Water Chemistry!

[clibit]

Unemployed alchemist, as of tonight. :shock:

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

By choice or where you work getting rid of staff? Sorry to hear that.

 

[Twostage]

Unemployed alchemist, as of tonight. :shock:

Ok though ?

When does your leisure start ?

 

[clibit]

Yes, I'm fine. Thanks. Leisure starts tomorrow, off to Anglesey for a wet weekend. Probably watching rugby and drinking beer.

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

Sounds ideal. Enjoy it.

 

[clibit]

Our college has shed about 380 to redundancy in about 18 months. That's a lot of Manchester jobs, but no news stories. Other Manchester colleges have lost jobs too. The government is massively reducing the police force, education, NHS jobs, care jobs, everything. The media is barely reporting the reality of it.

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

I'm only to aware of the massive cuts being made in my line of work. Public really do have no idea the scale of what's happening.

 

[rodabod]

Looking at around another 20% cuts soon where I am at the BBC (engineering).

One of the guys left a few years back and started Weird Beard brewery...

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

A lad at work has just applied for a licence to brew commercially. That's his retirement project. Lucky sod!! Sure it's a bloody hard effort but rewarding job churning out decent beer for a living to the masses.

 

[MyQul]

I used to work for the council (via an agency) at a learning disability supported living service. A couple of years ago they could see what was in the wind so about a year or so ago we left the council and became a social enterprise (and I left the agency and became employed by the social enterprise). I think the service would have shrunk to virtually nothing had we have had stayed within the council.

I love the weird beard bottle labels. When I changed over from PET to glass at the start of the year quite a few of my bottles came from their brewery (via London Beer Lab bottle shop empties)

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

My other half works for social services and I also work within public sector. Both jobs secure ( I think ) but both are getting worse and id say not far off point failing at what we are expected to do. Only going to get worse too.

 

[Bunglebrewsbeer]

But on the plus side I've 20l of stout in my brew fridge. Yippeeeee!!!

 

[stevej]

I was talking to my friend who has a brewery yesterday, and got chatting about water and if i was adding any chemicals to soften or harden, the answer was no
so he gave me a link to murphy and sons he says they are quite good and if i sent a one off sample into them they would do a water analysis free of charge, on the hope that what they recommend to adjust my water to a suitable quality you purchase the chemicals off them, so given it a go sending my email address and water off today with a list of what ales id like to brew

Heres a link if anyone fancies trying it

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...x.html&usg=AFQjCNHWdhAI-BgLyDZIA6kYdn2icUyqHQ

 

[mirsultankhan]

Wow based on my water profile i need to add,

1g chalk - 1/4 teaspoon
2g Baking Soda - 1/2 teaspoon
2g Gypsum - 1/2 teaspoon
3.2g Calcium - 1 teaspoon
2g Epsom salts - 1/2 teaspon

 

[clibit]

Wow based on my water profile i need to add,

1g chalk - 1/4 teaspoon
2g Baking Soda - 1/2 teaspoon
2g Gypsum - 1/2 teaspoon
3.2g Calcium - 1 teaspoon
2g Epsom salts - 1/2 teaspon

Depends what you're brewing...

 

[mirsultankhan]

Yes indeed. This profile was the balanced profile on brewers friend calculator. It said it was for an amber malt. What I dont understand is the difference between chalk and gypsum for I thought they are one and the same thing.

 

[clibit]

Good question. apparently...

Gypsum is a very soft mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O.

Chalk is a soft, white, porous form of limestone composed of the mineral calcium carbonate, with the chemical formula CaCO3.

Hope that helps!

 

[mirsultankhan]

Good question. apparently...

Gypsum is a very soft mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O.

Chalk is a soft, white, porous form of limestone composed of the mineral calcium carbonate, with the chemical formula CaCO3.

Hope that helps!

Hmmm i have a friend who is a retired chemist, i will ask him. One is a sulphate and one is a carbonate. After reading Graham Wheelers take on it I came away more confused than ever. I still cannot grasp the difference between carbonates and bicarbonates.

I wonder if they are split up because if you have soft water I noticed then you must be careful not to overstep the balance because you can drag the PH level down beyond acceptable levels as the mash becomes too acidic. So chalk (calcium carbonate an alkali) is used to raise the PH to combat the lowering of the PH by calcium sulphate/calcium chloride.( both acid)

 

[clibit]

Hmmm i have a friend who is a retired chemist, i will ask him. One is a sulphate and one is a carbonate. After reading Graham Wheelers take on it I came away more confused than ever. I still cannot grasp the difference between carbonates and bicarbonates.

Different sexual orientation, perhaps? :whistle:

 

[mirsultankhan]

Different sexual orientation, perhaps? :whistle:

LOL it might as well be. I think the main thing is that we know calcium is necessary to the mash. The problem for you and I is that we have soft water and adding calcium sulphate lowers the PH even further so we need to add calcium carbonate to raise it to act as a buffer. This is my understanding at present Clibit but it could be wrong.