Water, Water, Everywhere..but Is It Any Good For Brewing?

[Desert Brewer]

Gday, as i get further entrenched into the all consuming hobby that is homebrewing, i find myself wanting to know more about processes that i hadnt given any thought to when i was doing kit & kilo brews. Here we go..

A few weeks back i brewed (DME, Grains and Hops - full wort boil, no chill) a couple of batches of American Pale and English Bitter to recipies that were on Beersmith - all went well ,good OG & FG, colour , but through the fermentation process there was always a pretty strong bitterness in the aftertaste - i thought they were both pretty bitter beer styles - things will mellow with bottle conditioning, they have to a degree but still pretty bitter. This got me reading.

My main reference has been J Palmer - how to brew, through which i think i have determined that the high bitterness issue is to do with the high Bicarbonate (HCO3 -1) in our water supply, the water analysis was provided by our local water authority via their annual report, free online. All the water filtering will not remove these ions - unless you use reverse osmosis.

Based on the information in Palmers book our water has higher bicarbonate levels than any of the water mentioned in his book, ours are at 273 ppm or mg/l, although our overall waterhardness is 224 ppm or mg/l mesured as calcium carbonate (CaCO3) which is not as high as some of the water samples that Palmer presents.

My issue is the high bi carbonate levels as they add excessive bitterness / astringent flavours. Everything i have read suggests that messing around with water is very difficult and if you can, avoid it. My question;

1) To reduce the high levels of Bicaronates and other ions, is it as simple as diluting the water supply with a purer source of water eg 3 parts rainwater filtered to .005 micron to 1 part filtered tap water or will this have some other reaction in the water - hard to tell without an analysis of the rainwater, i know, but any suggestions welcomed.

2) Is messing around with and most likley reducing the bittering hop addittion a better solution.

I realise there are issues of pH around this, that is another bridge that i need to cross.

I am no scientist, i am just attemping to make the best beer i can with what i have and thaty my situation allows, i would prefer not to add brewing salts etc. having said that i have just bought a pH meter!

Any advice, hints, tips are well recieved.

Cheers.

DB

 

[Scruffy]

Where are you?

 

[RdeVjun]

Hi DB,
some good questions and a bit to think about. I'd suggest its far easier to lower the amount of hops, but that brings its own complications of course in balancing your brews with malt.

However, rainwater, while having low overall concentrations of everything, is often proportionally quite high in bicarb relative to other major ions. It should not make a significant difference however, as compared to your main water source, it should still be at extremely low concentration, so it still makes a good dilution agent.
From research (pdf, not quite my own work but a useful summary in chloride dynamics) that I am involved in, rainwater basically decreases in chloride concentration (and other ions) the further from the coast, although the capture and storage of it often introduces other ions- in particular nitrate, sulphate and also some zinc, the latter most likely from roofing, guttering and tanks, the former probably bird crap and dust. But, again, concentrations are extremely low compared to your town water, so I would certainly be using it to dilute town water. If you like, next week I'll get some chem data from work for rainfall out in the sticks, I'm guessing you're around Alice Springs? We should have some data for central/ western QLD from rainwater tanks at least and that may be useful a guide, otherwise only an analysis will tell you.

I'm using just rainwater for my brews with little or no additions (of course I'm always wondering if I should!), but I know its not particularly good quality, however the town water supply here is quite variable with varying proportions of dam and bore water.

 

[Stuster]

Wow, very high carbonate levels. Where do you live?

Yes, diluting the water will reduce the bicarbonate levels. As you say, doing it with rainwater you are not sure exactly what is there but the bicarbonate levels are pretty sure to be very low.

Really, I don't think that adding brewing salts is impossible, though it does take some work to get your head round it if you haven't done much chemistry before. Maybe you can post up your water analysis first so we can work out how to deal with this water.

 

[Desert Brewer]

Alice Springs is where i am at. Any info on rainwater tanks would be great. Im pretty sure the Desert Knowledge cooperative research centre has put something along these lines out , not sure what sort of details they go into- i will try to track it down.

Cheers,

 

[Desert Brewer]

Alice Springs is where i am at. Any info on rainwater tanks would be great. Im pretty sure the Desert Knowledge cooperative research centre has put something along these lines out , not sure what sort of details they go into- i will try to track it down.

Cheers,

Alice Water Analysis as at 07/08 ( waiting for 08/09 annual report) in mg/l or ppm

Calcium - 48.2
Magnesium - 25.1
Bi Carbonate - 273
Sulfate - 63.3
sodium - 78.4
Chloride - 72
Hardness as CaCo3 - 224

 

[himzol]

Alice Water Analysis as at 07/08 ( waiting for 08/09 annual report) in mg/l or ppm

Calcium - 48.2
Magnesium - 25.1
Bi Carbonate - 273
Sulfate - 63.3
sodium - 78.4
Chloride - 72
Hardness as CaCo3 - 224

I'm in no way an expert but plugging those numbers into palmers spreadsheet gives a "balanced" answer to beer taste, for dark beers..

i.e. the residual alkalinity is probably effecting the taste if you are trying to brew light coloured beers.

