Water....

[Swift Pint]

OK, as part of my complete brewing process overhaul & improvements Water is one of the key areas I have previously overlooked.

I live in London so my water is pretty hard.
I have read through the calculator and obtained my water report from the Thames Water Website.

The report isn't quite as extensive as I'd like, there are no figures for Calcium or Magnesium. Acidity is given in CaCO3 rather than CO3 or HCO3, but I think this is OK?

I guess my question is, by not having the Ca and Mg data is the output from the Water Calculator going to be incorrect and therefore not usable?

Here's my input

Calcium (Ca): 0 mg/l
Magnesium (Mg): 0 mg/l
Sodium (Na): 36.5 mg/l
Sulphate (SO4): 52.8 mg/l
Chloride (Cl): 52.3 mg/l

Alkalinity as CaCO3: 303 mg/l or ppm

Based on a 1litre boil and 1 litre mash (keeping it simple) for a Pale Ale, this is my output:

CRS: 1.5 millilitres Carbonate Reducing Solution - add this to the total water volume!

Gypsum added to mash: 0.18 grams Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate Dihydrate) (Ca SO4 2H2O)
Chalk added to mash: 0 grams Chalk (Calcium Carbonate) (Ca CO3)

Gypsum added to boiler: 0 grams Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate Dihydrate) (Ca SO4 2H2O)
Table Salt added to boiler: 0 grams Table Salt (Na Cl)
Epsom Salts added to boiler: 0.2 grams Epsom Salts (Magnesium Sulphate Heptahydrate) (Mg SO4 7H2O)
Calcium Chloride added to boiler: 0 grams Calcium Chloride (Dihydrate) (Ca Cl2 2H2O)

Presuming that there will be some Ca and Mg in my water should I tweak the above?
I.E is the addition of Epsom Salts going to be to add Mg cos the Calculator doesn't think I've got any? :wha:

I was going to use some campden tablet to remove the Chlorine & Chloramine, do I need to let it sit for a while before using the water?

 

[Swift Pint]

oh, and my report also gives hardness in Degrees German, Degrees French and Degrees Clarke, not sure if that gives any additional info?

 

[pittsy]

i thought you cockneys had soft water :wha: , i thought i remember staying there and it took an age to wash the soap away in the shower ? i too had your problem with the water report (seven trent) never did sort it out and now i think i've lost the report . Still baffles me so i'll be watching this with interest .

 

[Swift Pint]

Oh, not sure what the deal is with soap, but I know that the kettle furs up pretty quick....

I'm hoping I can sort out water treatment as I dont want to bee lugging bottled water back from the shops!

 

[pittsy]

yes you must have hard water , when you shower it should just wash off easy (it must of been somewhere else i was thinking on )

 

[Swift Pint]

I ended up doing quite a bit of reading and got rather confused last night. Then I stumbled upon some excellent posts by Aleman (sorry cant remember where!), and have ordered some testing kits by Salifert.

My water reports are 2011 so may be inaccurate anyway.

The testing kits will allow me to measure accurately the alkalinity, the hardness and the amount of Calcium, which I can then plug into the Water Calculator.

Also it seems that Espoms salts will probably not be needed as only low levels of Mg are required so my water & the grain will supply sufficient amounts.

I'll update when I've taken readings and worked out what I need to add.

Oh, and when I was ordering the test kits, I also got a kit for measuring O2. I thought it would be interesting to see what my post aeration mg/L amounts of Oxygen are.

 

[Good Ed]

Thats the thing to do, Alemans posts keep it simple. My water report has CaCO3 at 232, but testing it with a Salifert kit it has been around 125 for the past 12 months.

All I do after testing with the kit is to use CRS, then multiply the CaCO3 by 0.40 to get a rough calcium reading and then adjust this with CaSO4 or CaCl or both depending on style. You are right that Mg is only needed at 10-30ppm, but is a necessary yeast nutrient.

Try and keep it simple is my advice, but also keep a check on how much SO4 and Cl the CRS is adding, which shouldn't be a problem unless you are adding a lot of CRS