Sydney Water Too Soft For Brewing?

[hazard]

While water chemistry is something I'm interested in getting into, most of the successful beers I've brewed have been on the darker side of things and I make no water additions. I'm talking recent AG stouts and browns as well as previous extract/specialty and partial stouts and browns. I live in Melbourne, Melbourne water is soft. I'm sure water chemistry/additions can help make better beer but have you actually noticed your stouts being 'bad'?

I think you're right here. My last stout, made with pure untreated and unadultered melb Water got 3rd spot at Vic Brew - so lack of brewing salts did not cause a bad stout. Nonetheless, I have since started using brewing salsts but have only done some pale ales since. Main difference I have noted is that efficiency has jumped up from 75% to 85% - as noted above, calcium has a positive effect on enzyme activity, which appears to have increased efficiency. Either that or LHBS has added some extra grain into my order as part of his reward program for loyal customers!

 

[BjornJ]

Hey Bjorn, using the BABBS nomograph application it shows you are almost in the middle between 5.7-5.8. This is susitable just for light coloured beers moving up to dark amber. (also you run a vertical line from the mash pH point, not continuing the diagonal.)\
http://nomograph.babbrewers.com/


Cheers.

Aha! Missed that, thanks for pointing it out. So not as dark beer profile as I had drawn.
Thanks, will read more.

So does it sound like I should be playing with the Calcium levels if brewing lighter colored beer, or just add 1% of acid malt per 0.1 pH to reduce the mash pH with?

If using this graph Sydney water has a pH of about 5.73, minus 0.35 at mash temperature (the graph says on the bottom of the page to substract 0.35 from room temp to mash temp), that gives a all-base-malt pH of 5.38 which should be good..

Getting confused again now, hehe.

Do I add Calcium to increase hardness, ending up with a lower mash pH, or do I drop the Calcium additions and use acid malt to reduce the mash pH?

Should I

 

[buttersd70]

If you're brewing what i think you're brewing, the last thing you want is hard water. All you want is fairly soft-ish water, corrected for pH if required.

 

[BjornJ]

Yep, trying my hands at Mild (Butters) on Sunday

Got my stir-plate done this week, yesterday I put the fridgemate in and today I'll put the immersion chiller together. Been an excellent gadget-week!

Sounds like in Sydney we would benefit from some CaCl in the water and maybe some acid malt, though..?

Guess what I should do, rather than ask others is to measure my mash pH and stop wondering.

thanks
Bjorn

 

[katzke]

Guess what I should do, rather than ask others is to measure my mash pH and stop wondering.

thanks
Bjorn

Sounds like a good idea.

Not knowing the pH of the mash is kind of like brewing and never tasting the beer.

 

[RobH]

For Sydney water I found this info quite interesting:

http://www.sydneywater.com.au/OurSystemsAn...s/WaterSystems/
http://www.sydneywater.com.au/WaterQuality...gWaterAnalysis/

Helps you work out which water filtration plant you get your water from, and provides a "typical" analysis of the water from each plant.

 

[PistolPatch]

Bjorn,

I love questions like yours as there are so many answers but whether they are correct depends on your level of brewing experience.

From what I have quickly read above, the last thing you should be worrying about is water profiles. This is very advanced stuff and from what I read, you are not currently measuring your pH. Measuring pH and understanding it are things that should have been seen and addressed on the first reply.

Forgive me if I am wrong but your thread is the ideal opportunity for me to ask the following question...

"Do you have a "House Beer?""

This should be a beer that you really like and can brew with your water and equipment. Usually it will come from a local brewer or is a robust recipe that can handle a lot of abuse. (The latter I can provide you with.) Until you have such a recipe, any advanced question, as you have innocently asked above, often proves useless or misleading...

If you are not confident in how to brew an award-winning APA in Sydney, it will be of no/little value to you asking about water profiles.

So, I would forget about asking your original question and instead, find an experienced brewer who lives close to you. There are heaps!

Find your House Beer and then all of us can talk well!

Spot,
Pat

PM me if the above has not helped.

 

[BjornJ]

Thanks guys,
that is the link I used to find that we are supplied with water from the Prospect plant. I got the various mineral properties from the same site, thanks.

Pat,
No house beer, yet. Still way to much fun jumping back and forth, testing new things and gadgets! Last beer was the first to caramelise some wort, first in the temperature controlled fridge, the one before that was the first english mild, the one before the first with corn. Simply can't decide what to keep brewing, hehe.
What I have done is read the palmer part about water chemistry a couple of times and done some googling around water profiles for brewing, water additions, etc.

You are right, I have to measure my pH before deciding on a clear course here, definitely.
But what I don't buy is that I should keep brewing in batches of 30 longnecks my mediocre beers and work on my process, knowing that the Sydney calcium content is too low and that it could be improved with a couple of teaspoons of chalk.

"everywhere" I read about brewing water chemistry, the figure of absolute minimum 50 ppm of calcium comes up, and sydney has quite a bit less. So I figure that I can add some chalk when making a darker beer and some calcium sulphate when brewing a lighter beer to help my local water in the right 5.2-5.6 pH range. It's been fun reading about it and playing with water additions, and measuring pH or not, there is (according to Palmers nomograph and the online version of this on the site from 4star) no doubt that the pH will be more suitable with some calcium added. Using the spreadsheet from palmer and the online tool 4star linked to, it seems quite easy to help bring the pH into an "optimal" range while keeping an eye on bicarbonate levels, sodium levels, etc.

