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

[mabrungard]

Unless your brewing water's calcium content was well over 200 ppm, there is NO worry about precipitating calcium via phosphoric acid use. And when you consider loosing some of that already high calcium content, its absolutely not a concern. Malt supplies ALL the calcium that yeast need for their metabolism. However, having calcium in the water does provide some benefits such as precipitating oxalate and improving the enzyme activity and longevity. Don't worry about calcium that drops out in the mash since its done its part already. The only problem that a low calcium final wort might incur, is slower yeast flocculation.

Regarding the use or phosphoric or lactic, it depends on your tastes and upon your water's alkalinity. If your water has high alkalinity, then its possible that the amount of lactic acid needed to neutralize the alkalinity might create taste effects in your beer. Phosphoric acid is much less likely to incur a taste effect and can generally be used to neutralize more highly alkaline water supplies.

While phosphoric acid is more taste-neutral, there are reasons that you should consider lactic acid use. Nearly all the continental European breweries use some form of lactic acid in their brewing and the taste of their beers often comes with minor flavor enhancements due to its use. They aren't using it at high rates that create notable 'lactic' taste, but there are nuances that tend to come through. Lactic acid sources in continental brewing include acid malt, saurergut, and refined lactic acid. Any of them will do. The main difference is their strength and the amount you have to use.

With the said, I don't think that typical British ale production should use lactic acid unless the water alkalinity was fairly low.

PS: The type of acid used in brewing does not depend on the water's hardness. It depends on the water's alkalinity.

 

[strange-steve]

Thanks @mabrungard, I appreciate your comment.
Re. phosphoric acid, here is the problem with brewing water treatment. I certainly don't claim to be an expert, but there are some who would disagree with you and I'm pretty sure they have on other forums. If the experts can't agree, how are us laymen supposed to know what to do

 

[strange-steve]

@Chippy_Tea
I just noticed the table from the OP part 2 has disappeared. This is the link to the image if you wouldn't mind replacing it:

Thanks :hat:

 

[BeerCat]

Missing the jpegs on the first page after the upgrade.

Edit, thanks Steve just seen your post, Going to save that.

 

[Lawrence22]

I was just looking for that table, about to brew a bitter.

 

[strange-steve]

I was just looking for that table, about to brew a bitter.

I'll give @Chippy_Tea another ping to see if he can update the link.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I have added it let me know if it doesn't show in your browser..

 

[strange-steve]

I have added it let me know if it doesn't show in your browser..

It does show but you've put it in the wrong place, you put it at the top which I think was my avatar picture rather than towards the end of the post.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

It does show but you've put it in the wrong place, you put it at the top which I think was my avatar picture rather than towards the end of the post.

Is that right?

 

[strange-steve]

Is that right?

Perfect, thanks chippy thumb

 

[Chippy_Tea]

thumb

 

[dan125]

Is there any reason why I couldn't use a combo of both lactic & phosphoric acid?

During these rationed times I'm going to have use around 50% of my rubbish tap water at the weekend. I don't have much phosphoric left but am worried about the flavour impact if I used all lactic for acidifying.

 

[strange-steve]

Is there any reason why I couldn't use a combo of both lactic & phosphoric acid?

I can't see why that'd be a problem thumb

 

[dan125]

I can't see why that'd be a problem thumb

Thanks Steve :hat:
I'll give it a try never used lactic before but couldn't get any phosphoric when I was ordering ingredients

 

[Argentum]

Is there any reason why I couldn't use a combo of both lactic & phosphoric acid?

During these rationed times I'm going to have use around 50% of my rubbish tap water at the weekend. I don't have much phosphoric left but am worried about the flavour impact if I used all lactic for acidifying.

Not a problem. Just calculate the additions separately for both as if used individually, as their strengths differ, and then divide each computed addition in half.

