Water chemistry

[fifebrewer]

I am trying to play around with the water I use for brewing. I am completely new to this sort of thing and most of the resorces I have found online might as well be in french.

Do anyone have a link to some easy to understand infomation?

I plan on brewing a London Pride clone and was planing on using making up water to the following which is from the beersmith datebase

Ca-46.2, Mg-16, Na-99, SO4-77, Cl-60, HCO3-156.

I will be using RO water and beersmith surgessts adding the following to 19ltr for the RO water

Gypsum (CaSO4) 76.1g
Table salt (NaCl) 108.2g
Epsom salt (MgSO4) 32.3g
Backing soda (NaHCO3) 171.1g
Chalk (CaCO3) 59.5g

Dose this look right? My water report from Scottish water dose not show Ca,Mg dose this mean there is none pressent? it aslo dose not show HCO3.

I know that a lot of people say if the water is good to drink then its good to brew with but as it is the biggist ingredient in the beer it must be worth inproving where possible right? :wha:

Thanks :

 

[Dr Mike]

If you're brewing a London Pride clone, you should be aware that Fullers do treat their water so replicating 'raw' London water won't be authentic.

Water authority reports are pretty useless for brewing. I'm sure your water does have Ca & Mg. The combined level of these can be deduced from the figure for 'Hardness'. The HCO3 figure might be given as 'alkalinity' if you're lucky but better to get a test kit.

 

[jonnymorris]

100g of salt? Sounds like a lot. Have a look at Bru'n Water spreadsheet (Google 'Bru'n water')... there's a lot of info in it.

 

[pittsy]

you need to read through this http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15.html