What to do about very hard water?

[Jon]

Hi all, I moved to Houston for work not too long ago, and am slowly getting things to the point where I'll be able to brew normal 5-gallon batches again.

However, I was spoiled by NYC's amazing water. Houston's water is very hard (lots of lime buildup around faucets), but I haven't run a water report on my water. I plan to use RO or Distilled for StarSan, but I don't want to buy RO water for every brew.

I'd like to get a filter, but I don't want to go full RO, because I don't want to have to try and find a use for all the wastewater--since we live in an apartment, there's only so much we need for watering our plants!

Any recommendations on a filter? Is there a good carbon filter I can get to just connect to the sink when I want to get my brewing water? What is everybody with hard water using?

I may send off a sample for tetsting, eventually, but before I get to that point I'd just like to get back into brewing! It's been WAY too long since I last brewed (more than just an extract batch, anyway), and I'm starting to get antsy.

Any filter suggestions or recommendations? Or could I get away with preboiling my brewing water to remove chlorine and get some of the minerals to precipitate out? If I go that way, how long should I boil for?

Thanks in advance, everyone!

[BlackDuck]

I have really hard water here in central Ohio also. Same thing your describing....lots of buildup around faucets. I have to remove the end of my faucets and shower heads 3 or 4 times per year and soak them in vinegar for a few hours to clean them off.

As for brewing, you really need to send your water off to Ward Labs to get tested. I did that and it has helped tremendously. With that information, I usually dilute both my mash and sparge water with distilled water and add back calcium chloride and lactic acid. Sometimes I have to add epsom salt and/or baking soda, depending on the recipe. My dilution rate is usually around 40 to 45% distilled water. So for a 10 gallon batch, I'm using roughly 4 gallons of distilled, which costs .88 cents per gallon here. So, for less than 4 dollars per batch, it's an easy fix to create good brewing water.

[Jon]

Found this: https://www.publicworks.houstontx.gov/s ... wq2014.pdf

Edit: So it looks like I have chloramines to deal with...will Camden tabs take care of that? Can filtering do it?

[mashani]

Carbon filter won't help much with water hardness. You could try an ion exchange filter, but that's going to simply replace your calcium and such with sodium and/or potassium. So, it may still give you a really weird water profile for brewing even though it's softer. Pretty much anything but RO is going to do that.

Boiling it - you only need to boil it for 5 minutes or so. But then you have to let it cool for many hours. Then carefully pour or siphon the water off the minerals that accumulate at the bottom. But this will only remove certain things - "Temporary Hardness" stuff - and to really know what you have then you would need to send some of that water in for testing. But it could be enough?

If not, and you don't want to go full RO filter, then my best suggestion really would be to buy bottles of RO or distilled water from the store and blend it with your tap water to get a profile that you find acceptable once you have your tap analyzed.

[Jon]

Carbon filter won't help much with water hardness. You could try an ion exchange filter, but that's going to simply replace your calcium and such with sodium and/or potassium. So, it may still give you a really weird water profile for brewing even though it's softer. Pretty much anything but RO is going to do that.

Boiling it - you only need to boil it for 5 minutes or so. But then you have to let it cool for many hours. Then carefully pour or siphon the water off the minerals that accumulate at the bottom. But this will only remove certain things - "Temporary Hardness" stuff - and to really know what you have then you would need to send some of that water in for testing. But it could be enough?

If not, and you don't want to go full RO filter, then my best suggestion really would be to buy bottles of RO or distilled water from the store and blend it with your tap water to get a profile that you find acceptable once you have your tap analyzed.

Thanks for the reply! Looks like I also have Chloramines to deal with, ugh!

Maaaan, I miss having damn near RO water coming out of the tap--if I needed to do anything, it was just add some minerals to the mash!

And, looking at the above PDF, it looks like my water may come from several sources, so its profile could change depending on the weather or time of year.

Will carbon filtering get rid of Chloramines? If so, I'll probably still invest in a relatively inexpensive carbon filter. Might even consider going with carbon filter, boil, cool, carefully drain the water off the precipitates route.

The other option I have is to get the copper still top for the grainfather and start making my own distilled water...but that seems a little overboard, to be honest.