Way off on the wrong track, trying to improve small stuff while my process needs main road work?
Possibly, hehe! (probably?)

But also fun to learn about something new, and another way of looking at it, is that I am picking low-hanging fruit to quickly and with no hassle improving my chances of good beer by helping with pH and Calcium.

Guess I am a tinkerer

 

[PistolPatch]

Way off on the wrong track, trying to improve small stuff while my process needs main road work?
Possibly, hehe! (probably?)

No, you have the right attitude. I just needed a rant last night as I was re-installing Vista for the third time - lol!

As long as whilst exploring the more advanced stuff you don't lose sight of the basics, then all will end up very well. A biut like re-installing Vista .

Lots of great brewers in Sydney to help you too.

Go the tinkerers!
Pat

 

[kabooby]

Sydney water will not cause you to make mediocre beer. You should be able to make a nice beer without any water additions. The water additions will help you get that last 10% from good beer to excellent beer.

If your beer is mediocre than I would look at your process a bit further.

I think fermentation plays the biggest part in making a good beer. Good fermention can make a bad recipe good, but bad fermentation can make an award winning recipe bad.

Hope this helps

Kabooby :icon_cheers:

 

[BjornJ]

Sydney water will not cause you to make mediocre beer. You should be able to make a nice beer without any water additions. The water additions will help you get that last 10% from good beer to excellent beer.

If your beer is mediocre than I would look at your process a bit further.

I think fermentation plays the biggest part in making a good beer. Good fermention can make a bad recipe good, but bad fermentation can make an award winning recipe bad.

Hope this helps

Kabooby :icon_cheers:

You are of course right, I am not blaiming my lack of great beers on the water, only the brewer

 

[PostModern]

You don't need to be exact, as long as your additions move the profile in the right direction, you'll be better off than not adding salts to soft water. My rule of thumb is a metric handful of gypsum and a three fingered pinch of CaCl per 20L of strike water. If I'm making a Burton style IPA, I'll dose the sparge water as well as adding a good pinch of Epsom Salts. Beers I salt taste better than those I don't. I have no idea how close it brings my water profile to the target, but it has to be closer than the near distilled stuff we get in Wollongong.

 

[Fourstar]

My rule of thumb is a metric handful of gypsum and a three fingered pinch of CaCl per 20L of strike water.

:unsure:

I'd be shooting for more of a 3 fingered pinch.

Seriously though, check your weights on some scales or use teaspoon figures JP outlines in howtobrew. Ive measured them by weight and they are pretty close 1g~ except for chalk, that was way out 3-4g~.

Cheers.

 

[Josh]

If it's so easy to adjust water, then I think if Bjorn wants to adjust water for more Calcium then that would remove one variable that is keeping him from making great beer.

There's no reason why a starting AG brewer can't adjust his water before everything else is down pat. It at least removes one variable that could prevent him from making great beer.

FWIW I have only just got into it. But I reckon my pretty good beers in the past would have been even better with some water adjustment.

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

Confession time:


I just add some 5.2 in the mash with most batches and hope for the best. Is this bad?


Now that I've started to iron out the kinks in other aspects of my process and am starting to achieve some consistancy, I guess water chemestry can become my next area of focus.

 

[mje1980]

:unsure:

I'd be shooting for more of a 3 fingered pinch.

Seriously though, check your weights on some scales or use teaspoon figures JP outlines in howtobrew. Ive measured them by weight and they are pretty close 1g~ except for chalk, that was way out 3-4g~.

Cheers.

Rob measure his grains by " A bucket of this, half a bucket of that" in his own words. His beers are great too.

 

[///]

Rob measure his grains by " A bucket of this, half a bucket of that" in his own words. His beers are great too.

You forgot to add his pint measuring technique for speciality grains ...

 

[buttersd70]

add this, add that. Up this, lower that......

anyone (apart from myself) even know what Bjorn is attempting to brew??? A recipe designed to emulate a west riding mild: low in sulphates, low in Ca, low in everything.......Adelaide water, unchanged, is damn near perfect for the (I won't say style, deliberately, to avoid confusion for the BJCP-ophiles, for a regional variation that falls outside the "normal" guidelines.) type of beer; Sydney water, if the posted profile is anything to go by, is even better.

I reitterate, Bjorn......don't f$% around with the water chemistry, just check the pH and adjust if required (which I doubt you will, anyway). At least for this recipe.

 

[BjornJ]

Butters,
yes I guess you know what I brewed last Sunday, eh?!

Guess I should have asked about the water profile before I made it rather than after, but hindsight is always 20/20, etc.
Will send you a bottle to try if you stop telling me to not f** around with new stuff, hehe

Wouldn't mind your comments on it, given I got the grains, recipe, hop shedule/type as well as fridgemate through you!

There is one thing I changed about the recipe, but won't tell you now looking at the kind of feedback I get for trying to mess around with water profiles..


Seriously though, thanks for some good feedback guys. Can't decide if the next brew should be a rice lager with some re-cultured coopers yeast and POR (so I get to test my calsium sulphate as well!) or try a Dr Smurto Golden Ale, the northern beaches homebrew club boys speak highly of it.

thanks
Bjorn

 

[Fourstar]

Rob measure his grains by " A bucket of this, half a bucket of that" in his own words. His beers are great too.

Yeah i know that for sure, but a 'measured handful' seems a little excessive. e.g. i can hold 90g of gypsum in my handful also know as a whole baggie of it from G&G. Just seems a little OTT.