Musings on water

[Knightmare]

Alright, I'll bite on this topic. I've become pretty fascinated with water chemistry lately. It's truely the missing puzzle in taking your AG brewing to the next level. My local water is great for brewing darker beers, but contains a lot of chloramine. So for a long time I used spring water with great results. But after I started using distilled water and adding brewing salts like calcium chloride and gypsum, I discovered how to make my brews really taste to style. I follow the same guideline that russki put out there. For maltier beers, I use more calcium chloride. For hoppier brews, more gypsum. For a nice balanced beer, it's balanced between the two. I've had really good luck with this method. If I'm really concerned with pH, I'll make adjustments during the mash. For the most part, it's never been much of a problem. An easy way to to ensure proper pH levels is to add a little acidulated malt to your mash. It will bring it right into target range. For the most part, this shouldn't concern most AG brewers. But if you're semi-ADHD about it, this will resolve things.

Prost!

[FedoraDave]

This is an interesting thread, and I've read elsewhere how important water chemistry is if you're interested in taking your beer to the next level.

The thing is, I'm not sure I'm that interested in taking it to the next level. Here's what I mean:

Right now, I'm concentrating on creating new, individualized recipes. Some to style, but mostly just pursuing tasty beer. That's my hobby, and that's what I spend my spare time on.

If, as part of that hobby, I got caught up in the water chemistry for each batch, or each style, and started engineering my water to be one thing or another, well....that would sort of be my new hobby; creating the perfect water for a certain batch of beer.

I know, I know, it's actually an adjunct of the main hobby, and they go hand in hand. I get that. I also get that it's actually an enjoyable pursuit for some. But I'm not one of those guys.

Am I short-changing myself? Maybe. Am I lowering my chances at doing well in a competition? Perhaps. Would I be able to really tell a difference in the finished product? I don't even know.

And that's another thing. I'm enjoying my beer right now. It's good beer, and I like it. Others do, too. Maybe, for right now, that's good enough. Things may change, and if and when they do, I'll take my water a little more seriously.

[MadBrewer]

I view water how I view brewing in general. It can be as simple or as complex as you want. You can brew BIAB all grain without even using recipe software, a lot of brewers just brew on a whim. Or you can be one of those that has all the latest and greatest gizmos and gadgets with full automation mash setups. The same can go for water, you can be one that just uses spring water and makes great beer or you can be one of those that tailors a water profile for each beer to make it the best it can be. I take very basic actions with my brewing water. I carbon filter my tap water, I use a Camden tablet. I adjust the mash ph with Lactic Acid and I acidify my sparge water prior to heating and using it so not to pick up astringency and tannins from alkaline sparge water. I check mash ph, sparge ph, boil ph and finished beer ph. That's it. Sometimes I'll add additional salts for certain beers. But my filtered tap water as is is great water not to use, all I have to do is neutralize the alkalinity. It's high in Bicarbonate, this is where the acid comes into play. Other than that it has a nice middle of the road mineral profile. Everybody will have different water, the idea is to know what you are working with...that's all.

All that really counts is you are happy with your process and getting good results. The thing is, even making small tweaks to your brewing water can lend great results and great improvements. It doesn't have to be a science experiement every time you brew, it doesn't have to be a lot of work. It's about knowing what you are working with and utilizing it to your advantage in the beer. The main advice I mentioned to someone who doesn't want to dabble with their water, that's fine...just do one thing and that's check your mash ph. If it falling in range on it's own, great. If not...then yes, you are cheating yourself because your beer can be even better. I think if you are taking the time to brew all grain, you owe it to yourself to at least check mash ph. Chances are for most brewers the mash will be higher than it should and it's something that is so easy to monitor and correct and makes a world of difference down the line from then onto the finished beer.

[haerbob3]

I am with Dave on this. At work I have to make sure every recipe turns out the same. With brewing it is play time. Basically with the water I have 3 choices.

1. Water straight from the well. Great for my hoppier beers. The high iron content really brings the hops & bitterness forward.

2. Softened water. A great water for my brewing. Cannot taste the salt. Makes a great Pilsner

3. RO water can be tailored to what I want.

At times I like to mess around with the water. Most of the time I add 5.2 to my mash & sparge water. I play more with the malts & yeasts than the water right now. If I was going to enter competitions I would pay more attention to the water.

[ScrewyBrewer]

I've found myself in a situation where I went from brewing twice a month to not brewing beer in over 4 months now. During this downtime is when I had time enough to take on another brewing ballgame, water composition. I and plenty of others always liked the beers I brewed before using charcoal filtered tap water and a spoonful of gypsum, life was good. Remember making the move from extract to all grain brewing, it took me months of research before I had the gear ready to brew all grain. Same goes for making liquid yeast starters and washing the yeast for reuse over again, that took me months to get ready to do too. Now with barely an opportunity for myself to do anything other than research, getting to know water chemistry is the perfect thing for me to do.

All Lewis dot structures, formal charge calculations, ions, atoms and valences aside. If you enjoy learning about a distant frontier of brewing, and have the time to dedicate to it, then go for it. I've been bouncing around from calculations at the sub atomic level all the way up to gram and teaspoon conversions and all points in between. Then having parts per million and milligrams per liter bantered about and discussion around calculating things as CaCO3 ppm is enough to make any novice's head explode I think.

My primary goal is to distill all the information out there down into knowing how many grams per gallon, of any mineral or salt need to be added to my brewing water and why. I won't mind using the same grain bill and recipe to brew the same beer over and over again while making small changes to the water profile. I'm not planning to turn out something undrinkable either, but I do plan on being surprised on the differences between each batch. I'll be brewing BIAB using a RIMS brewing system capable of consistently producing the same beer using a time and temperature controlled electric heating element and pump.