 

[Zephyr259]

I'm back to having issues with my pH, I'm normally 0.1 - 0.15 below the estimate from Bru'n Water but the last been was miles under. Original estimate was 5.44 and I got 5.15, added more sodium bicarb which should have got me to 5.39 and was only 5.33. Looking at my brew records I very occasionally hit the target head on. I tend to take my reading about 20 - 15 minutes into the brew, I've sometimes done a few to see how it trends and it seems to go lower rather than trending towards 5.4.

One difference with this beer was that I mashed in at 40c then immediately heated to 65c for the main rest. I've read that this can aid in efficiency and with 45% of the grist being a 25 ebc dark munich then I thought the brief pass through the protein rest temps might be beneficial. Could the brief time it spent in the ferulic acid temp range have acidified the wort that much? I wouldn't have thought it would be that noticeable.

I've not had my water tested but from the report it's very soft and I estimate the alkalinity as 10 ppm as CaCO3, so it can't really be a case of estimating too high since I'd have to go negative to hit the estimates. I tend to aim for 100 mg/L calcium in the mash which drops the pH a lot so needs balanced with bicarbonate even in my amber beers.

This beer was 23 EBC and ended up with 128 mg/L bicarbonate, the pH 5.15 reading was taken at 41 mg/L bicarb and to get Bru'n Water to match I had to switch the crystal, DRC and imperial malts (all 150g / 3%) to roast malts.

I calibrated my pH meter a while ago when these issues first appeared and it was fine, I should probably do that again but the trend hasn't really changed since and I can't really get DI water to make the buffered test solutions at the moment. My beer tastes good and I get decent conversion and efficiencies so tend to not worry about it, but being so low recently just bothered me and thought I'd share my tale of woe. :-)

 

[strange-steve]

Interesting. I can't imagine such a short time in the acid rest zone would make much difference, if any. I wonder have you tried any other mash calculators (Braukaiser's for example) to see what pH they predict? Something that you could try in future is to add only half of the mash salts, then if the pH is high add some more to drop it a bit and just add the remainder to the boil.

 

[Zephyr259]

Thanks Steve. I ran the last two brews through Brukaiser's calculator, if I reading it right it estimates similar values for the lager. For the previous porter it seems to predict a close pH for when I forgot to add the bicarb (5.1) but then adding the bicarb brought it up to 5.37 and the calc predicts only +0.1 shift. So I'm confused. The lager had a target of 66 mg/L calcium so not as high as my bitters.

I'll try your suggestion of just adding half the salts and see what happens. The annoying thing is that I made a pilsner with my mate a few months back, the only treatment was a tiny touch of calcuim chloride so it would have a been a good test to see what my water does when essentially untreated, but brewing in his garage always throws my routine off and I forgot to measure the pH.

 

[dafbach]

My next brew is a NEIPA which requires water profile of 3 to 1 chloride to sulphate.
Having only used your thread for guidance I'm struggling to get my head around the above.

If my alkalinity is typically 35ppm and my calcium 20ppm (Isle of Anglesey water)
Is someone able to tell me how much calcium chloride I need to get my chloride up to 150 - 175ppm.
Also, how would I get a sulphate level of 75 -100ppm.

Thanks in advance.
Confused.

 

[Zephyr259]

My next brew is a NEIPA which requires water profile of 3 to 1 chloride to sulphate.
Having only used your thread for guidance I'm struggling to get my head around the above.

If my alkalinity is typically 35ppm and my calcium 20ppm (Isle of Anglesey water)
Is someone able to tell me how much calcium chloride I need to get my chloride up to 150 - 175ppm.
Also, how would I get a sulphate level of 75 -100ppm.

Thanks in advance.
Confused.

0.24 - 0.28 g/L CaCl and 0.14 - 0.18 g/L Gypsum for those levels but that's assuming you start from zero of each. With only 20 ppm calcium you likely don't have much anyway. Both of those at the minimum is going to give you 140 mg/L calcium when added to your existing 20. These are numbers from Bru'n water.