[MadBrewer]

Jon, I have worked a lot with my water but most of my problems/adjustments have for or because of Alkalinity. I actually do not know much about water hardness in brewing except for the easy route is to split some of your water with RO or Distilled. I use Bru'n Water nowadays and it has a great section in the spreadsheet called water knowledge. Here is what it has to say about Hardness: Oh yeah and for chlorine and chloromines your best and easiest treatment is campden tablets, 1 tablet will treat 20 gals. They are cheap, a bag will last hundreds of batches. Any under the counter regular filter will not do much if anything for mineral content, only chlorine, sediment, lead...etc.

Hardness Adjustment
Increasing water hardness is fairly easy. Gypsum (calcium sulfate), Epsom Salt (magnesium sulfate), Calcium Chloride, Chalk (calcium carbonate), or Pickling Lime (calcium hydroxide) are used to increase the hardness.
Reducing hardness is much more difficult. Dilution with distilled water or Reverse Osmosis (RO) water is a quick, yet more costly option. Distilled water is free of all hardness and alkalinity ions while RO water is nearly free of those ions. Both sources are very soft water that reduce the hardness and alkalinity of the brewing water in proportion to the amount of purified water added. The ion concentrations of these purified waters are typically too low to promote good mashing and fermentation conditions. Therefore, minerals should be added to these purified waters or the purified water should be blended with the original source water to provide an adequate ionic content.
Temporary hardness can be removed by boiling the water to drive off dissolved carbon dioxide which causes calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate to precipitate out of the water. After the water clears, the water is immediately decanted off the sediment and used for brewing. This treatment does not remove permanent hardness. Like chlorine removal, this method requires time and energy to complete. An extended discussion of this method is presented in the Alkalinity section below.
Lime Softening is another option for hardness reduction. Pickling Lime is added to the water to elevate its pH to about 11. Calcium and magnesium compounds will precipitate out of the water. After the water clears, the water is immediately decanted off the sediment. Since the water pH is high, the pH must then be reduced prior to brewing usage. Aeration (to dissolve CO2 in the water) and/or the addition of acid are suitable for reducing the pH of the lime-treated water. This method requires time, special chemicals, and a pH meter to conduct successfully. When properly performed, lime softened water provides moderately-hard water with typical concentrations of about 30 ppm calcium and 10 ppm magnesium in water with a high Temporary Hardness (low chloride or sulfate concentrations). When the water also contains Permanent Hardness, Lime Softening is not as effective and the calcium and magnesium concentrations will be higher than indicated here.
When the starting water has high Temporary Hardness and low magnesium concentration, the lime-softening procedure above can be modified to require the pH be raised to about 10 instead of 11. This will still cause the calcium to precipitate without affecting the magnesium content. The revised pH will be easier to neutralize through aeration or acidification with this approach. This approach is better suited than the pH 11 procedure above, when the water's magnesium content is already less than about 15 ppm.
Household water softeners that use salts (sodium chloride or potassium chloride) to soften water should not be used to treat brewing water since the hardness ions (Ca and Mg) are replaced with elevated levels of sodium or potassium which can impart undesirable flavor and potentially harm the yeast.

[bpgreen]

I've got a pur filter on my kitchen faucet. It's supposed to remove chlorine, but I'm not sure about chloramine.

I read one review of filtered pitchers that said the Pur did poorly and the Britta did well, but it pointed out that the pitcher they had allowed a lot of water to bypass the filter, so maybe the faucet filter does a better job.

[MadBrewer]

I have something like this. I have one piped in place under my kitchen sink for our drinking water. I also have an extra I can hook up anywhere I might be brewing. So you can hook one up just for your brewing if you wanted or go under the sink route. I would recomend these over the little ones that go on the end of your faucet because the flow rate will kill you trying to get your brewing water out of it.

Again, they are only for chlorine, sediment, rust, lead...etc. But they are good for Thousands of gallons and have replacement filters for decent prices.

[mashani]

Will carbon filtering get rid of Chloramines? If so, I'll probably still invest in a relatively inexpensive carbon filter.

I didn't see this answered, but the answer is no. Campden tablets will do that. I started to treat all my brewing water with them because of Chloramines, and since I started to do it, my beer is always better, so I would suggest you do so.

Carbon filter will help if you water smells or tastes funky otherwise though.

[jimjohson]

Found this: https://www.publicworks.houstontx.gov/s ... wq2014.pdf

Edit: So it looks like I have chloramines to deal with...will Camden tabs take care of that? Can filtering do it?

Camden will get rid of chloramines

[Jon]

Ok, so it looks like step 1, no matter what else I end up doing, is treat my water with Camden.

Kenny, I might also have high alkalinity--one report I saw on HBT was not too bad, though a little high in alkalinity. But it was from a few years ago.

I know Kroger (a grocery store) has the RO water dispensers for like $0.29 per gallon when you bring your own container, so maybe I'll start diluting my water with that. Looks like I'm going to have to send a sample off to Ward labs for analysis and get serious about my water.

So, experienced water treatment folks, tell me if this sounds like the right process.

1) Treat water with camden, 1 tablet per 20 gallons to remove chloramine.
2) Send a sample of my water to Ward Labs for analysis.
3) To reduce hardness and high alkalinity, cut my water with RO water using a water calculator (perhaps the Brun Water Spreadsheet) to help guide me.
4) If more modifications are needed for a specific style, add appropriate chemicals or use acid to reduce the pH.

So it sounds like my first step should be to get my water analyzed by Ward labs, and maybe get myself a pH meter, or maybe some litmus strips (I already have Camden tabs).

Make sense to everyone?

[MadBrewer]

Ok, so it looks like step 1, no matter what else I end up doing, is treat my water with Camden.

Kenny, I might also have high alkalinity--one report I saw on HBT was not too bad, though a little high in alkalinity. But it was from a few years ago.

I know Kroger (a grocery store) has the RO water dispensers for like $0.29 per gallon when you bring your own container, so maybe I'll start diluting my water with that. Looks like I'm going to have to send a sample off to Ward labs for analysis and get serious about my water.

So, experienced water treatment folks, tell me if this sounds like the right process.

1) Treat water with camden, 1 tablet per 20 gallons to remove chloramine.
2) Send a sample of my water to Ward Labs for analysis.
3) To reduce hardness and high alkalinity, cut my water with RO water using a water calculator (perhaps the Brun Water Spreadsheet) to help guide me.
4) If more modifications are needed for a specific style, add appropriate chemicals or use acid to reduce the pH.

So it sounds like my first step should be to get my water analyzed by Ward labs, and maybe get myself a pH meter, or maybe some litmus strips (I already have Camden tabs).

Make sense to everyone?

Yes makes total sense. Off on the right track. I highly recomend Brun Water. It has helped me a lot and it very reliable. So reliable that if you are not going to buy yourself a ph meter the only other option I suggest is trusting Brun Water and you wont even to use ph paper...they are not accurate enough to base your adjustments off. I check anyway with my meter but I rarely have to adjust. Your results may very. But yes a Ward Labs test is going to be needed before you move on. If you are going to rely on ph strips use the colorphast I think they are called but a basic $30 meter will do you just fine and be used throughout the whole process.

[bpgreen]

I have something like this. I have one piped in place under my kitchen sink for our drinking water. I also have an extra I can hook up anywhere I might be brewing. So you can hook one up just for your brewing if you wanted or go under the sink route. I would recomend these over the little ones that go on the end of your faucet because the flow rate will kill you trying to get your brewing water out of it.

Again, they are only for chlorine, sediment, rust, lead...etc. But they are good for Thousands of gallons and have replacement filters for decent prices.

Can you give us some more details on that filter? A link?

[MadBrewer]

I have something like this. I have one piped in place under my kitchen sink for our drinking water. I also have an extra I can hook up anywhere I might be brewing. So you can hook one up just for your brewing if you wanted or go under the sink route. I would recomend these over the little ones that go on the end of your faucet because the flow rate will kill you trying to get your brewing water out of it.

Again, they are only for chlorine, sediment, rust, lead...etc. But they are good for Thousands of gallons and have replacement filters for decent prices.

Can you give us some more details on that filter? A link?

The one above in the pic is not mine or my setup. I bought mine from McMaster Carr years ago. http://www.mcmaster.com/#water-filters/=11yqgox
I have seen similar ones at home improvement stores. I can buy replacement filters cheap on Amazon. Mine is mounted under my sink. I'm pretty sure the filter has 1/2 pipe connections hooked up with stainless steel braided hose from the shutoff valve and to my faucet. I replace the filter every other month or so sometimes 3 months. The flow rate is great, and believe me you can tell the difference in a glass of water when it's time to change the filter compared to once I do. I also have sediment and iron in either MY home plumbing or the city system which the filter catches. I need to rinse out the filter housing each time and the filter is rust colored. Using the filter, the tap water tastes great.

[FrozenInTime]

THIS is what we use. We also have a sediment filter all water coming into the house goes through first. I'm still fighting the darn hardness yet. Our well is an artisan spring/well.