Softened Water and Brewing?

[homebrewdave]

Not been on here for a while but I've just been to my local brew shop and bought everything I need for my next brew. My kit consists of the Coopers starter kit but this time i've gone for a Tom Caxtons Dark Real Ale. Over the past 3 years since I started brewing my own I've gone from being a larger drinker to Ale and now the odd Bitter. Anyway, enough waffling as I digress from the point of this post. We have a Harveys Water Softener installed at home and I was wondering if I can use my tap water when brewing or should I stick with cheap bottled water from the supermarket? I understand that softened water has a higher sodium content but my chemistry isn't up to scratch and I have no idea what this will do to the brewing process? I look forward to reading any replies from the more knowledgeable folk on here.

:
Dave

 

[homebrewdave]

Oh well, it looks like I've hit a bit of a brick wall or know one else on here has a water softener so I've done a bit digging on the web and spoken to my local brew shop and found out the follwoing:

"The exchange of sodium with hardness minerals is just that, an exchange. The more hardness minerals - primarily calcium and magnesium - the more sodium is exchanged.
The problem is two fold in terms of brewing:
1. The addition of sodium
2. The removal of calcium & magnesium
The removal of hardness will negatively impact mashing, hop bitterness and so on.
The alternate "salt" used in water softeners is Potassium Chloride which will exchange the potassium ion for the hardness ions. Same problem - different mask!
BTW, for those that say water softeners put salt in your water. Salt is a compound. For what we commonly know as salt for softeners and table use it is Sodium Chloride, one of many types of "salt" that exists as compounds. The ion exchanged in a water softener is only the Sodium ion and it has a metallic taste to most peoples senses and does not taste like "salt" at all. (unpleasantly bitter aftertaste)".

"The problem that I had was that I had no head retention...barely even a head, actually."

"It depends on if you brew extract or all grain. The fact is your yeast and hop/malty perception need minerals, which softened water does not have. However, if you are brewing extract there are enough minerals in the malt so you can use softened water for that. If, on the other hand, you are brewing all grain softened water is an absolute no no. Beer will have a bad aftertaste."

"The more likely case is that you have a water softener because you have hard water. I would not recommend using softened water from well water that is indeed hard. Homes with hard water are easy to spot because of white mineral deposits near water taps. Unfortunately, most hard waters in North America come from limestone aquifers and limestone is calcium carbonate. The only beer really well-suited to these waters are dark ales and lagers, for example porter, stout and dunkel. The preferred hard water type for brewing lighter colored beers, like pale ale, is hard water from a gypseous aquifer — gypsum is calcium sulfate."

I know that the water in my area in very very hard hence why we have a softener. It's not quite as straight forward as I thought so I need to look into this a bit deeper. In the mean time Lidl are doing a cracking deal on multi-pack water so I'll stock up on that and drive home in a low-rider stylee :lol:

:
Dave

 

[Aleman]

Sorry Dave that I missed this www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk]It has been covered before[/url] :whistle:

 

[Wolverine]

your kitchen sink wont / shouldn't be softened water when the softeners are installed they are supposed to bypass it for at least One tap for drinking water. so I would use the water from your kitchen and you won't have a problem: )