Cant get my head around water treatment

[Libigage]

I want to move into water treatment, but I just don't get it. I'm not normally thick but this goes right over my head.
This my water report, I'm getting a bit confused with calcium carbinate and calcium, which one am I aiming to change? Can someone help me please. I mainly make hoppy pale ales and I want to get into water treatment but it just blows my mind. I use a gen 3.1.1 35 litre brewzilla and a 30 litre burco for my sparge water. Obviously there is dead space below the burco tap so I was thinking of filling 2 x 25 litre containers ( with screw tops) with tap water and treating one as mash water and one as sparge water and then just using the the amount of water needed. Can someone tell me what I need to buy and how much to add so I get the correct water profile please. I've read strange Steves thread which helps me understand a bit but I still can't work it out.

 

[Sadfield]

Well, it depends on what you are brewing. General rules of thumb is that you want more than 50ppm Calcium for yeast health a enzymatic performance. Lower than 50ppm of HCO3 Alkalinity, as high alkalinity acts against the grains in the mash in reducing pH to the desired range, less Alkalinity for pale beers, more for stouts/porters. Sulphate, Chloride and Sodium can be adjusted as required to enhance flavour. More Sulphate than Chloride enhances bitterness, and crispness/dryness, more Chloride than Sulphate enhances sweetness and maltiness. Upto 300ppm of these is acceptable in British beer styles.

Treating your water with AMS/CRS will should reduce the Alkalinity, whilst adding Sulphate and Chloride. Around 0.75ml per litre of strike and sparge water should give you a good all round start point.

https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/pro...HOuCQIYraqADJTY1owhUwlPrl1P2OYNhoCdIYQAvD_BwE

 

[Libigage]

Thank you, I mainly brew hoppy pale ales and sometimes neipa's and west coast ipa's. I am open to using my tap water as shown or ashbeck from tescos or I have a spotless water supplier 10 minutes up the road. I just want to know what chemicals I need to buy and how much to add. I just want someone to do the sums for me.

 

[Sadfield]

CRS is one option. The other is to dilute your tap water with spotless, 1 part tap to 3 parts spotless. this would get the Alkalinity down to 50, but leave you with around 22ppm of Calcium, that you would need to add back with a teaspoon of Gypsum (Calcium Sulphate)*. Or, it can get overly complicated using 100% spotless, a water calculator and a array of chemicals.

*Gypsum for Pales/WCIPAs or Calcium Chloride for softer tasting NEIPAs.

 

[Libigage]

Would you still use a campden tablet regardless, would I need a ph meter/strips

 

[Sadfield]

I would use a campden tablet as it easy to do and removes any risk. If you know for sure that you're water provider uses chlorine instead of chloramine, then you may not need to.

pH measurement would be helpful.

Personally, I use these, meters are a PITA to maintain and calibrate, if used intermittently, in my experience.

https://apcpure.com/product/beer-ph...DKhaeQejQUrE5Bl8l-gX2p-noORFr_NBoCk7AQAvD_BwE

 

[Clint]

A great starting point is the topic created by Strange Steve. Good points on testing your own water with Salifert aquarium test kits.
His calculator...brilliant,but not readily available any more.
Once you find your values you can use other software to adjust. If you can't manage to sort it out your water company can give you some numbers but they're not always up to date. Or you can send your water to a lab to get a result or filter it to death and start on a blank canvas.

 

[Jiffy176]

Can i suggest two things.
1 get your tap water tested by Murphy and sons it's only thirty quid and you have a good starting point.
2 put your recepie into brewfather even the free version will tell you what additions you need once you have a base profile.
It will help you to get the basics and then you can tinker.
I mix spotless with tap but always use some campden tablet in tap just to clear the chloromines out.

I've just started to use brunwater which is an excellent spread sheet but doesn't make the adjustments for you.

 

[MashBag]

I personally think your water needs to be brown before you start down the spotless / bottled route

 

[Libigage]

Going by my report, what fugure would I put in carbonate? When I put 272.53 (calcium carbonate) it say " water unbalanced check inputs"

 

[peebee]

This query was cross-posted in @strange-steve's famous thread where I answered it. I'll copy it here (it answers @Libigage's post above) and discourage any replies to the original location (which is quite big enough!).

... I'm getting a bit confused with calcium carbinate and calcium ...

I bet you do! Don't worry, many are, including an awful lot of people who don't know they are, and will try to tell you what it all means!

It stems from having two different "technologies" and trying to make them work as one and both add up sensibly. They don't!

So, Step One: Dispose of the older, and most confusing "technology". Some people do amazing things with it, but they know the compromises and contradictions that surround it. You don't, like the majority of people, and you don't want to know either ... and you certainly do not need to know it! So, dump it! With extreme prejudice! I'm talking about "Water Hardness". That means the entire first Table you posted, and the first entry in the second table ("CaCO3 mg/l Calcium Carbonate").

Well, that's a good start! "Calcium Carbonate" has vanished from your water report so you won't be worried about which (calcium carbonate or calcium) you are aiming to change. "Calcium Carbonate" never existed in your tap water anyway ("Calcium Carbonate" has a molecular weight of "100" ... maybe you can see how easy it made working things out imagining those things are "Calcium Carbonate"?).


Step Two. You are just left with six figures in that second table. Put them in whatever water calculator you've chosen to use. If the calculator insists that you need a "Hardness" number, get another calculator! The dumped calculator was going to tell you a load of garbage anyway. Some calculators will take "Hardness" values, but don't actually use the values or insist you enter them. The popular "Bru'n Water" calculator is an example of this.

