Water Quality --

[Mike at Bay]

Gang,

The attached pic is of my kettle after a boil off test. Scary. As some may know I have had Ward test my water and for my next brew I was planning to us this house water (before our water softener). Right now I am thinking I should switch to distilled because the sediment left behind seems crazy. This is my first boil off test before the water softener just to dial in on the volumes. My most recent recipe required some gypsum and Calcium Chloride achieves the desired PH but now I am concerned that this water may be a bad choice. I guess my question for the group is whether this seems typical. For the record the boiled water did include Campden but came out out beige in color. Holy Moly.

 

[Craigerrr]

Well, water is the single biggest ingredient in beer. Personally I use RO water to which I add calcium chloride, gypsum, Epsom salt, canning salt, and sometimes baking soda to get to my desired profile. I did this less than a year into my brewing career. Thrilled with the improvement, I have never looked back ( 8 years)
That does look like a rather excessive amount of mineral deposits left after your test boil.

 

[Mike at Bay]

Well, water is the single biggest ingredient in beer. Personally I use RO water to which I add calcium chloride, gypsum, Epsom salt, canning salt, and sometimes baking soda to get to my desired profile. I did this less than a year into my brewing career. Thrilled with the improvement, I have never looked back ( 8 years)
That does look like a rather excessive amount of mineral deposits left after your test boil.

Thanks. yeah I was really surprised. I have very clear beer using Whirlfloc. The water going in was crystal clear. Then this happened. I am trying to decide how to invest in the water. For this next brew I will likely just stay with the process I have in place. But will consider RO and other options for the future.

 

[Craigerrr]

We have a place around the corner here that sells RO water, I pay $80 Canadian for 500 liters, go and refill my jugs as needed, we use it for drinking, making coffee, and in our humidifier that we run in the bedroom in the night.
Pretty reasonable really. Have been thinking seriously about installing an RO filter though. Wouldn't save a lot of money ey as you need to replace the filters every 6 months and the membrane is supposed to be good for 2 years. Would be paying for convenien e really.

 

[Mike at Bay]

We have a place around the corner here that sells RO water, I pay $80 Canadian for 500 liters, go and refill my jugs as needed, we use it for drinking, making coffee, and in our humidifier that we run in the bedroom in the night.
Pretty reasonable really. Have been thinking seriously about installing an RO filter though. Wouldn't save a lot of money ey as you need to replace the filters every 6 months and the membrane is supposed to be good for 2 years. Would be paying for convenien e really.

My local brewery (a guy I am friendly with) uses RO and I may be able to get some there. The house install seemed quite expensive in the long run. Did you consider distilled?

 

[Craigerrr]

My local brewery (a guy I am friendly with) uses RO and I may be able to get some there. The house install seemed quite expensive in the long run. Did you consider distilled?

I would have to buy distilled from the store prepackaged, the plastic waste bothered me. WithRO I use refillable 19 and 11 liter jugs, like the kind you use on a water cooler.
RO is so close to distilled, you can pretty much consider it zeros across the board.

 

[Dave Y]

When I first brewed in Texas, I was stoked because my yeast LOVED the house water. I started by using fridge filtered tap water after the first 2 batches. Several brews later I filled the kettle, pre heated and set the timer for the next day. It was a Vienna lager. I got out to the kettle and found debris floating in the water. A LOT of it. I have a stainless steel braided filter on the drain tube. Apparently I didn’t clean it well enough and it was ugly.

After a few minutes of denial I dumped the 152F water, refilled with tap water. I got it to 152 a long time later and the water was a distinct copper hue. Now what? I brew, that’s what. It made good beer before so WTF.

It actually turned out great. Still, it prompted me to look harder at the water, hit up Buckeye Hydro and get a hose bib adapter R/O system for less than it would’ve cost to plumb a carbon only filter.

 

[Mike at Bay]

When I first brewed in Texas, I was stoked because my yeast LOVED the house water. I started by using fridge filtered tap water after the first 2 batches. Several brews later I filled the kettle, pre heated and set the timer for the next day. It was a Vienna lager. I got out to the kettle and found debris floating in the water. A LOT of it. I have a stainless steel braided filter on the drain tube. Apparently I didn’t clean it well enough and it was ugly.

After a few minutes of denial I dumped the 152F water, refilled with tap water. I got it to 152 a long time later and the water was a distinct copper hue. Now what? I brew, that’s what. It made good beer before so WTF.

It actually turned out great. Still, it prompted me to look harder at the water, hit up Buckeye Hydro and get a hose bib adapter R/O system for less than it would’ve cost to plumb a carbon only filter.

Thanks. I will look into Buckeye.

 

[Brew Cat]

well I saw your water report and the Mg is super high
It would be hard to get that down without diluting it by a lot and then building back up
I'm curious if you have a report from the water after softening
I'm assuming its a salt based system that would knock out the magnesium but also raise the Na you will still have to dilute with some distilled and add salts
just a mind exercise

Im not suggesting you brew with it

 

[Dave Y]

R/O cost about $220 about 2 years back, carbon was 10 bucks more --for my use case; I'm sending water to a separate building.

