Water Chemistry - Please Read This

[gone_fishing]

How much impact does water chemistry have on homebrewed beer?
gf

 

[colonel]

All vegetative bacteria will be killed in your typical 60m+ boil, spores of some kinds can survive the boil but probably not from beer spoilers (like botulism). Fermenting/finished beer is a pretty inhospitable place for most organisms.

Yeah, that sounds reasonable Felten, but as I only boil a couple of litres to disolve the sugar and goo, it's not doing anything to the water out of the tap.
Boiling all the water seems a bit onerous/energy intensive if it's not needed, so I'm wondering if it's necessary?

 

[rude]

Good thread this one might have to give the water chem a bash

Does any sandgropers have a water annalysis for my area in melville ?

 

[rude]

I have just been reading wheelers water treatment article downloaded from this thread & was thinking perth water is soft.

Lacking in calcium

So an addition for my pale ales, bitters of calcium chloride seems like a good move using his dispensing method with a power aid bottle.

Would I be on the right track doing this & how do I check my mash ph using strips, meter ?

Do I have to cool the mash to check the ph ?

Just wondering how you experienced brewers go about it.

What about wheat beers I would think the ph mash would be alkaline.

Thanks all for advice

 

[manticle]

@rude: Before you add anything, you'll need a copy of your water report with values for calcium, sodium, magnesium, chloride and sulphate as well as alkalinity and temporary hardness.

You can get this from the water company if you ask nicely and tell them it's for brewing. I think Perth Water can range from quite soft to very hard.

Gryphon brewing is WA and is pretty up with the whole shebang so maybe get in touch and find the best way to go about measuring.

Your recipe/malts will change your pH although I don't believe a wheat beer mash will be particularly alkaline.

I'm in the middle of reading various texts to get a better understanding of it all myself so forgive me if this is poorly explained. Malts will generally have an acidifying effect on a mash. Dark malts will have more of an effect than pale malts and carbonates in water/mash will resist the acidification (act as a buffer). I've not come across anything that suggests wheat malt will have an alkaline effect.

Temperature will affect pH readings to some degree.

 

[bear09]

How much impact does water chemistry have on homebrewed beer?
gf

I liked the way Thirstyboy put it at one of the G&G demonstration days. He said that you can make good beer quite easily but if you want to make great beer then you have to start eliminating some of the things that can be detrimental to the flavor you seek. I have found that these little things can include (but are certainly not limited to) water filtration, water chemistry, Mash PH, Sparge PH, mash temp accuracy and consistency, yeast health/vitality, pitching rates, pitching temps, fermentation temps and schedule and of course overall sanitation.

I have found that I was making OK beer. When I started to get involved in all these things mentioned above I found that things began to improve. Many of the things I never cared about actually do make a difference. Once upon a time I just used to chuck everything in the fermenter and leave it on the floor in the lounge. No temp control, no proper yeast handling - jesus I used to pitch in at 30 degrees.

Paying attention to the big things will get you beer (and some pretty bloody good beer too). Paying attention to the small things will bring you great beer - beer that will make you smile from ear to ear with satisfaction.

 

[rude]

Thanks Manticle youre right malts arent alkaline just thinking that wheat beer recipes would have a higher mash ph compared to darker malts

Have read a few threads on the search here about Perth water & it seems a little harder than just putting in calcium chloride.

A lot of brewers seam to start off from scratch RO water which doesnt appeal to me, additional costs maybe down the track.

 

[manticle]

From what I've read, you can boil your water first to remove temporary hardness.

 

[donburke]

i am going to try some water additions to my brew tomorrow, on the lesser side as a precaution,

can i just add the whole addition to the mash at the start or should it be added proportionally to the water being used at each step, i.e. half at mash in then the other half during the sparge ?

thanks

 

[manticle]

I dissolve mine in boiling water and just add to mash and boil.

However I have read that adding to your sparge water can be a good idea. It may depend somewhat on the water profile.

I'd worry more about the mash pH for your first (and flavour with your chloride:sulphate ratio)

 

[WitWonder]

A couple of interesting quotes from Noonan;

"Certain beer styles are suited to waters of very specific mineral composition and an otherwise well-brewed example will always be diminished by the use of totally inappropriate brewing water."

and regarding rainwater

"Rainwater should be the purest natural source of water, but because it assimilates atmospheric gases and organic mineral particles wherever the air is the least bit polluted, most rainwater is absolutely unsuitable for use in brewing. Precipitation in areas far removed from large fossil-fuel burning plants more often than not is still polluted by highly corrosive sulfuric acid ... Free hydrogen carbonates ... are also common in rainwater. They rob the calcium from the mash, water and ferment...".

and on the subject of testing water samples

"The longer the sample sits, the less accurate the analysis will be. Where pollution is suspected, the water must be tested within twelve hours of collection, and in all other cases, within seventy-two hours."