I created a calculator that only handles the water report so you are only left with the information you can use (it's linked in my "signature" below, hidden if viewing in portrait mode on a 'phone). It needs a bit of modifying to discourage people digging too deep when they don't need to ... so, I've done it all for you! Aren't I nice . This is your report showing the only parts of the spreadsheet you'd have used. The numbers are rounded (to the nearest "part-per-million" to put that in context!), 10ppm "nitrate" has been added (added solely for "balance", the amount is guessed, but it's always there ... mainly pollution!) and "Alkalinity" (as HCO3 or "as bicarbonate") is calculated ... I didn't use the one in the report (and it's the same ... astonishing, the reported one is often wrong!).

In the depths of my spreadsheet, it does actually calculate "Total Hardness" (can be used for some things if a poorly written report used). It came out as 272.66ppm as CaCO3. Your report has it as 272.53 ... ooh, that's nice! Err, not really if you ever learn what it means! "French Degrees" is "Total Hardness" ÷ 10 = 27.25 ... confirmed then. But the report (first table) also repeats "Total Hardness" with a value of 109.01. 109 "whats"? It's complete &%*%! ... looks like you've had a lucky escape!

 

[malhal]

For pales you need either acid malt or lactic acid to prevent tannins from malt and hops. That tastes like astringent bitterness or a woody harsh aftertaste. Taste an IPA from an old school brewery that doesn’t do water treatment to get the idea.

Gypsum is a common way to lower pH with use of less acid. Makes hops taste fruity rather than harsh. The reason you might want less acid is lactic can have a yoghurt taste and it is rather dangerous thing to have in the kitchen. Gypsum needs to be added to all the water otherwise you’ll get grain tannins when sparging.

Chlorine removal to prevent TCP taste from hops goes without saying.

 

[peebee]

... Personally, I use these, meters are a PITA to maintain and calibrate, if used intermittently, in my experience.

https://apcpure.com/product/beer-ph...DKhaeQejQUrE5Bl8l-gX2p-noORFr_NBoCk7AQAvD_BwE

Some folk will be surprised at this, but I (now) fully support the use of pH indicator strips over pH meters. The meters are a PITA to maintain and calibrate, and the probes only have a limited lifespan too (about 12 months; you'd be very, very, lucky to get longer). And expecting to get "two decimal place" accuracy from a cheap Chinese pen device is Cloud-Cuckoo-Land.

Don't believe me? Then read >this<. And understand it! (You won't understand it fully, 'cos 1: Why bother, and 2: You'd need to be a right clever-ar** to do that). It's basically illustrating how convulated and difficult aligning a "predicted Mash pH" with reality is! Or ... just how far the wool is being pulled over your eyes by others. I always knew some calculators are better than others at Mash pH prediction, but the same calculator will be useless when used by someone else living miles away where one of the "other" calculators predict better. But I've only recently begun to understand "why", and why I'll never understand properly!

Oh ... and don't forget the recommendations to exclude chlorine/chloramide.

 

[peebee]

For a water calculator that does make a good stab at Mash pH prediction I'd recommend Mash Made Easy by "Silver is Money" (he used to post on this site as "Argentum", but no more).

My criticism of that calculator is it long ago exited the "made easy" category! To use it, you will have to keep the "DIpH" data up-to-date ... and it changes if you sneeze! A chore, but not actually difficult if you're dedicated (erm ... I guess I'm not!).

Try it! (That should convince a few more people to use indicator strips!).

 

[MashBag]

@peebee

You could do AMS & DWB. Didn't know if I had mentioned this before

 

[Keruso]

Thank you, I mainly brew hoppy pale ales and sometimes neipa's and west coast ipa's. I am open to using my tap water as shown or ashbeck from tescos or I have a spotless water supplier 10 minutes up the road. I just want to know what chemicals I need to buy and how much to add. I just want someone to do the sums for me.

I don’t claim to be an expert but here’s what I do. I use 24Pure water, same as Spotless as it makes the process so much easier. When a water calculator asks for the starting values for each of the chemicals you can put zero against everything. I use the Grainfather inbuilt water calculator, but https://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water.html is fairly simple. Most recognized beer styles have a target water profile so it’s easy to look that up for the style you are making. Using 24Pure water, as the base, I only ever need to add varying quantities of the following, gypsum, calcium chloride, epson salt, sodium bicarbonate. A New England IPA needs some of these salts, as does a west coast IPA, the calculator will tell you how much of each you need for the style you are making and the water quantity. Last time I tested 24Pure water with PH strips it was 7, so that’s your starting alkalinity measured in HC03.

 

[The Baron]

Where can I get a water report that is economically viable as £30 keeps getting thrown about and yet it is £65 for a Murphys report through MM which to me is too much

 

[Agentgonzo]

Where can I get a water report that is economically viable as £30 keeps getting thrown about and yet it is £65 for a Murphys report through MM which to me is too much

Your water company is required to produce one by law. They normally do one ever month or so I think and they should be freely downloadable from their website. I don't seem what £30 gets you on top of downloading theirs for free.

 

[Appleton Brews]

You can get a drinking water quality analysis report from your water authority. I’ve got one from SWW and UU. I use these as the source water in Brewfather, they have a database for most beer styles, the system does the rest. My additions are
Gypsum
Calcium Chloride
Epsom salts
Baking Soda
AMS/CRS
Phosphoric acid
The system tell you how much of each to add. If your water is higher than the beer style I dilute the tap water with Tesco Ashbeck water usually at 50%.

 

[Libigage]

So this is my next planed brew, does it look right going by my water report. I'm going to have quite a bit of dead space below my tap in my burco for my sparge water. https://share.brewfather.app/5xSW2xrRxXTNQW