Welsh water

[Wrighty69]

Hoping for some advice. I've been brewing one gallon all grain recipes for a while and have mostly been using bottled water. This appears to work fairly well with darker beers due to the levels of bicarbonate but fails with light Belgium beers and hoppy pale ales. I'm wondering if I can use the soft tap supply from Welsh Water? From their website I have the following:
HCO3 31.1
Calcium 21.3
Chloride 6
Magnesium 6.4
Sodium 4.7
Sulphate 20.5

I have purchased gypsum, Epsom salts and calcium chloride and am trying to get my head around the Brewer's Friend recipe calculator. My recent brewing salts tweaked Citra/Amarillo wheat tasted thin and lacking hop profile. I'm clearly doing something wrong. Any help much appreciated.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

You've lovely soft water that is a perfect "blank canvas" for brewing, it's a waste of money to buy bottled water.

Wheat beers can be made with all sorts of water, so it depends a bit on what kind of style you're going for, but 4g (1 tsp) of gypsum and 5g (1.5tsp) of calcium chloride will get you started.

My recent brewing salts tweaked Citra/Amarillo wheat tasted thin and lacking hop profile. I'm clearly doing something wrong.

I'd look first at your yeast rather than water profile, yeasts like WB-06 can completely trash hop flavour. I'd simplify a bit - either aim to do a hoppy pale ale, or do a wheat beer, but don't try to mix the two for the time being.

 

[Wrighty69]

Thanks. The reason for using bottled water was the strong taste of chlorine in the tap water. It was particularly pungent last year during lockdown. I will leave it overnight in the brew kettle and use just the smallest pinch of sodium met to get rid of the chloramine. I usually use US05 or something neutral with the hoppy American-style wheat beers. If it's banana/clove i'm after then Crossmyloof's Kristallweizen etc. Am I right in thinking the amounts of gypsum and calcium chloride are for 5 gallon batches? At the moment i'm doing BIAB on the hob and using 8 litres to finish with a gallon. That will increase now I have a 23l boiler and copper immersion chiller. Attached is possible salt additions for a Belgium Blonde that will ferment with Crossmyloof's Belgium yeast if OK?

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Were you planning to adjust your alkalinity down a bit with some CRS or acidulated malt? Otherwise your mash pH may be a bit high

 

[Clint]

The water report may be an average or a seasonal result. I would get some test kits and test your own..look up Strange Steve's water test thread...its dead easy. What part of Wales are you from?

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Could you say what your proposed grain bill is and your mash water volume?

If I guess 6kg of pilsner malt and maybe 250g of caramunich, and a mash volume of 16L then BnW reckons your mash pH would come out at about 5.77; so you probably need a drop or two of acid.

Using 0.7 ml/l of CRS would get you to pH 5.4 and would also take your sulphate and chloride up to 73 and 44 respectively which is close to your target profile. You could then add just a touch of Calcium Chloride (0.03g/l) to get the chloride to the desired level.

The problem with that however is that it leaves your calcium too low (and in fact I'd argue that 50 calcium is too low anyhow).

So you could use 2ml/l phosphoric acid instead ... give me a mo and I'll work it out - but what do you have on hand?

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

OK if you manage the pH with something that doesn't effect the sulphate and chloride ions (e.g. phosphoric, lactic or acidulated malt) then I think you should be able to hit your target profile by adding gypsum and calcium chloride (dihydrate), both at about 0.1 grammes per litre.

Don't worry about the calcium being a bit higher - personally I'd prefer to have it about 100 anyhow

 

[Wrighty69]

Thanks for the calculations. I do have a bag of acidulated malt but have never used it before so don't know quantity to add. Mash volume is 8 litres as i'm trying out BIAB on the hob. Recipe hopefully is a one gallon version of this: Belgian Blonde – Leffe clone | The Malt Miller

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Thanks for the calculations. I do have a bag of acidulated malt but have never used it before so don't know quantity to add. Mash volume is 8 litres as i'm trying out BIAB on the hob. Recipe hopefully is a one gallon version of this: Belgian Blonde – Leffe clone | The Malt Miller

Cool - the acidulated malt will be perfect for the job.

