Beginners Guide to Water Treatment (plus links to more advanced water treatment in post #1)

[Benfleet Brewery]

Sorry Mark I just saw your question. Don't worry about it, just add your acids to the warm water. PH (and alkalinity to a smaller extent) is affected by temperature, but as long as your measurements are taken at room temperature then it's all good

Excellent, as I was then, thank you. I have actually now started to measure my mash PH (bought a meter ages ago but kept forgetting to use it) and am happy with the numbers I’m hitting using my current process and your Simple Water Calculator.

 

[Brewnaldo]

Another convert to the @strange-steve method, having just ordered scales and test kits.

Curious to hear any opinions of what level of improvement folk have perceived from stsrting to treat water?

 

[Brewnaldo]

I received my test kit and am getting an alkalinity reading of between 7 and 8 ppm.

Would folks recommend bumping that up a bit? Especially for lager as they will be my next 2 brews

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

Sorry, I have another question regarding the taste threshold for Lactic acid. When ml per litre is mentioned, is this per litre into the FV or total mash and strike water? The reason I ask is that I assume the Lactic gets more and more concentrated the more the water is boiled off!

 

[strange-steve]

I received my test kit and am getting an alkalinity reading of between 7 and 8 ppm.

Would folks recommend bumping that up a bit? Especially for lager as they will be my next 2 brews

It depends on the recipe, but for a light beer you probably won't need to increase the alkalinity.

 

[strange-steve]

Sorry, I have another question regarding the taste threshold for Lactic acid. When ml per litre is mentioned, is this per litre into the FV or total mash and strike water? The reason I ask is that I assume the Lactic gets more and more concentrated the more the water is boiled off!

It's not possible to unempirically say what the threshold is for a particular individual, but something like 0.4ml/l lactate is often suggested as undetectable by most people, which would be the concentration in the finished product. There's some more info on Braukaiser's site here: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Lactate_Taste_Threshold_experiment

 

[Brewnaldo]

Steve, one more question before I simply crack on with treating according to your guide... Now that I know my alkalinity is a rather low 7ppm, and that it should be broadly ok for pale beer and lager, what would I expect flavour wise from brewing a stout with this water? Ever since I tested it I have been second guessing my stout I have just now that it tastes somehow "acidic" and overly dry/tart. Is that what one might expect? I am brewing a Dubbel probably next week so will certainly look to push alkalinity upwards for that, and I am going to borrow a PH meter of a pal so the lager I brew this week can be tested in the mash.

 

[strange-steve]

@Brewnaldo I'm honestly not sure how that would come across in the finished product but I'd imagine it might be as you describe. Getting the alkalinity right is mostly about getting the mash pH correct but no doubt this will impact the flavour somehow down the line.

 

[Brewnaldo]

Just measured my calcium. Its basically somewhere between 0 and 10ppm. Hard to define since 1 drop of the CA 3 solution turned the colour.

So in terms of alkalinity and Calcium ions, I pretty much have a clean slate. My next order of grain also includes some gypsum and Calcium Chloride so will build them up from scratch as needed

 

[woolley2002]

Hi
Looking for some help as I start to look at treating my water for All grain brewing.
I have done a test for Calcium and Alkalinity as suggested and have the following results.

Alkalinity : 182.58ppm
Calcium : 110ppm

I am looking to brew a Pale Ale so is my adjustments below correct?

Alkalinity need to remove 160ppm so would require 13.44ml of crs for 16 ltr of mash water and 10.08ml of water for 12 liters of sparge water

Calcium - although within range was thinking to bring ppm up a little so adding 2.72g of gypsum to 16 ltr of mash water and 2.04g to 12 ltr of sparge water

With this being my firstt attempt at adjustments I could be completely wrong so looking for advice on above if possible.

I will also post my water report so people can tell me if there is anything else I should be looking to adjust in my water.

http://waterquality.anglianwater.com/mergedreport.aspx
Thanks in advance.

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

Have you tried punching you figures in here:

Edit: You should be able to get approximate ppm for Sulphate and Chloride from your water report.

https://strange-steve.coffeecup.com/Water Calculator/WaterOnlyPage.html

 

[woolley2002]

Have you tried punching you figures in here:

Edit: You should be able to get approximate ppm for Sulphate and Chloride from your water report.

https://strange-steve.coffeecup.com/Water Calculator/WaterOnlyPage.html

No I haven't as I don't know what my target Chloride and Sulphate should be.

 

[strange-steve]

Hi
Looking for some help as I start to look at treating my water for All grain brewing.
I have done a test for Calcium and Alkalinity as suggested and have the following results.

