water treatment question

[Beer Buddah]

Hi guys

I have realy hard water ( full of lime )so i had a water softening system put in. Issue is, i just started all grain and read that water softening systems take important minerals from the water important to all grain. So im stuck between very hard water or soft water. Anyone else had this issue ?
:wha:

 

[phettebs]

Yep. I do. My water is terribly hard. I have a softener too and I don't use that water. I use distilled or reverse osmosis water and some of my unsoftened tap water. I then add brewing salts to make up the difference for my target profile. that has worked very well for me.

Baz

 

[Beer Buddah]

I have the reverse osmosis system under my sink so will go with your method, except i have a well not mains supply. Do you get the water tested in any way or just trial and error method?

Cheers Baz.

Just another thing my first beer i made has abv of 4.5 bang on what it should be even using softend water so im guessing the softend water will cause taste issues rather than abv issues ?!

 

[phettebs]

I did get a water analysis done that gave me the mineral profile of my city water. You really need that done in order to see what you have to work with.

Yes, what can happen with very hard water is that it can lead to a very harsh astringent taste in the lighter colored beers. It works much better with stouts and really dark beers.

Very soft water can lead to taste issues. I've never done that so I don't know what exactly the outcome would be. I would imagine a very bland and tasteless beer.

If you don't want to mess with building up water with salts, you could always just use bottled spring water. True, you don't know what the mineral content is but it's generally not going to be extremely hard and it's not distilled.

Aleman usually has some really great info on this subject and probably has some searchable posts on the forum already.

 

[Beer Buddah]

Cheers for the help that clears everything up. Saves hrs of trying to figure it out from others post aka lazy way

 

[phettebs]

Water chemistry is not a trivial aspect of brewing so kudos to you for recognizing the importance and wanting to learn more!

 

[Aleman]

I have realy hard water ( full of lime )so i had a water softening system put in. Issue is, i just started all grain and read that water softening systems take important minerals from the water important to all grain. So im stuck between very hard water or soft water. Anyone else had this issue ?

Water chemistry is not a trivial aspect of brewing so kudos to you for recognizing the importance and wanting to learn more!

Although I should point out that unless you are brewing consistently good beer, any changes you make to your water treatment are very likely not to be noticeable.

Ok here is a quick brain dump for the lazy

Hardness is not important! Hardness is a measure of the calcium and magnesium ions in the water, unfortunately is is most often combined with bicarbonate (hydrogen carbonate) ions, which does have an effect on brewing.

Water softeners generally remove hardness! That's a problem because calcium and magnesium is required in brewing and replace it with double the amount of sodium, which isn't important . . . in fact it's detrimental.

RO Systems strip the majority of ions out of the water! Which means you have to put them back, either by adding salts to make up your own water, or by diluting your tap water.

Tap water contains chlorine! Which can lead to TCP like flavours in your beer. Remove it with 1/2 a campden tablet in up to 10Gallons while drawing your water.

Waters high in calcium carbonate are great for dark beers! Super for your stouts porters milds and darker bitters, but not so good for your pales and blondes.

Boiling removes carbonate! Easiest way to remove carbonate is to chuck a tsp of gypsum in your water pre brew and boil it for 30 minutes. Leave overnight, then rack of the sediment and use that to brew with.

Asda Smart Price or Tescos Ashbeck water is low in carbonate! And it's cheap enough, buy 30L and use that to brew with adding a tsp of gypsum to the mash and boil. Other mineral waters are not suitable!!

If you really want to go deeper than this (unnecessary at your brewing level IMNSHO) then do a search for water treatment and Aleman on the forum . . . it should throw up one or two hits :whistle:

 

[Beer Buddah]

Well a guy can't ask for more than those replies. Bows head to the superior Knowledge :clap:

Now i know why i am the water boy :lol:

Chhers again guys :

 

[screamlead]

Been reading about this for a while now. Where i live in turkey my water i reckon is hard as it produces a lot of limescale in kettles etc. No chance of getting a waterboard print out of mineral content or anaylised etc - it dont happen here water is water. Tourists are advised not to drink the tap water due to the mineral content but i reckon thats just a scam to make em buy bottled. We have been drinking from the tap for over 5 years without complaint. The water varies from place to place too - i know down the road in the major town it has flouride and chlorine added but ours does not.
Also just twigged i have lost a few brews now to what i can only think of as adding tap water to top up the brews by the brews all ending up with the dreaded wine flower infection.
So now i think i will either use the 10ltr bottled stuff or boil and add campdens from now on - anyone advise anything different?
Thanks
Scream