There's about 40 pages devoted to water, well worth the read.

 

[Wolfy]

I dissolve mine in boiling water and just add to mash and boil.

However I have read that adding to your sparge water can be a good idea. It may depend somewhat on the water profile.

The recent email I sent to BrewLab in the UK asking about water profiles included the following quote as part of their reply:
"The salts MUST be added to the dry grain and NOT the hot liquor tank, as they are difficult to dissolve."
(Their capital-emphasis not mine).

 

[donburke]

The recent email I sent to BrewLab in the UK asking about water profiles included the following quote as part of their reply:
"The salts MUST be added to the dry grain and NOT the hot liquor tank, as they are difficult to dissolve."
(Their capital-emphasis not mine).

well i mixed up 17g calcium chloride, 13g calcium sulfate and 5g of magnesium sulphate in a litre of hot water in a plastic bottle 8 hours ago (this is for approx 120 litres of sydney water)

shook many times, and still hasnt dissolved so i'll tip it and try adding them dry to the mash tomorrow

 

[felten]

Calcium is less soluble in hot water than cold water, calcium sulphate is not very soluble at all, they need the low pH of a mash to dissolve properly. CaCl₂ (CaSO₄ as well?)in water creates an exothermic reaction as well, you have to watch out for it sinking to the bottom and cracking whatever you're mixing it in.

I've heard that advice to mix them in with the grist before as well, pretty good idea if you ask me. I keep mine in solution like the Tony wheeler doco says and it can be a bit of a PITA to shake it up properly before measuring it out, especially the gypsum which settles out very quickly.

I wouldn't dump the solution though.

 

[Newbee(r)]

I was thinking of using rain water instead of the canberra tap water - is there anything I need to treat it with or perhaps give it a pre-boil to get rid of gribblies before bringing down to 64 degrees? I figured the mineral flavours of it would add a great dimension to the beer. my tank has a filter on it so leaves etc don't get in there and is a hard plastic 10,000 litre tank so shouldn't impart metallic flavours... Any thoughts?

 

[razz]

I was thinking of using rain water instead of the canberra tap water - is there anything I need to treat it with or perhaps give it a pre-boil to get rid of gribblies before bringing down to 64 degrees? I figured the mineral flavours of it would add a great dimension to the beer. my tank has a filter on it so leaves etc don't get in there and is a hard plastic 10,000 litre tank so shouldn't impart metallic flavours... Any thoughts?

That's what I do Newbee. Boil approx 60 lts which is my total brewing water. Although I don't know about the mineral profile adding a dimension to the water, perhaps if it had lots of minerals it could. You may find that it does not have much at all.

 

[gjhansford]

I think that water quality and chemical/salt profiles are critical, especially when you are trying to get from good beer to great beer.

A few years ago I did the Coopers tour at their then new factory out in the suburbs. I wasn't a brewer then, just a drinker, so most of what I saw and heard went over my head (probable still would!). But there was one think I do remember, which at the time I thought very wierd.

They said they build the new brewery right over a undeground water supply that was 'free'. They they installed a great big RO machine to purify their own water, finally addding salts etc.

Of course, now it makes sense.

So ... if we can learn anything from the big boys about water, it seems it's this: water is important, and worth the effort!

ghhb

 

[manticle]

The recent email I sent to BrewLab in the UK asking about water profiles included the following quote as part of their reply:
"The salts MUST be added to the dry grain and NOT the hot liquor tank, as they are difficult to dissolve."
(Their capital-emphasis not mine).

Up until very recently I simply sprinkled it in before stirring the mash. After some more reading, I started adding them to a bit of hot water (not the HLT), letting it sit, then stirring the crap out of it. Yesterday I added it to the little bit of water I use to heat the tun (which then gets 1/3 strike water added before grain). No idea if any is likely to work better than the other.

I'll have to hunt up the info about the sparge water although the suggestion is to add to sparge as well not just treat the strike/sparge water as a whole. Before I confuse myself further, I'll re-read and clarify.

 

[manticle]

^ One quick reference is from Briggs, Boulton and Brookes and Stevens (Brewing Science and Practice) which talks about treating the sparge liquor. I should be clear that this is following having treated the mash and essentially refers to removing bicarbonates and ensuring adequate calcium levels. This is to stop the pH rising too much during sparging as the malt no longer has the same buffering (having been washed out during lauter/draining).

 

[lespaul]

Im just using the Kaiser Water Calculator spreadsheet that i found somewhere on here. It is saying that in a 47lt BIAB i need to put something like 5g CaSO4 and 5g CaCl into the mash (to end up with just over 50ppm Ca)? Does this seem a little excessive to anyone?
Cheers