Alkalinity : 182.58ppm
Calcium : 110ppm

I am looking to brew a Pale Ale so is my adjustments below correct?

Alkalinity need to remove 160ppm so would require 13.44ml of crs for 16 ltr of mash water and 10.08ml of water for 12 liters of sparge water

Calcium - although within range was thinking to bring ppm up a little so adding 2.72g of gypsum to 16 ltr of mash water and 2.04g to 12 ltr of sparge water

With this being my firstt attempt at adjustments I could be completely wrong so looking for advice on above if possible.

I will also post my water report so people can tell me if there is anything else I should be looking to adjust in my water.

http://waterquality.anglianwater.com/mergedreport.aspx
Thanks in advance.

Yep looks about right

 

[woolley2002]

Yep looks about right

Cheers @strange-steve if I was to use the calculator as mentioned by @Markk what would my Chloride and Sulphate target be?

 

[strange-steve]

Cheers @strange-steve if I was to use the calculator as mentioned by @Markk what would my Chloride and Sulphate target be?

Personally I would go for something like 100ppm chloride and 200ppm sulphate, but there's plenty of wiggle room so don't worry about hitting that exactly.

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

No I haven't as I don't know what my target Chloride and Sulphate should be.

@strange-steve has kindly put a number of target water profile suggestions in a link in the first paragraph of the “notes” section at the right hand side on his calculator. As he says himself, it is only a guide, but it is the guide I use now none the less.

 

[Braufather]

Because of a shortage of tescos ashbec or similar over here at the moment, I am considering using tap water for the first time. Water report says it’s slightly hard about 80 if I recall correctly but it’s full of clorine and tastes ***** and I never drink it straight up.

Seems like I Need do I boil it, add a campden tab and a bit of CMS. Have campden tabs to hand but Not sure what cms is or where I can get it at short notice. Would citric acid work? I have some of that. ive got the usual gypsum and CC to hand too.

also what are people‘s experiences, has anyone made really good beer from really crap water with just these adjustments?

A longer term solution maybe to invest in a water filter but any advice for a brew on Sunday would be great!

 

[strange-steve]

Because of a shortage of tescos ashbec or similar over here at the moment, I am considering using tap water for the first time. Water report says it’s slightly hard about 80 if I recall correctly but it’s full of clorine and tastes ***** and I never drink it straight up.

Seems like I Need do I boil it, add a campden tab and a bit of CMS. Have campden tabs to hand but Not sure what cms is or where I can get it at short notice. Would citric acid work? I have some of that. ive got the usual gypsum and CC to hand too.

also what are people‘s experiences, has anyone made really good beer from really crap water with just these adjustments?

A longer term solution maybe to invest in a water filter but any advice for a brew on Sunday would be great!

Not CMS but CRS (carbonate reducing solution) can be found in many homebrew stores (here for example) but to use it you need to know what the alkalinity or bicarbonate of your tap water is. I don't think you'll get this info from NI Water but you can test this with a Salifert KH kit.

I wouldn't randomly use gypsum or CC either without knowing at least the calcium content of the water (and preferably also the sulphate and chloride).

The Campden tablet is one that I would definitely use, roughly half a tablet per 35L will remove all the chlorine. There's no need to boil the tap water before you use it.

Personally I think learning to use your tap water is much more preferable to using bottled or filtered water, though I understand that that's not always practical.

 

[Braufather]

Not CMS but CRS (carbonate reducing solution) can be found in many homebrew stores (here for example) but to use it you need to know what the alkalinity or bicarbonate of your tap water is. I don't think you'll get this info from NI Water but you can test this with a Salifert KH kit.

I wouldn't randomly use gypsum or CC either without knowing at least the calcium content of the water (and preferably also the sulphate and chloride).

The Campden tablet is one that I would definitely use, roughly half a tablet per 35L will remove all the chlorine. There's no need to boil the tap water before you use it.

Personally I think learning to use your tap water is much more preferable to using bottled or filtered water, though I understand that that's not always practical.

I have considered switching before if only to save on all the plastic used with bottled water. I will get one of those testing kits but for this weekend do you think the NI report is not that accurate? I will try to post the report

 

[Braufather]

Calcium Hardness (mg/l)	148.9
Magnesium (mg/l)	8.1
Potassium (mg/l)	3.4
Calcium (mg/l)	46.0
Total Hardness (mg CaCO3/l)	59.4
Clark English Degrees	10.4
French Degrees	14.9
German Degrees	8.3
NI Hardness Classification	Slightly Hard