More Advanced Water Treatment

[strange-steve]

Steve I am about to brew a TT Best bitter, could look over my water profile and offer any suggestions please

I'm away from the pc right now and can't seem to open your link on the tablet, but for a British bitter maybe something along the lines of:
150 calcium
200 sulphate
100 chloride
<35 alkalinity

 

[private4587]

Thanks steve will enter them into brunwater, cannot enter the alkalinity as i am using ro water but that is less than 35 so should be ok

 

[strange-steve]

Thanks steve will enter them into brunwater, cannot enter the alkalinity as i am using ro water but that is less than 35 so should be ok

Ok I had a look at your attachment and made a couple of adjustments. You'll notice I've increased the alkalinity a bit, because the beer was darker than I expected.

 

[private4587]

Thanks Steve I am a bit perplexed why your input are in someplace quite a bit larger than mine but i will bow to your experience. If you have the time could you please explain to me why you went for these figures as opposed to mine. I think it may be to do with me trying to get some where near the profile and wanting green boxes but i know this is aimed mainly for Americans, could be this be why?

 

[strange-steve]

Bru'n Water is a great tool as long as you don't take too much notice of the red warning boxes and maximum concentrations, especially when brewing British style beers. So I've selected values that are more typical of what you'd find in a traditional English bitter.

 

[private4587]

Thanks Steve and sorry to be a pain but is there anywhere that gives typical values for British styles or have you all of them within your head?

 

[private4587]

Hi Steve sorry to be a pain but again do you have a personal list of values or some hint from where i could find them. I have done a google search but most water profiles seem to be coming back as hoppy American styles

 

[Saisonator]

Bitter is a bit of an odd one where it is both malty and bitter, so there could be more of a personal preference when going for sulphate and chloride additions.
More so than many other beers.

 

[strange-steve]

Bitter is a bit of an odd one where it is both malty and bitter, so there could be more of a personal preference when going for sulphate and chloride additions.
More so than many other beers.

Exactly right, and that's the case for most styles tbh. Think about what flavours you want to accentuate in your beer and balance your water treatments to suit. @private4587 unless you're brewing for competitions with a very specific set of guidelines, brew according to your personal taste. I usually aim for calcium somewhere around 100ppm using whichever salts give me the approximate sulphate:chloride ratio I'm looking for, but I'm not overly anal about it, I think close enough is good enough when it comes to water treatment.
If you want to compare a more British approach to water treatment have a look at the late Graham Wheeler's calculator and check out the mineral content of some of his target profiles, you'll see how vastly different they are from Bru'n Water. I tend to go for something in between the two.

 

[dan125]

They were talking about the differences in the UK/US approaches to water treatment in the latest Experimental Brewing podcast - specifically the table of suggested mineral levels at the bottom of this Murphys article.
The calcium/sulphate/choride levels for a bitter seem pretty high, but could be what I've been doing wrong everytime I've tried to brew this style

https://www.murphyandson.co.uk/water-water-everywhere/

 

[private4587]

Exactly right, and that's the case for most styles tbh. Think about what flavours you want to accentuate in your beer and balance your water treatments to suit. @private4587 unless you're brewing for competitions with a very specific set of guidelines, brew according to your personal taste. I usually aim for calcium somewhere around 100ppm using whichever salts give me the approximate sulphate:chloride ratio I'm looking for, but I'm not overly anal about it, I think close enough is good enough when it comes to water treatment.
If you want to compare a more British approach to water treatment have a look at the late Graham Wheeler's calculator and check out the mineral content of some of his target profiles, you'll see how vastly different they are from Bru'n Water. I tend to go for something in between the two.

Thanks Steve I have already looked at this Calc and decided the same, again many thanks for your great help

 

[private4587]

Hi Steve hope you don't mind but i want to pull on your water knowledge again. I have attached a brunwater report for a Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby. I know that the pH is low but I am not sure how to raise it, could you please cast your eyes over it for me. I have used Graham Wheelers water profile for mild for the basis.

 

[trueblue]

As Steve stated earlier there is a discrepancy between the American idea of British water profiles and UK brewers. The have been a few heated debates on Jim's between the guy who runs brunwater and a few established UK brewers, who do seem to know their stuff, according to brunwater we have been doing it wrong for the last few hundred years. As I have never used brunwater I can't comment but I have used the calculator on Jim's for Sarah Hughes mild and it has come out superb.

 

[foxbat]

Hi Steve hope you don't mind but i want to pull on your water knowledge again. I have attached a brunwater report for a Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby. I know that the pH is low but I am not sure how to raise it, could you please cast your eyes over it for me. I have used Graham Wheelers water profile for mild for the basis.

If you change your mineral additions to these then you get a pH of 5.38 and the finished water profile comes out looking good as well:

Gypsum: 0.05
Calcium Chloride: 0.10
Epsom Salt: 0.12
Precipitated Chalk: 0.2
(all others: zero)

Profile:

Ca: 81
Mg: 12
Na: 0
SO4: 75
Cl: 64

You'll have to check up on the procedure for dissolving chalk in the mash, I believe it's different to the others that readily dissolve in the water itself.

 

[Simonh82]

You'll have to check up on the procedure for dissolving chalk in the mash, I believe it's different to the others that readily dissolve in the water itself.

I thought using chalk was meant to be a bad idea as it was hard to dissolve and could continue to slowly dissolve even when you had bottled a beer releasing CO2 and over carbonating the beer. Sodium bicarbonate would be a better bet, I would have thought. Not sure how much you would need though.

 

[foxbat]

I thought using chalk was meant to be a bad idea as it was hard to dissolve and could continue to slowly dissolve even when you had bottled a beer releasing CO2 and over carbonating the beer. Sodium bicarbonate would be a better bet, I would have thought. Not sure how much you would need though.

Sodium Bicarbonate also works, but introduces Sodium. A cleaner bet is Calcium Hydroxide (Pickling Lime). Using that instead of chalk gives a good profile with pH 5.38. Calcium Hydroxide for food use is available online.

Gypsum 0.05
Calcium Chloride 0.10
Epsom Salt 0.12
Pickling Lime 0.15

Profile: Ca: 81, Mg: 12, Na: 0, SO4: 75, Cl: 64.

 

[strange-steve]

My method for increasing alkalinity is to add sodium bicarbonate, I think a small amount of sodium can be beneficial for flavour, especially in dark beers.
@private4587 sorry I can't open that file type on my phone and I'm away from the computer right now.

 

[private4587]

My method for increasing alkalinity is to add sodium bicarbonate, I think a small amount of sodium can be beneficial for flavour, especially in dark beers.
@private4587 sorry I can't open that file type on my phone and I'm away from the computer right now.

Thats OK Steve anytime will do my problem is low pH, I know i can raise it with other salts but all seem to induce other factors which change the profile, I have read up on Pickling Lime and this seems the best option although it does seem an American addition.
Trueblue did you use the profile for a mild from the Graham Wheelers profile calculator?

 

[trueblue]

Trueblue did you use the profile for a mild from the Graham Wheelers profile calculator?

Yep

 

[Gerryjo]

Hi @strange-steve ,I'm wondering if you could have a glance over this water report for my area as I'm interested to try and improve my water quality.I'm interested in brewing a wide range from Stouts to lagers though would be grateful to just get it to a happy medium if possible.I know this thread alone keeps you quite busy but in no rush.

NI Hardness Classification - Slightly Hard
Clark English Degrees - 7.2
mg/l CaCO3 - 102.8
mg/l Calcium - 34.7
mg/l Magnesium - 3.8

I have attached the report itself.

Cheers:hat: