Water profil

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Zitooo

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Hi,
I have a water profile for my tapwater ( se picture)
Is this good water for brewing or should i add something? I think water treatment is hard to understand and it will take me some time to learn but i want to know if my water is good for standard brewing.
IMG_9055.jpeg
 
Zitooo said:
Hi,
I have a water profile for my tapwater ( se picture)
Is this good water for brewing or should i add something? I think water treatment is hard to understand and it will take me some time to learn but i want to know if my water is good for standard brewing.
View attachment 33766
Click to expand...

That starting water profile looks fine. You can add that to your profile and then when working up a recipe, it will pre-populate. Then you can select your target water profile. Like @Bigbre04, I use the balanced target profile. And remember, you just need to get in the ballpark or on the pitch. Don't waste time trying to hit the numbers exactly. Also, if you are on a municipal water system, add some metabisulfate to get rid of chlorine and chloramine.
 
Ok thanks but how do I know which chemical to add to change a certain value? I played a little and it is hard to get it right more values sometimes change when adding a chemical
 
so when i was messing with it. I would adjust one at a time trying to get as close to the profile as i could. some would be slightly over, some slightly under and then i would round up or down to the closest whole number since im not trying to worry about 2 or 3 grams.

to dumb it down further remember that CaCl2 will add Ca and 2xCl Gypsum(CaSO4) so Ca and S. Salt is NaCl so Na and Cl. look at what you need to get close and then start adding it. but remember that you can get Ca from several different salts so if you have too much Sulphur you can add more CaCl2 to get more Ca w/o adding too much sulphur.

i hope that makes sense?

Honestly water chemistry is the final boss of brewing. i would nail the process down before i messed with water chemistry too much.
 
Ok, i think i maybe just adjust ph with lactic acid.
If you look at my waterprofile at top do you recommend adding something or is it unnessesary? I have no chlorine in my water so that is nice…
 
It does depend on what you are brewing too. If I am not mistaken lagers are typically brewed with a "soft" water profile like you have there. For instance this is the water profile I used for the one lager that I brewed a few years ago. I started with RO water and added 1 gram each of gypsum, calcium chloride,and Epsom salt.
Screenshot_20251216_173522_Brewfather.jpg
 
Zitooo said:
Ok thanks but how do I know which chemical to add to change a certain value? I played a little and it is hard to get it right more values sometimes change when adding a chemical
Click to expand...
Go to the water calculator (it can be linked in the recipe) and add one gram calcium chloride and one gram magnesium sulphate and see what happens to the water numbers.
 
Think of adding brewing salts like seasonings for cooking. Your water is fine for most beer styles, except you may need some acid for very light colored beers. But a few salts can make it even better.

A not-too-good analogy is spaghetti sauce. Tomato sauce is a great base. (Your brewing water). It’ll be fine with just that.

But, add a little garlic and oregano (some brewing salts) and it’s better, maybe even great.

So depending on what you’re brewing, you may want to add some gypsum or calcium chloride, and sometimes a little of both. And like seasoning, more is not better. More is………just more.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/2017/11/19/brewing-water-basics-part-1/ is the starting page of a 3 part series and can maybe give you some insight on beginning water additions.
 
Another option is to try ChatGPT. This might be unpopular, but I’ve found it very helpful. I’ve never been completely comfortable with the water calculator and always thought there should be an easier way. ChatGPT solves that. This is one area I don’t want to think too much about. I experimented a bit with recipe creation, but to be honest I’m not impressed. It will definitely give you a good, standard (fill in the blank) recipe. There’s no creativity or nuance which comes from the human experience. However, with water chemistry when you provide all the details such as your water profile, batch size, style, etc., it spits out exactly what you need to add, how much and why.
 
Table 8.2 (p 135) of How To Brew, 4e has ion contributions (ppm) for 1 gram of salt in 1 gal water for common salts. For the flavor ions and the most common brewing salts:

CaS04~150 ppm S04
CaCl2~ 130 ppm Cl
NaCl~100 ppm Na; ~160 Cl
(1 gram of the salt in 1 gal water adds ____ ppm of _____)

edit: CaCl2
 
Last edited:
Zitooo said:
Ok thanks but how do I know which chemical to add to change a certain value? I played a little and it is hard to get it right more values sometimes change when adding a chemical
Click to expand...
For me water chemistry was, and still is, trial and error. With my source water profile I usually want to bump up Sulfates (S04), Chlorides (Cl), & Calcium (Ca). So I add a gram or two of Gypsum and Calcium Chloride. For this beer, I wanted to bump of Sulfates a bit more (to get my Sulfate to Chloride ration above 2:1) without increasing Calcium level, so I added a gram of Epsom Salts instead. There was a lot of trial and error to get to those numbers. But, since water additions have the least effect on your beer, it's usually the last thing home brewers tackle. So you can skip them if you want to.

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