Water Chemistry adjustment

[MashBag]

Another Excellent post what is the tipping point? By that I mean, when does water need diluting because the alkalinic harness ions as CaCO3 are too great to be chemically corrected? (see what I did there )

 

[peebee]

... (see what I did there )

Erm ... how do put it ... no?

Didn't get it first time, but now you've repeated it, I can't pass it off as bad grammar! And despite the explanation too! You're talking to a broken head here you know? Although it wasn't doing too bad with the maths a few days ago ...

 

[MashBag]

You want to stop drinking all that beer

 

[peebee]

You want to stop drinking all that beer

That ... is really, really, annoying! Today is the first of my two weekly alcohol abstention days!

 

[DJDave]

I have escaped and just read all the way through. Good grief, I may have to read it all again. But I think the gist is forget hardness / alkalinity & concentrate on the ions and add appropriately. One of the things I love about home brewing is it is as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. Hopefully peebee has simplified some of the complexity. Thank you peebee for all the explanations and apologies if I lit the blue touchpaper

 

[Sadfield]

Forget hardness. Alkalinity is important, though.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/amp/Poh7KaQ9je
Alkalinity can be reduced by pre-boiling, dilution, RO, acid addition or increasing calcium and or magnesium releasing malt acid which neutralizes the bicarbonate.

I think we established that your alkalinity isn't far off 100ppm HCO3, so you don't really need to worry to much. However, using an acid blend like CRS/AMS to reduce it will help you in other ways, by raising chloride and sulphate.

Reading your initial post though, I'm not convinced alkalinity (now we know it's ppm) is the issue here. The mash pH doesn't look problematic. However, the low calcium could be limiting mash enzyme activity and affecting efficiency. The lower Sodium and Chloride levels will affect the fullness and flavour in the same way as under seasoning food. Sodium Chloride is table salt.

https://brewingforward.com/wiki/Calcium

 

[DJDave]

Yes, high salts generally and the massive alkalinity HCO3. in East Anglia, started playing with calculators in order to attempt to reproduce it here but got fed up with that. Gone back to my original thought of just adding a couple of grams of Gypsum and baking soda as well

 

[peebee]

Aye, forget "Hardness" and "as CaCO3". But you also have to remember, some people (and water companies!) are not going to give up on "Hardness" and "as CaCO3" for quite some while and you may have to know enough to deal with the stuck-in-the-muds.

Same goes for "Alkalinity", but it does have "operational" value. But we don't have to know what it is about because it can be delegated to suitable calculators. If the calculator handles "as HCO3" all the better but again "as CaCO3" is going to be around for a while yet. Thinking of "Alkalinity" actually being "bicarbonate" makes the subject so much easier to understand. You can increase alkalinity with "baking soda" ("NaHCO3") or even Lyr ("NaOH") if feeling dangerous. "Hardness" doesn't even register these products ("Sodium" doesn't count towards hardness).

 

[Sadfield]

Gone back to my original thought of just adding a couple of grams of Gypsum and baking soda as well

Calcium Chloride instead of gypsum would restore your 1:1 sulphate chloride ratio of your southern water.

0.13g/l would add 42ppm calcium and 74ppm chloride to your yorkshire water.

Gypsum would be more appropriate to a dry and bitter pale ale, though. Perhaps worth trying both and seeing which you prefer.

 

[DJDave]

Next brew day should be next Sunday but as that's fathers day daughter & granddaughter will be descending on me (that was the point of moving after all) so will probably delay until Monday, will let you know how I get on. Thanks for all advice, amazing how much chemistry I have forgotten, you would never
believe I have a degree, primarily in chemistry with a bit of physics, maths and astronomy thrown in for good measure but it was all so long ago.

 

[peebee]

Yes, high salts generally and the massive alkalinity HCO3. in East Anglia, started playing with calculators in order to attempt to reproduce it here but got fed up with that. Gone back to my original thought of just adding a couple of grams of Gypsum and baking soda as well

Noooo ...

All my hard work going nowhere?


Don't add bicarbonate! (Baking Soda). You've got a monstrous amount of bicarbonate in the water already. The affects you described in the OP were that of a heavily "alkaline" water. You are now living in the Yorkshire Dales. Classic limestone country.

I had even calculated the amount of acid you need to add to drop the bicarbonate content.

 

[Sadfield]

Adding Baking Soda will be fine added to the mash if needed to correct a low pH measurement.

Treat the brewing liquor with gypsum and/or calcium carbonate. Mash in. Test pH after 5-10 minutes and adjust as required with baking soda.

 

[peebee]

A small snip from earlier water profile calculations:

The target was a weakly mineralised profile ("American" style) for a simple 100% Pale Malt "Pale Ale" (or "Bitter"). Nothing radical, I'd even selected a supposedly "balanced" profile that didn't favour Sulphate or Chloride.

And the existing Yorkshire Dales water profile. It actually needs no further additions to match the "Yellow, Balanced" profile in the calculator, "Bru'n Water" (by Martin Brungard), except it could do with the Chloride content being pepped up a little.

