treating my water..where and how...

[loady]

I am brewing today and going to make my house beer but i am going to treat the water this time, i have used several calculaters along with my full water report, i have been aiming for burton trent water as i have nothing else to i can really see to aim for..im just really experimenting...i have found some quite differing addition levels between different programs,is this normal ?

I am boiling up 80lt of water, and have added 35gm of gypsum to the HLT and 2.8gm of salt, it is saying to add epsom salts but i am not sure where i would add that, in fact i am not sure where i am supposed to add any of these additions, should they be going into the whole batch of water or just the sparge water..i was also advised to add lactic acid to the sparge water..does that sound like a good plan ?..i have another two brews to do today at 25lt each so any advice i can apply to those will be helpfful.

heres my water report.... http://www.waterplc.com/waterquality/L21.pdf

 

[LeithR]

All salts are added at the beginning of the boil, they need to become part of the wart throughout the process. Dave Line in his Brewing Beers like those you buy on page 19 has a small table indicating what salts you need to add to what water types for each different brew (Lager, Ale, Stout etc...).

 

[loady]

ok, so i buggered up there..i put the common salt into the HLT..ill leave it this time..but what about gypsum, that goes into the HLT ??

 

[rpt]

All salts are added at the beginning of the boil

Not true. You can add salts to the mash, sparge water and the kettle. I add my salts to the mash as I am using the calcium and magnesium in gypsum and Epsom salts to lower the mash pH. If you use acid (CRS/AMS or lactic acid, for example) in your mash and sparge then you might only add salts to the kettle.

 

[Stone Cold]

i remove this post

 

[loady]

even more confused...im using gypsum, salt (both already put it in HLT)..and i want to add lactic acid and epsom salts..where should i put these right now ??? and in the next brew ?

 

[rpt]

Why do you want to add lactic acid and gypsum? Unless you know what they are for you won't know where to add them. If a calculator has told you to add them, then it should tell you where to add them. For example, the forum water treatment calculator gives additions for the mash and for the kettle.

 

[loady]

the guy that runs my lhbs uses the same water as me (bore holes) and he suggested it, he used to be a water treatment sceptic..but does it all the time now..lactic acid gives a better mouth feel ??

 

[anthonyUK]

You treat water to obtain correct chemical compostion for brewing (mashing in particular) so you need a breakdown of your water to start or at the very least an alkalinity reading.
I wouldn't take someone else's word on it without some of my own analysis as you could be making it worse.

 

[loady]

i have all of that..its in the link at the top..i am going by my own analysis but the guy uses the exact same water as me, thats a fact..my water report also gives me the PH value and it shows it as 7.7..i boiled the water for 15mins to reduce the clacium..i added have gone for burton water just because...i put 35gm of gypsum in the HLT with 2.8gm of salt...i have put the mash on now but have not added anything else to it..i wanted to add the recommended amnount of epsom salt but i wasnt sure where to put it so its not gone in as MT is sealed now..

 

[Stone Cold]

I dont think the PH of the water helps tell you anything, Murphy & Sons lab told us that its a useless bit of info and they only include it in the report of analysis because so many people phone them to tell them they forgot to include it in the report, its the make up of the water that your interested in, ph testing the mash is worthwhile for other reasons

 

[loady]

to much trouble this water treating lark..get the mash on then messz about testing PH and working out additions it will have gone cold !!

 

[LeithR]

Water treatment in the UK is not much of a requirement as we all enjoy "potable" water, its all drinkable. It often comes down to personal choice. When I started AG brewing I tried both approaches - I live in a soft water area. After 6 or 7 brews I decided that I was wasting my time fiddling around with water treatment. The beer I made tastes good to me and my son like it also, that's what I use as my yardstick.

In John Palmers book "How to brew" he says

The reason for the difference between the brewing methods is that the minerals in the water can affect the starch conversion of the mash, but once the sugars have been produced, the affect of water chemistry on the flavor of the beer is greatly reduced. When brewing with malt extract, if the water tastes good to begin with, the beer should taste good.

Chapter 4.1 in the online version.

Ultimately it comes down to your taste but from the above if your water tastes good (to you) then your beer should also taste good to you. Go check it out for yourself.

 

[Stone Cold]

I use a bore hole spring and is extremely hard water too hard and has unusual levels of everything els


where is says raw liquor thats my water, and the target is ideal burton water
BUT its does make good tasting beer so at the moment im not treating it

 

[anthonyUK]

I use a bore hole spring and is extremely hard water too hard and has unusual levels of everything else

The report shows an alkalinity of 263 CaCO3 which I wouldn't say is extreme.
Mine is also from a bore hole and is 290ish but is still manageable for most beer types.

 

[rpt]

The pH of the water is irrelevant. What matters is the alkalinity. This is the amount of carbonates and bicarbonates that will raise the pH of the mash. Ideally we want a mash pH of 5.3. If this is too high then you can add acid to the liquor (AMS/CRS, lactic acid or phosphoric acid, for example) or you can add calcium or magnesium salts (gypsum and Epsom salts) which react with mash ingredients to form acid. To lower the pH of the sparge water you must add acid as there are no ingredients to react with calcium or magnesium.

The other reason for adding salts is to change the balance between sulphate and chloride which can affect the perceived bitterness. These salts can be added to the boil.

I add all my salts to the mash but it is possible I am losing some salts with the grains and would be better adding some to the boil. If I start using AMS/CRS then I may do this.

 

[Stone Cold]

I was told adding to the top of the mash was the place to add. sorry for the word extreme, the lab pointed out how much harder it is to the average and is a lot harder. treating from soft water is easyer than ajusting hard water as with soft you have a blank canvas to work from

 

[brewtim]

I use a bore hole spring and is extremely hard water too hard and has unusual levels of everything else

The report shows an alkalinity of 263 CaCO3 which I wouldn't say is extreme.
Mine is also from a bore hole and is 290ish but is still manageable for most beer types.

Murphy's report has mine at 398ppm :shock:

With their recommended AMS treatment, this drops to 46ppm (for pale ales).

 

[dennisking]

I would start by taking the parameters you have from your water report and put them into the forum calculator, top left of the page, let it do the work for you.

 

[unclepumble]

The only thing I would add is make sure you know the alkalinity and add salts/acid etc, so you get a PH of ideally 5.4 around 30 mins into the mash,

also treat your sparge water so the alkalinity doesn't rise above 5.6 during the sparge, I have noticed much less astringency and colour pick up since ensuring the sparge water is treated,

lastly unless you have a decent PH meter, and the buffers to ensure it is calibrated. don't waste too much of your time calculating etc as you wont know if what you are doing is right!

Cheers

Shane