salifert kits), then using graham Wheelers calculator , assuming a total brewing liquor volume of 35 litres then for a stout (and your black IPA has a fair amount of chocolate in it) I get 51mls CRS and 3 grams Calcium chloride and 4 grams sodium chloride which is spookily close to your numbers.
Personally I'd want to confirm that the water is currently really that hard..it can vary seasonally, by testing with a salifert alkalinity test kit.

Wow! Thanks for all the replies already! :thumb:

Yes I believe the CaCO3 figure is total hardness. Think I'll invest in a Salifert kit though...

Cheers all

 

[pgl150]

Wow that water is double b*stard hard! :evil: I have recently been experimenting with water treatment myself so I am far from expert but I would advise the following:

The campden tablet is to dechlorinate the water which is worth doing regardless, boiling can drive off free chlorine but not chloramine which is what a lot of water is now treated with so best bet is the campden.

The report also says that 'No ammonia is added in this process which means your water supply is not chloraminated.'

I suppose that's something! :-)

 

[pgl150]

Ok, so on the face of it I think I'll go for the Camden Tablet and CRS approach. It seems easier than boiling!

However, I'm now confused!

I bought a Salifert test kit and it changed colour at 0.05 which gives a figure of 265.25 which I assume is my CaCO3 figure? However even the lowest figure on the syringe of zero would only come out at 279.5 which is way down on what was contained in my water report.

Any ideas on why there is such a huge discrepancy?

Thanks

 

[TartanSpecial]

Go with what the alkalinity test results. Your water had a lot of ions in it so the total hardness could be quite a lot higher than alkalinity. My water company report total hardness at 320ppm as Ca CO3 and the alkalinity is normally around 270ppm...though has varied from 240-300. It may be that in winter more of the supply is from lower hardness sources what with all the rainfall this winter....
If it were me I'd test the water on brewday or the day before, run the numbers based on that (for CRS additions) then see how your mash efficiency turns out.
With 265ppm you'll probably be on approx 35-40ml CRS for 35ltrs total liquor volume for a Porter/Stout (even though you are doing a black IPA)

 

[pgl150]

Go with what the alkalinity test results. Your water had a lot of ions in it so the total hardness could be quite a lot higher than alkalinity. My water company report total hardness at 320ppm as Ca CO3 and the alkalinity is normally around 270ppm...though has varied from 240-300. It may be that in winter more of the supply is from lower hardness sources what with all the rainfall this winter....
If it were me I'd test the water on brewday or the day before, run the numbers based on that (for CRS additions) then see how your mash efficiency turns out.
With 265ppm you'll probably be on approx 35-40ml CRS for 35ltrs total liquor volume for a Porter/Stout (even though you are doing a black IPA)

Yes it works out as adding high 30s of CRS. At least I know what my plan is now! Bottling my St Peters IPA on Weds and doing the Black IPA on Saturday. :thumb:

Cheers for the help all.

 

[pgl150]

Brewing tomorrow and just wondering whether in the Old Forum Calculator I should compare with a Pale Ale or a Stout?

This will obviously affect CRS addition values.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

Paul

 

[MyQul]

Brewing tomorrow and just wondering whether in the Old Forum Calculator I should compare with a Pale Ale or a Stout?

This will obviously affect CRS addition values.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

Paul

If your doing a black IPA I'd go with the Pale Ale or even bitter as there's not a huge amount of dark malts (carafa special III & choccy?) in there. The last mild I made I fel there was something not quite right with it that I suspect was the water. For stouts and porters, my (hard) water is fine, great even but when I make milds with it I don't think there's enough dark malts in there to lower the alkalinity sufficiently. This may be the case with a black IPA

 

[pgl150]

If your doing a black IPA I'd go with the Pale Ale or even bitter as there's not a huge amount of dark malts (carafa special III & choccy?) in there. The last mild I made I fel there was something not quite right with it that I suspect was the water. For stouts and porters, my (hard) water is fine, great even but when I make milds with it I don't think there's enough dark malts in there to lower the alkalinity sufficiently. This may be the case with a black IPA

Ok thanks. Think I'm all set for my first AG!! :party: