Water adjustments

GUI_Center · Post by **GUI_Center** » Sat Sep 19, 2015 11:01 am

I am not sure how many of you do water adjustments but I feel like you all should be. Since I started doing mine, my beers have really improved. I have won multiple awards since I started doing water additions. I was getting high 20s to low/mid 30s prior but since I started I have not received a score under 30. Many of these are repeat recipes. Also, I can just tell the quality has improved. I'm getting better flavors in both malts and hops.

It's very easy and thanks to Bru'n Water you don't have to do much. I recommend downloading a copy to test it out. It's slighly intimidating the first time you use it but it's actually very simple once you get the hang of it. The key is to get your water tested! It only costs around $25 through ward labs (plus shipping) but is needed and worthwhile. You spend hundreds or thousands on ingredients and equipment so $25 is nothing.

The additions I use the most are:
Lactic Acid - It's a liquid that lowers PH. I target 5.4 for most of my beers
Gypsum - Used to increase calcium and sulfate. Sulfate is needed in higher concentrations for hoppy beers. I recommend buying the 12oz or 1lb bag if you brew hoppy beers as you will go through a lot of this depending on your water.
Epsom Salts - For increasing Magnesium and Sulfate. Again helps with hoppy beers and can be bought from any pharmacy or grocery store.
I also use Salt and Calcium Chloride in some beers if I need to increase Calcium, Sodium, or Chloride.
Other than Gypsum, your LHBS or online HBS will have the minerals.

Since I brew a lot of IPAs I used the Pale Ale Profile in Bru'n Water. There are a lot of other profiles for different styles as well and you can add custom, which I have done for my saisons. If you don't have a PH meter you can still adjust the PH as I have found the calculations and PH are always exactly as the spreadsheet said it would be.

Post by **Beer-lord** » Sat Sep 19, 2015 11:08 am

My water is pretty good to begin with but I have been making adjustments for over a year and what I've noticed most since I do lots of IPA's is the aroma is much more pronounced.
I don't have a PH meter but when I grow up, I'll get one but I do agree this has made a likeable difference to me.

Post by **BlackDuck** » Sat Sep 19, 2015 11:11 am

I agree with you. I have recently started treating my water too. And I can surely tell the difference too. I use the EZ Water calculator. I dilute my tap water with distilled water since the tap water is real high on some of the minerals. Then I use the calculator to figure out what I need to add back in. For me, It's usally lactic acid and calcium chloride. Although I have had to add a little epsom salt and gypsum too.

Most important though is to get your tap water tested if your going to use it, you'll need to have a starting point to figure out what and how much stuff to add. Ward labs is who I used to test mine.

BigPapaG · Post by **BigPapaG** » Sat Sep 19, 2015 1:22 pm

Let's say you want to use 50% tap water and 50% distilled...

Should you mix it and then have the mix tested to be sure of your starting point for the water calcuator?

ScrewyBrewer · Post by **ScrewyBrewer** » Sat Sep 19, 2015 1:48 pm

If you don't mind spending the time you may find it easier to use distilled or reverse osmosis water and then build up your water profiles from scratch. The trade off is expense in time, money and installing an RO filter none of which I have a problem with. After mailing in a water kit from Home Depot and never getting a reply I just went ahead with using RO water.

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Post by **BlackDuck** » Sat Sep 19, 2015 1:51 pm

With the EZ water caculator, you enter your minerals from the tap water in the first section, this is your starting point. The bottom section of the calculator gives you your final profile. You enter the water amount to be used in both the mash and the sparge. Then you can tell it how much distilled water will be substituted in the mash and the sparge. As you do this, it adjusts the final profile for you. So, you don't have to test the mixed water.

Here are screen shots of my profile for my Four Point Pale Ale. You can see in section one my starting mineral content, which is my tap water. You can also see in this seciton how much distilled water is mixed into both the mash and sparge. The grain bill is added, then the treatments are added and it gives me my final profile in the bottom section.

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BigPapaG · Post by **BigPapaG** » Sat Sep 19, 2015 6:42 pm

Cool, thanks Chris and Vince.

Seems our water department just out of the blue started using sodium hypochlorite crystals instead of liquid chlorine. So now I have this higher level of residual chlorine to deal with.

Short term will be Campden but long term needs to be determined.

MadBrewer · Post by **MadBrewer** » Sat Sep 19, 2015 10:56 pm

Water adjustment has certainly helped my brewing. For the most part my water is pretty good but highly alkaline so I need to adjust my mash ph mostly and nuetralize the alkalinity in my spage water. Gypsum helps out hoppy beers and Chloride can really help bring out the individual malt flavors in darker beers. Pair Sodium with Chloride and darker beers like Porters and Stouts really come alive in malt flavor and richness.

Stinkfist · Post by **Stinkfist** » Sat Sep 19, 2015 11:11 pm

I have an under sink RO system and build my water up from "scratch"

love having the extra control!

HerbMeowing · Post by **HerbMeowing** » Sun Sep 20, 2015 6:03 pm

In the beginning ... fermentation temperature control took my home brewed beer to the next level.
No more juicy fruit.

Mashing grains raised the bar again.
No more extract twang.

The next step-up was water treatment.
A simple water test and the appropriate style in Bru'nWater improved my beer by an order of magnitude.
Harsh bitterness - gone. Nice malt character without being sweet.

HerbMeowing · Post by **HerbMeowing** » Sun Sep 20, 2015 6:58 pm

Bru'nWater @ FB
https://www.facebook.com/Brun-Water-464 ... /timeline/

"Bru'n Water is the tool to use to create great water for beer brewing.
It also provides great knowledge about water and its adjustment for brewing."
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/
(Excel file. Freeware; altho for any size donation ... you get an enhanced version.
Worth the download if for nothing else than the tutorial.)

Rebel_B · Post by **Rebel_B** » Sat Feb 20, 2016 12:28 am

Had a local club meet this evening & our guest speaker, Tom Schmidlin, owner of Postdoc Brewing, spoke about water treatment. He started with the reminder that we are blessed with super good brewing water in our area (river water from the Cedar & Tolt rivers). That being said, there are some things that we should all do:
-Always filter your water to ensure there is no chlorine (or use Camden tablets)
-Send your water out to be tested, his brewery sends samples to Ward labs periodically.
-Check your mash PH, always make sure your mash PH is correct, & the rest will follow.

He also highly recommended using the Bru'n water program & the Water book written by Colin Kaminsky & John Palmer

ScrewyBrewer · Post by **ScrewyBrewer** » Sat Feb 20, 2016 10:42 am

I've used both EZwatercalculator and Martin's calculator, which I found to take a bit longer to learn, and they both come out with similar results. Using RO today I just added the same water adjustments as I did last August when I brewed Hiphopapocalypse IPA. The results when using RO water to start off with are consistent enough that I won't even both taking my pH meter out today. Understandably, on a commercial scale using pure RO may not always be economically feasible, but I'm only brewing 10 gallon batches and I enjoy the process.