sodium carbonate or bicarbonate of soda

[stigman]

I recently got a copy of my friendly local breweries water report from Murphy's and he also gave me a tub of dwb, for my first crack at allgrain which was an American DIPA. I was thinking of doing a stout next but dark beers require seperate chemical additions the one that's got me scratching my head a little is sodium carbonate, I had a quick shop around online earlier but no brew shops seem to stock it so had a Google and apparently it's caustic and not to be consumed would make you pretty poorly, do obviously I don't fancy sticking it in my next brew. Is it basically the same as bicarbonate of soda?

 

[MyQul]

I wouldn't start faffing about with water straight off the bat. Just make the stout with your tap water. Only if it doesn't taste quite right should you start messing about with your water, and even then it might not be the water that's causing the problem. There are a lot of other things to get right with AG before you start staring down the rabbit hole that is water treatment

 

[hoptoit]

Sodium carbonate is basically washing soda. It's more acidic than bicarbonate.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/365696-sodium-carbonate-vs-sodium-bicarbonate/

Just try first adding half a Campden tablet to your water the night before brewing to get rid of the chlorine first.

 

[stigman]

I hear what your saying chaps but if I can get my water right surely that rules that out if it's not tasting good. it's not like I've spent any money getting the analysis done and the chemicals aren't gona break the bank either.
I'm just like the rest of us on here, I wana make great beer

 

[JapanBrew]

MyQ is right. Trust me I know you're feeling but during the AG process, there are a lot of little details that you have to get used to and sort out. You need to get comfortable with those because anything out of place or missed will ruin your beer. Start getting your technique down.

 

[HebridesRob]

If you want to know something about water treatment have a look at this series of articles.

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=An_Overview_of_pH

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_pH_affects_brewing

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_pH_affects_brewing

 

[stigman]

Erm that's a bit of a heavy read for this time of night. Thanks though I will have a read when my heads a bit clearer.

 

[Alan_H]

Erm that's a bit of a heavy read for this time of night. Thanks though I will have a read when my heads a bit clearer.

Hence why you shouldn't mess with the water for now and listen to what more experienced users have already told you :whistle:


Stouts work better with hard water [Calcium Carbonate]. Sodium carbonate is actually a water softener - the opposite of what you'd need for a stout. Sodium bicarbonate is baking soda - no idea what it does in a brew.

If you want to further complicate things, check Palmer's Water Adjustment spreadsheet.

 

[stigman]

Maybe I should stick with pale ales for now then, I live in the north west and the water here is very soft. If I can figure out how to post pictures using my phone I could stick up the Murphy's report for you all to look at and maybe give me a few pointers.

 

[HebridesRob]

Maybe I should stick with pale ales for now then, I live in the north west and the water here is very soft. If I can figure out how to post pictures using my phone I could stick up the Murphy's report for you all to look at and maybe give me a few pointers.

If your water is soft then don't treat for stout and bung in a teaspoon of Calcium Sulphate for pale beers. That'll keep you going until you go more deeply

 

[HebridesRob]

Maybe I should stick with pale ales for now then, I live in the north west and the water here is very soft. If I can figure out how to post pictures using my phone I could stick up the Murphy's report for you all to look at and maybe give me a few pointers.

Click attachments (the paper clip), then one of the browse buttons, find the picture on your phone & upload it.

 

[MyQul]

Maybe I should stick with pale ales for now then, I live in the north west and the water here is very soft. If I can figure out how to post pictures using my phone I could stick up the Murphy's report for you all to look at and maybe give me a few pointers.

Nah, give the stout a shot. Personally I beleive, from reading forum posts, it's much easier to make stouts with softer (lower alkaline) water than it is to make pales with harder (higher alkaline) water. I've got hard (london) water so need to strip out the alkalines else I get a sort of bitter after taste from the hops. Which is caused by having too high a mash PH (because of the high alkalinity water
The two things your attempting to do with water treatment is
1. get your mash PH in range by altering your alkalinity. Grains do this too. The dark grains in a stout will help lower the mash PH as well. Which is why I can make great stouts with just my igher alkalinity tap water. But as I say I think you should be ok with a low mash PH/just using your low alkalinity tap water as I've read other forumites say that some breweries (Marbles in manchester) have soft water and make stouts and dont do any PH adjusment to it
2. The other thing you can do is add calcium salts or "flavour ions" to tweek your perception of either hoppyness or maltiness by adding either gypsum or calcium chloride

 

[stigman]

Ok myQ it's defo gona be a stout I do next I'm currently drinking my bulldog chocolate stout I did from a kit, I didn't touch the water at all with this and it's rather good. But the bulldog double IPA I did before it (first attempt at homebrew)wasn't great. Any recipe suggestions for a nice strong stout would be appreciated.
Oh and where's this bloody paperclip attachment thing can't see it?

 

[MyQul]

When you say strong how strong are we talking? Are you after a big Russian Imperial Stout (at 10%)?

 

[stigman]

Yeah something with some balls. I'm not sure how much grain I could get in my peco boiler. First attempt had just over 6kilos in it with room to spare but I don't think the scale on it is correct I ended up 2 litres short in my fv

 

[MyQul]

You can cheat a bit an use sugar/invert syrup to get the abv up like the Belgians do with their strong beers using candi sugar

Edit: Or add some DME to the wort in the fermenter like kit

 

[Simonh82]

You can't really use a water report on its own, you need some kind of water calculator to help you decide what mineral and/or acid additions to make. There are good calculators on the Brewers Friend website (basic and advanced) and also the free Bru 'n Water spreadsheet (paid version with more features is also available).

I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to get your water right first time but it is a complicated subject. I dived straight in with my first all grain but messed it up pretty spectacularly and ended up with a very low mash pH.

The brewing science forum on the Homebrewtalk.com site has a lot of really brewing water geeks, who can be very helpful. The author of the Bru N Water spreadsheet is a regular contributor for instance.

 

[MyQul]

You can't really use a water report on its own, you need some kind of water calculator to help you decide what mineral and/or acid additions to make. There are good calculators on the Brewers Friend website (basic and advanced) and also the free Bru 'n Water spreadsheet (paid version with more features is also available).

I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to get your water right first time but it is a complicated subject. I dived straight in with my first all grain but messed it up pretty spectacularly and ended up with a very low mash pH.

The brewing science forum on the Homebrewtalk.com site has a lot of really brewing water geeks, who can be very helpful. The author of the Bru N Water spreadsheet is a regular contributor for instance.

And don't forget our old water calc :thumb:
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=57800

 

[HebridesRob]

Yeah something with some balls. I'm not sure how much grain I could get in my peco boiler. First attempt had just over 6kilos in it with room to spare but I don't think the scale on it is correct I ended up 2 litres short in my fv

I use a peco. The scale on mine is considerably out. I ended up pouring water in a litre at a time and marking the level with a marker pen.

 

[Tony1951]

I've often thought I should enter into the water treatment issue, but it looks so damned tricky and I have rarely had a brew that I didn't think tasted great and when I did it wasn't because my water was bad, it was because I did something stupid in my brewing technique like overheating the sparge water. Maybe I just have magically perfect water...... I doubt it though.

I'd say that unless you know EXACTLY what chemical you are adding to your water and WHY, you are courting disaster. I know nowt about this, but from what I read above stigman may be proposing to add the wrong chemical to his water. Leave well alone I say.

Cheers and I hope it goes well. My first AG was a day of bewilderment .... and mess. I got better after that.