Water Analysis

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crow

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G'day all,

I'm a newbie based in Sydney currently on my second brew. Whilst reading up on homebrew I've seen references to the importance of the brew water to the final product. Seems to make sense to me.

So, I've got a couple of questions...

1) Does anyone know how /where you can get details of a water analysis of Sydney Water ?

2) What do you add to your brew water, why?

3) And finally, what's the consensus on filtering your brew water? So far I've used a Brita filter to filter out the Chlorine and whatever else from the firs two brews. What's your take, is it worth the effort?
 
Crow, I boil all water used in brewing, this removes the Chlorine, which from what I've read can produce off favours in the final product.
 
I buy my water from the supermarket, for 20 Litres it costs me around $9.

I was going to boil it but it took forever and this was simple.
 
Crow

I boil all my water in a 20 litre s/s pot. I then put it in the laundry sink with cold water to bring it down to about 26deg so i can safely pitch yeast.

Only prob I guess is that a s/s pot this size can be expensive but if you buy water @ $9 per 20 litres, 5 or 6 brews later and your pot is paid for.

Cheers
 
^ True, never really thought of that, I should go and invest in a 20 litre pot
 
Ok -I use unfiltered/untreated Barossa Rain Water straight from my galvanised water tank.

The tank has only been in for 8 months - someone noticed a slight metallic taste to the first brew - but apart from that - it is now all good.

We drink the rain water as well...

When i was in Canberra - we installed a Bushmans Plastic rain water tank - i used taht for all the brewing.
 
the water that comes out of your tap should be fine for brewing, as its fine for drinking.


the only thing you might need to add to the water is some calcium ions (unless you live at burton on trent) at a concentration of around 100ppm. this helps the yeast to grow and flocculate. i just use calcium chloride or calcium sulphate.
 
Thanks everyone for your feedback, much appreciated.

- MCWB, that web link was exactly what I was after as a reference (note its dated March 2003)

- Sluggerdog et al, thanks for the heads-up. I realise Sydney water is drinkable, but was interested to hear how others tweak their H2O.

- action man, excuse the basic question but where can you buy calcium chloride and/or calcium sulphate ???

Also, have I got it right in that by adding calcium you are improving floctuation and also lowerng the pH (I've heard an ideal brew is pH5.5). If so can anyone descibe the difference flavours or whatever you get by jigling around with the Calcium.

Thanks heaps,
Chris
 
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