At first brew in TX I just used tap and got full attenuation, beer was very good. Next I went to carbon filter from the Samsung Fridge. Beer continued to be very good, but, filling from the filter on a 5 gallon brew was a PITA.

Buckeye hooked me up with a full system, float shut off so what I do now is:
day before, I connect the float to the lid on my Anvil- zero chance of overfilling. I run until I get enough for mash in and sparge in equal volume -ish. I'll add chemicals to style in the bigger kettle, then t/f half to the sparge vessel. I schedule the main kettle on a timer and the water is pre-heated for the next day, my pH set for about 5.2-5.6 after mash in. I correct as soon as I get a reading after mash in and a few minutes and go.

 

[Brew Cat]

My daughter had an RO filter on the kitchen sink just for drinking and cooking it was under the sink
I don't think it was that expensive
was kind of slow though fine for drinking but collecting 7 gallons would take awhile plus it wastes a lot of water
@Craigerrr is steering you in the right direction
you may have water cooler for drinking water you could use that and the jugs are recyclable
for lighter beers maybe cut with some distilled
that's going to be fine for most beers anyway and probably the cheapest option

 

[Sandy Feet]

If it is just to play around with a batch, go to the store and buy some spring water. The minerals are already there.

 

[Mike at Bay]

well I saw your water report and the Mg is super high
It would be hard to get that down without diluting it by a lot and then building back up
I'm curious if you have a report from the water after softening
I'm assuming its a salt based system that would knock out the magnesium but also raise the Na you will still have to dilute with some distilled and add salts
just a mind exercise

Im not suggesting you brew with it

Yes. This is the report after the softener.

 

[Mike at Bay]

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/edit/1618918

GM! Attached is an updated version of the recipe with distilled water adding Gypsum, Epsom, Calcium Chloride and Baking soda. PH is 5.25ish. Hard to balance these additives, grains, etc. and get to the numbers I borrowed from the Ozark Mountain recipe. All are still in normal range for Overall Water Report. Knowing very little about the impact of a gram of gypsum here and a tsp of baking soda there on the taste, I am getting wrapped around the axle on these numbers. So should the approach be to get the PH up and forego the precision of hitting the target numbers as long as I am this close and in normal ranges?

 

[Mike at Bay]

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/edit/1618918

GM! Attached is an updated version of the recipe with distilled water adding Gypsum, Epsom, Calcium Chloride and Baking soda. PH is 5.25ish. Hard to balance these additives, grains, etc. and get to the numbers I borrowed from the Ozark Mountain recipe. All are still in normal range for Overall Water Report. Knowing very little about the impact of a gram of gypsum here and a tsp of baking soda there on the taste, I am getting wrapped around the axle on these numbers. So should the approach be to get the PH up and forego the precision of hitting the target numbers as long as I am this close and in normal ranges?

Updated again. Donoroto post in another thread reminded me I had a bunch of acidulated grain in the previous version with my source water. cut the acidulated in half and boom! 5.4ish ph

 

[Brew Cat]

Yes. This is the report after the softener.

as I expected Na is off the chart

 

[Mike at Bay]

If it is just to play around with a batch, go to the store and buy some spring water. The minerals are already there.

I assume all spring water is different and I can find the reports somewhere?

 

[Bigbre04]

there is some data to prove that drinking RO water in the long term is not great for you. Mineral drops are recommended. Just throwing it out there.

 

[Dave Y]

a gram of gypsum here and a tsp of baking soda there on the taste, I am getting wrapped around the axle on these numbers

Mike: Stop.

Humans have been brewing beer for thousands of years. It's unlikely we're going to find a new way to screw it up !

My local brewery jawed with me when I got my R/O system. While I still add some chemicals using brewers friend, and even sometimes try to correct for a profile, my locals use well water and correct for pH --only--. Ditto for the brewery on Roatan Island. Both of their beers are respectively great.

Relax. Enjoy a beer while crafting your recipe. Don't perfect your recipe after, say, > 4 beers ;-)
Remember, the brewers friend water profile values are like the pirate code.

Now, if you're that concerned about it, source distilled and add chemicals to a basic profile in the calculator, check your pH, correct it and GO!
But don't get spun up about a few numbers here or there.

 

[Brew Cat]

Mike: Stop.

Humans have been brewing beer for thousands of years. It's unlikely we're going to find a new way to screw it up !

My local brewery jawed with me when I got my R/O system. While I still add some chemicals using brewers friend, and even sometimes try to correct for a profile, my locals use well water and correct for pH --only--. Ditto for the brewery on Roatan Island. Both of their beers are respectively great.

Relax. Enjoy a beer while crafting your recipe. Don't perfect your recipe after, say, > 4 beers ;-)
Remember, the brewers friend water profile values are like the pirate code.

Now, if you're that concerned about it, source distilled and add chemicals to a basic profile in the calculator, check your pH, correct it and GO!
But don't get spun up about a few numbers here or there.

well they probably have good water
Mike's water is very high in mg and will taste minerally
I don't think he has any options other than get used to the taste
I believe that is why he is asking he has already brewed with his water and is unhappy with the results