I wouldn't do anything to this water except use it to brew dark beers (porters, stout etc) and use your rain water to brew light coloured beers..however I would add some nutrients for the yeast as you would be lacking in calcium from straight rain water (assuming not a concrete tank)

H.

 

[Maxt]

If you are no chilling, and adding high alpha acid hops at flameout, then try this. Go into beersmith and change them to 20min additions, and see what this does to your IBU's!
No chill is a no go with high alpha acid hops at flameout. (flameout suit on)

 

[Whorst]

Gday, as i get further entrenched into the all consuming hobby that is homebrewing, i find myself wanting to know more about processes that i hadnt given any thought to when i was doing kit & kilo brews. Here we go..

A few weeks back i brewed (DME, Grains and Hops - full wort boil, no chill) a couple of batches of American Pale and English Bitter to recipies that were on Beersmith - all went well ,good OG & FG, colour , but through the fermentation process there was always a pretty strong bitterness in the aftertaste - i thought they were both pretty bitter beer styles - things will mellow with bottle conditioning, they have to a degree but still pretty bitter. This got me reading.

My main reference has been J Palmer - how to brew, through which i think i have determined that the high bitterness issue is to do with the high Bicarbonate (HCO3 -1) in our water supply, the water analysis was provided by our local water authority via their annual report, free online. All the water filtering will not remove these ions - unless you use reverse osmosis.

Based on the information in Palmers book our water has higher bicarbonate levels than any of the water mentioned in his book, ours are at 273 ppm or mg/l, although our overall waterhardness is 224 ppm or mg/l mesured as calcium carbonate (CaCO3) which is not as high as some of the water samples that Palmer presents.

My issue is the high bi carbonate levels as they add excessive bitterness / astringent flavours. Everything i have read suggests that messing around with water is very difficult and if you can, avoid it. My question;

1) To reduce the high levels of Bicaronates and other ions, is it as simple as diluting the water supply with a purer source of water eg 3 parts rainwater filtered to .005 micron to 1 part filtered tap water or will this have some other reaction in the water - hard to tell without an analysis of the rainwater, i know, but any suggestions welcomed.

2) Is messing around with and most likley reducing the bittering hop addittion a better solution.

I realise there are issues of pH around this, that is another bridge that i need to cross.

I am no scientist, i am just attemping to make the best beer i can with what i have and thaty my situation allows, i would prefer not to add brewing salts etc. having said that i have just bought a pH meter!

Any advice, hints, tips are well recieved.

Cheers.

DB

Your water is very good for dark beers. If you want to brew say a straw colored bitter, or even an amber colored bitter, you're alkalinity will need to be seriously dropped to around 25 ppm CaCO3. Mathematically your alkalinity as expressed as CaCO3 is 223. With the addition of gypsum or calcium chloride, to make your calcium levels 125ppm, your residual alkalinity would be 190. The math indicates that to treat 5 US gallons of water to an alkalinity of 25, you'd need 3ml or 3cc's of 85%-88% strength lactic acid.

 

[RdeVjun]

Folks, I committed to providing some rainfall chemistry data, so far I've ordered a paper which may be useful to anyone looking for rainfall chemistry data to plug into various recipators for water profile. It basically has a north- south and an east- west transect of sampling points covering much of the western half of the country. I'd imagine that Alice Springs would be one of the eastern- most points in the transect. (Link: Keywood, M.D., Chivas, A., Fifield, L.K., Cresswell, R.G. Ayers, G. (1997) The accession of salt to the Western half of the Australian continent. Australian J. Soil Science, 35, 177-1189.)
I know this paper talks mostly about chloride, but I should be able to get the full suite of ionic data as one of the coauthors is a collaborator on other projects with us, he's just on leave at the moment.
Alice Springs, I'm told, has a nearby salt pan (to the south perhaps?) that could influence the local rainwater chemistry. I'd imagine the sort of impact from it would only be detected by analysis though, and of course the prevailing wind direction would be a factor. Let's not worry about that though for now, the data, if the town is a sampling point for that study, should reflect it anyway...
Obviously, ion concentrations in the rainwater compared to the town water there will be trivially low, but it may be helpful to know for tweaking light- coloured beers with just straight rainwater. The info provided below is quite helpful too IMO. If only I could get the same data for where I am, but my understanding is that with the various production bores contributing to our town water individually, and in varying proportions, its not likely to happen unless I measure it regularly for myself. But, in the grand scale of brewing things, I have bigger fish to fry before worrying about chasing up data and then balancing my own water chemistry, and I prefer darker ales anyway, so its less of an issue for me. Glad to help other brewers though, would probably be breaching copyright / ToS if I just posted the paper as a pdf, but I should be able to summarise and tabulate the data myself, along with an appropriate citation of course.