If you are inexperienced and don't have what's required, but you do know your water is hard then diluting with RO, distilled or the cheapest option (spotless) is very effective.
Deionised water - reassurance wanted
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Trouble with adding acid is that if you have very hard water (like me) then you have to add a LOT of it. That’s (a) pricey and (b) adds quite a lot more minerals - so your calcium tends to go through the roof.
I’ve used AML (CRS) with some success, but on the whole I reckon it’s easier and cheaper to get a cheap (aquarium type) RO filter for about £40 and accept that it takes a while to collect the water. If you like you can uprate the membrane and restrictor and/or fit a booster pump to increase the collection rate. Bypass water goes on the garden
Spotless water etc seems like a good option but personally I prefer to make my own
Incidentally as @strange-steve said to me ages ago, it doesn’t make much sense to filter all the minerals out and then add a bunch back in (!) so I do tend to use about 25% tap water 75% RO to get a good base of minerals for the mash to work properly. Using 100% RO doesn’t give great results for some styles.
I thought about installing an RO filter until I found out about Spotless water. Maybe it's not for everyone but for me it's convenient and cheap.
About £1.10 for 25lt.
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From a price point, it certainly makes sense.
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Provided you don't have to drive to far to get it. £1 for water, but £4 petrol to go get it isn't a good economy
The recommendation was if you have an outlet close to you.
I'm lucky enough to have two outlets where I can fill up when passing.
I'm lucky enough to have two outlets where I can fill up when passing.
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Another vote for spotless. I'm new to AG but have tap water that is harder than Vinny Jones. I use Brewfather for my calculations and play about with the tap water mix and then make up the rest with salts.
As a former Marine Aquarium keeper. If the RO is good enough for fish it's good enough for brewing once the salts are added back in.
It has made huge improvement to my brewing especially to the lagers and light beers.
As a former Marine Aquarium keeper. If the RO is good enough for fish it's good enough for brewing once the salts are added back in.
It has made huge improvement to my brewing especially to the lagers and light beers.
Spotted this thread whilst thinking about doing a Bohemian lager. Going to try Spotless (already signed up).
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I'm trtrying Spotless but initially diluting it. Main reason is my water has high alkalinity so don't see a PH drop, or much of one, when I add malt so have to use acid. The calculators don't do a particularly good job of estimating the acid...probably because the actual water profile can vary from the published water profile from day to day so by diluting with some RO water from Spotless then I hope to reduce alkalinity and get some more natural ph drop from the mash.
its dirt cheap and far more economical than buying an RO filter setup.
its dirt cheap and far more economical than buying an RO filter setup.
Am I missing something ? I generally brew IPA’s or lighter beers.My tap water has a PH of 7.3 and my RO has a PH of 6.6 so I still need acid to bring the PH down to a suitable level whatever the RO to tap water ratio is, unless I use acid malt
From what I've read for a Bohemian the water has got to be single digit ions across the range and the advice in some sources say use RO or distilled. I normally use bottled (whichever supermarket is doing the cheapest, (currently Ashbeck at Tesco for 2.4p/Ltr I think) which makes nice IPAs without additions.
It would be interesting to do Spotless v. Ashbeck Bohemians. Future project.
A
I agree that Ashbeck water makes better IPA’s than my tap water but the PH is 6.2 and you still need to add acid as pale malts alone are not enough to drop the PH to 5.2 -5.5
Yes, even with RO you will still need a little acid with a pure pale malt grist. But you'll need a lot less, and for certain lagers reducing the level of ions in the beer is desirable.
I mix and match. My British style beers all use my tap water, which is full of calcium and carbonates, because using RO just doesn't taste the same. For lagers and certain other styles I use 50-100% RO blended with tap water.
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It's about alkalinity not PH..i.e. the buffering capacity of your water. Mine is quite high so I need to use alot of acid and its hard to manage as the first few ml make very little difference then the next ml or so drops the ph massively and sometimes I overshoot so hard to get it just right. By adding RO water I am reducing the alkalinity so should get more acidification from the malt and use less acid.
The water profile issued by my water company is an average so I'm not sure how my tap water varies from day to day and what impact that variation has. This is why I think I've not had much success with the usual online calculators. So I'm thinking that by diluting it with some RO water I can get more consistent results. There are other methods you can use but if you have a Spottless outlet near you then that seems to me to be the most convenient and cost effective option.
This is exactly what I do.Sadly nearest Spotless to me is 1 1/2 hrs round trip so I make my own . Not ideal but since using a pump my process time has halved and waste is slightly reduced
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