I'd recommended adding a little Calcium Chloride to achieve this. I'd also suggested a separate more moderately mineralised profile (using one of Graham Wheeler's profiles ... and one it so happens I could personally vouch for) that would be closer to the OP's author's experiences in Sussex.

But this is the Yorkshire Dales, one of England's most celebrated areas for ... Limestone caves! The water is relatively lightly mineralised except for the "bicarbonate" content. Over 100mg of bicarbonate in every litre of water. For surface runoff water (it isn't deep aquifer) this level of dissolved bicarbonate is exceptional, but then this is the Yorkshire Dales!

It is completely beyond my wildest imagination (and believe me, my imagination is capable of some seriously wild thinking!) ... to ever think of a scenario where I'd want to add more "bicarbonate" (in the form of baking soda for example) to this water before (or during) brewing with it. Chasing an "ideal" pH at mash time by making small additions of "bicarbonate" to a live mash is perhaps a dafter idea ... if maybe too strong a warning to say the idea would be insane, but insanity awaits anyone trying to attempt it.

There's one thing that wouldn't be a worry ... using calcium carbonate (powdered chalk or limestone). Seems perverse to suggest powdered chalk will be okay when saying bicarbonate won't be? But unless you can pull some pretty extreme stunts, the powdered chalk will refuse to dissolve and so can't do much harm anyway (or much anything!).


That 104ppm as bicarbonate needs reducing before attempting to brew with this water. In this case I've suggested 0.18ml per litre of 81% Phosphoric Acid ... a typical "American" way of dealing with excess bicarbonate (and dropping the pH too; I was aiming for a mash of about pH5.3). But strong Phosphoric Acid is getting harder to obtain. There are other acids that can be used, including "AMS" available from The Malt Miller. And any "sparge" water should be acid treated too (to bring it near pH 5.5) to lower the risk of sparging leaching undesirable compounds. The 104ppm bicarbonate can also be expressed as 85ppm "as CaCO3" should you need it ("Yak! Did I say that?).

 

[Justin Dean]

They are. But then why are you expressing personal choices as opinions on a forum?

Anyway, that minor digression isn't why I started this post. Something more positive! Those objections I made to "Spotless Water" were, I'm now finding, really connected to inefficient household RO units, not the commercial units like "Spotless Water" use. I'm trying to establish a "universal" easy-peasy solution to brewing water manipulations, and cheap "Spotless Water" seems to be suggesting itself as a good tool to get this in some cases ... not as a starting point, I'll stick to tap water with its naturally occurring mineral content for that. But it is becoming obvious I need a "dilutant" to create some profiles and "Spotless Water" seems to be an excellent candidate. Certainly, more sustainable than plastic bottles of water being shifted about the country in lorries. Or "distilled" and "deionised" water prepared in some dingy garage somewhere or other.

So, I concede!

But if anyone takes this as it's okay to suggest "soft" water uses use RO water instead, or even "moderately hard" water users as has been the case in this thread (by @DJDave), then I'm still going to turn nasty!

Excellent post. Thank you

 

[Justin Dean]

Is Sparge water ph important. I know mash is for the mash conversion? Genuinely curious.

 

[Galena]

Is Sparge water ph important. I know mash is for the mash conversion? Genuinely curious.

Potential can of worms, read THIS for some clarity.
Personally I add salts but not acids

 

[DJDave]

I am trying to match the Suffolk water I am used to brewing with. Very hard the 2022 report says an average of 378.01 mg/l HCO3. My water here comes come from the Aysgarth, Bainbridge, Bedale, Leeming Bar, Leyburn, Masham, Middleham, Patrick Brompton, Wensley, West Burton supply zone, which I think is Roundhill & Leighton reservoirs which North Yorkshire didn't give a HCO3 figure for but Sadfield calculated it as 104 balancing ions and you calculated 108 so whilst this may be high for idealised types it's lower than I am looking for. Or have I misunderstood Essex & Suffolk waters report? Sparge water PH is too high, but it was in suffolk as well and didn't cause any issues I was aware off, maybe I should acidify that but one step at a time.

 

[DJDave]

It would help if I knew mash PH in suffolk, but I don't so I won't be going gung ho at this last brew here was again right at the bottom of range somewhere about 5 to 5.2 at end of mash. This is with the narrow range PH papers. I'd rather have a definitive reading from a properly calibrated meter but difficult to justify cost plus the time and effort keeping it working accurately. Should have taken readings throughout mash.

 

[Sadfield]

Is there crystal or roasted malts in your recipes? That would have offset some of the bicarbonate in your sussex water, as would it's higher calcium level.

 

[DJDave]

350 gms Crystal in bitter, 375 gms Red Rye Crystal in a red rye. Black bitter has 350 gms crystal, 100 gms Black 100gms chocolate.
Suffolk rather than Sussex, although suspect Sussex has equally hard waters filtered through all those chalk downs