[MadBrewer]

^That's pretty deep Screwy. Like I said, just like brewing itself it can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.

Screwy makes a good point. Just like making a jump from extract to all grain brewing, from dry yeasts to liquid yeasts, from partial boils to full boils...etc. It's another step to making better beer, and yes there's always a slight learning curve with anything we do. I've heard many brewers start out with MB or extracts and say, "oh, I'm very happy with extract brewing, no need for me to go all grain...there's just too much time and equipment involved for me...all grain brewing is just too complicated" and then next thing you know they are jumping into all grain brewing.

The point I'm trying to make for others is we as brewers could spend 4-8 hrs on an all grain brew session, we have gizmos and gagets to make the brewing easier, we spend a good amount of time and money on the ingredients and brewing a batch up. We spend time working up the perfect recipe, we try out our brand new fancy kettle, we makes sure to sanitize everything, we make sure to aerate the wort and doing all we can to make it a good beer, we spend 2 weeks letting it ferment in a stainless steel conical in a temperature controlled environment, we keg it up and carbonate the beer. We do all these things to assure a great outcome investing time, energy and money and yet forget about the basics of brewing and the small things that really make an impact on our beers. Something like taking a simple ph reading or some water additions are just too much work...that makes me laugh on the inside.

[haerbob3]

I've heard many brewers start out with MB or extracts and say, "oh, I'm very happy with extract brewing, no need for me to go all grain...there's just too much time and equipment involved for me...all grain brewing is just too complicated" and then next thing you know they are jumping into all grain brewing.

Something like taking a simple ph reading or some water additions are just too much work...that makes me laugh on the inside.

^^^^^^ I am a perfect example of that. Went all grain 6 months in. Matching the yeast 3rd batch liquid yeast 7th batch. Now years into brewing I am finally going to test the PH of my water & wort. Knowing me I will end up buying one of those mini water lab kits

[ScrewyBrewer]

My newly assembled mobile chemistry lab. The biggest decision was whether or not to make the investment in a digital pH meter. After actually brewing a batch of beer using water I modified myself all I can say is it's a piece of cake. In no time flat this step has now been permanently incorporated into my brewing schedule. Admittedly this all seemed pretty intimidating at first, but with the aid of tools like EZ Water Calculator and Residual Alkalinity Calculator water property calculations aren't any harder to do than recipe calculations using qBrew.



Using distilled [DI] or reverse osmosis [RO] water an acid is needed to drop the pH, I used a dropper re-purposed from some children's medicine, that was marked in ml to measure lactic acid additions. As luck would have it the digital scale I bought over a year ago, to measure hops and grains in ounces and pounds, also measures in grams too.

[FedoraDave]

I can see myself moving in this direction, actually. I was at the LHBS yesterday, and they had pH strips there. I had them with the rest of my purchases at the check-out while I was waiting for my grains, but then I decided that I just wasn't ready to go down that road. Not yet, anyway.

But yes, I can see myself eventually working with the LHBS guy to customize my water a little more.

[MadBrewer]

If and when you give all this a try Dave, don't bother with the strips. Get a ph meter. The strips don't tell the whole story. A ph meter really helps get an idea of where you are at. Also remember, you may not have to play with your water much at all. I forgot what you use for brewing water, but simply checking the mash ph could help bump your beer quality up. Making sure you are in range on each batch, if not making a tiny adjustment with some acid to bring it into place.

Don't confuse the proper mash ph with mater additions. Sure you can tailor a water profile for each style of beer, but this is more a "seasoning to taste" kinda thing. I would focus on mash ph and then seeing if ther's any tweaks from water additions that might compliment the beer even further. (Gypsum for a hoppy Pale Ale or IPA, or Calcium Chloride for a Malty Porter or super rich Stout.). Ensuring proper ph is just something we should be doing, just the same as we are sure to sanitize our fermenter before filling it or making sure we add the proper amount of yeast...etc.

[Inkleg]

(Gypsum for a hoppy Pale Ale or IPA, or Calcium Chloride for a Malty Porter or super rich Stout.).

MB, what is a good rule of thumb for Gypsum amount in a 5 gallon batch? I picked some up yesterday and the bottle says 1-2 teaspoons per 5 gallons. Haven't started playing with my water yet, just running county water through a sediment/carbon filter. People say my IPAs are pretty good, but if I could get Beer-lord to slap himself over the next one I send him, then I'd be a happy brewer.

[MadBrewer]

Its hard to say off hand Inkleg. It really depends on the water you are working with. But it you want to boost the hop profile a bit on a hoppy beer maybe start with 1/4 tsp or so and see how you like that. The idea is you can always add more but its hard to undo it if you overdo it. You can break up that addition betwen a little in the mash and a little into the boil kettle. But if you feel your mashes have suffecient calcium then add the Gypsum straight to the boil kettle.

[Inkleg]

Thanks, I think next time I brew my Pliny I'll add 1/4oz to the mash and boil, keep notes and see how it turns out.

[MadBrewer]

This is what I just did on a big Pale Ale I brewed Friday. Used my filtered tap water like usual and added 1/4 tsp Gypsum to the boil. Helps make the hops pop a bit.

[ScrewyBrewer]

I can see myself moving in this direction, actually. I was at the LHBS yesterday, and they had pH strips there. I had them with the rest of my purchases at the check-out while I was waiting for my grains, but then I decided that I just wasn't ready to go down that road. Not yet, anyway.

But yes, I can see myself eventually working with the LHBS guy to customize my water a little more.

Brewer to brewer, pick up 9 gallons of distilled water some Epsom salt, gypsum and calcium chloride to season your water and some lactic acid to lower it's pH and brew a batch of beer you've brewed before.

Like the switch from dry to liquid yeast starters, it adds a step to the process but improves your beer in a way not possible any other way.