With the original 23L TMM recipe size you would want about 150g of acidulated but check your mash pH after 10 mins just to be on the safe side. Then I would say 0.08 g/l gypsum and 0.1 g/l calcium chloride dihydrate

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Thanks. The reason for using bottled water was the strong taste of chlorine in the tap water. It was particularly pungent last year during lockdown. I will leave it overnight in the brew kettle and use just the smallest pinch of sodium met to get rid of the chloramine.

Ah, OK. Personally I add half a Camden tablet and then take it up to boiling before cooling it down for the mash, which also drives off a lot of air/oxygen.

Am I right in thinking the amounts of gypsum and calcium chloride are for 5 gallon batches? At the moment i'm doing BIAB on the hob and using 8 litres to finish with a gallon. That will increase now I have a 23l boiler and copper immersion chiller.

Ah sorry, you had said but I forgot to adjust for your smaller batches. Yep, I was thinking 20 litres, so near-enough 5 gallons, whether US or imperial.

Just generally, I wouldn't pay too much attention to US ideas on water chemistry, which are a bit odd by British standards. For an idea on what gets used in British commercial brewing, see the numbers from Murphy's in this post. Particularly if you're cask/pressure-barrel/bottle-conditioning, you need calcium of at least 100ppm for good flocculation. And for most purposes I'd want at least 100ppm of SO4 and Cl. Whilst it's perhaps less critical for many Belgian styles, most Belgian water is pretty hard - like SE England.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I wouldn't pay too much attention to US ideas on water chemistry, which are a bit odd by British standards. For an idea on what gets used in British commercial brewing, see the numbers from Murphy's in this post. Particularly if you're cask/pressure-barrel/bottle-conditioning, you need calcium of at least 100ppm for good flocculation. And for most purposes I'd want at least 100ppm of SO4 and Cl.

+1 to all that. I was nervous at first about taking the minerals as high as @Northern Brewer says because I thought I'd end up with something taking like chemical effluent, but in fact quite the opposite: it's improved my beer no end.
Nonetheless I do use the American "Bru'n Water" (link) tool for matching water profiles because I am used to it and find it works well. You just have to learn to take a philosophical perspective on its warnings about different levels of minerals :-)

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Incidentally here are those profiles from the Murphy's paper, which are the ones that I use now.

	Bitter	Mild	Porter	Lager
Calcium	170	100	100	50
Magnesium	15	10	10	2
Bicarbonate	25	50	100	25
Chloride	200	200	300	10
Sulphate	400	150	100	10

 

[Shinjuku]

Hoping for some advice. I've been brewing one gallon all grain recipes for a while and have mostly been using bottled water. This appears to work fairly well with darker beers due to the levels of bicarbonate but fails with light Belgium beers and hoppy pale ales. I'm wondering if I can use the soft tap supply from Welsh Water? From their website I have the following:
HCO3 31.1
Calcium 21.3
Chloride 6
Magnesium 6.4
Sodium 4.7
Sulphate 20.5

I have purchased gypsum, Epsom salts and calcium chloride and am trying to get my head around the Brewer's Friend recipe calculator. My recent brewing salts tweaked Citra/Amarillo wheat tasted thin and lacking hop profile. I'm clearly doing something wrong. Any help much appreciated.

Hi. I have been trying to find Welsh Water's water profile. Could you link me to this page if you have it handy? If not, I guess I can just use the measurements you have. Thanks in advance.

 

[Leon103]

I have lovely soft Welsh water. Enter the details into your brewing software and adjust accordingly. For pale ale there are minor adjustments needed. See cymru do like to add a lot of chlorine when they are loads of rain. I measure our the water the night before and use a Camden tablet.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Hi. I have been trying to find Welsh Water's water profile. Could you link me to this page if you have it handy?

There's no one "Welsh Water" profile, each reservoir is different. But Googling "Welsh Water's water profile" takes you to this page where you can enter your postcode (scroll down towards the bottom, it's not super-obvious) and take it from there

https://www.dwrcymru.com/en/help-advice/drinking-water-quality

 

[Clint]

Wrexham area comes out the Dee.