Water Analysis

[sama]

Hoping someone can help me with analysing my areas water report. What does it meen :lol: Is my water typical? Does it lean towards certain styles,effects on bitterness etc. etc. etc.
Chemistry was never my favorite subject,smoking behind the sheds was more my thing.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Jye]

Nothing terrible about your water. Its good for amber malty beers about 10 SRM. I would add enough calcium sulphate to get the Ca levels up to about 50ppm for malty beers and up that to about 100ppm for hoppy beers. These figures will get you in the right ball park for Cl:SO4 ratios.

 

[sama]

thanks jye

 

[jakub76]

It's relatively soft water, suited for malt forward beers 7-12 SRM. I agree with Jye's post though I wouldn't add gypsum alone to increase the calcium. I did that as my first water adjustment and lost a lot of the malt charater of my favourite brew. It's suggested to get the calcium up to at least 50ppm for yeast health, if you did that with gypsum alone you'd shift the flavour balance towards bitter. A lot of people add equal amounts of gypsum and calcium chloride...this will keep the chlorides and sulphates balanced.

The malty to bitter balance has to do with the chloride to sulphate balance and is well covered by John Palmer in how to brew http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-1.html - he even has a downloadable .xml to help you work out your additions. It's also covered well in the 4 part water chemistry-ganza on the Brewing Network's Brew Strong.

Your water will also benefit from pre-boiling to remove the chlorine, if you don't already.

EDIT: Gypsum also lowers the Residual Alkalinity, shold you want to make lighter beer styles. For darker beer styles you might like to add Bi-Carb to raise you Residual Alkalinity...Palmer's .xml calculates the amounts and nominal SRM.

 

[manticle]

How hot removes chlorine? If your strike water is (for example) 76 degrees, is that hot enough (presuming it's chlorinated, not chloraminated).

 

[sama]

i must add i filter my water to remove chlorine before use.

 

[sama]

So im looking at brewing a english ale this weekend,36ibus, 10srm,10.14fg and after a bit of research and using jyes tool,have come to these conclusions..to up my calcium, by adding calcium sulphate and calcium chloride to get me to 57ppm of total calcium.This will also bring up my sulphate totals to 86ppm giving me a (hopefully) crisper bitterness. Am i heading in the right direction? Are my additions ok? Does the water volume in jyes tool refer to dough in water ? ie. mash in 13litres..

 

[O'Henry]

I'd be trying to get the Ca to at least 70ppm. I aim for 70-100ppm in my brews. You could bump your Mg a bit too, if you wanted. It has a similar effect on mash pH as Ca but is more soluble in water. Maybe 12-15ppm.

It is important to note that when adding Ca salts of any sort to you water you are best to dissolve them in the mash as you go, as they are not terribly soluble in pure water. The will dissolve better in the mash if you add them as you are filling the tun. I try to do them in 3 or 4 small doses.

What is your calculated final Chloride? If your [sulphate] is higher than chloride then you will get a crisper bitterness. But don't go too extreme or it will be harsh. Say 0.75 or 0.8 Cl:SO4.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[sama]

hmm..so i should bump my magnesium up into 10-30ppm range,and my calcium up to 70ppm.This takes me outta the correct ph for a 10srm beer.If i want to keep around 10srm then ill need to add a little bicarbonate to bring the ph in line? Please peruse nonograph below.

 

[O'Henry]

I don't really understand the colour section of that graph. For me, it would not be a problem to brew a beer of this colour with these salt levels. I'll look into this more in a sec. Just have to go out.

For the Mg, I would be aiming for 15ppm as I said above.

Edit: So I used your nonograph and plotted the beer I made on the weekend. It came out just above 5.6pH, at -50 residual alkalinity. I was aiming for ~9EBC. Not sure what to make of it, but just thought another example might help. Somehow.

 

[sama]

more reading me thinks