Teach me about water adjustments

[MrBandGuy]

I just got a water profile done for my tap water. It's something I've been interested in, so I know what I have to start with. At the very least, I'll know about the one variable I haven't really studied.

So, armed with my new found knowledge, I searched the forum and found a few threads about water. It looks like most everyone either starts with RO water and builds from there, or doesn't worry about it.

I'm a big fan of keep it simple brewing. I don't really want to buy and build from RO. Also, I feel like brewing should be local, and with it, I'd prefer to use my local source. That's what sets our breweries apart, right?

I downloaded both programs and tried to figure some things out. I think I know the basics of how they work, but wanted to double check with you all. I feel like I should start with looking at my chloride to sulfate ratio and ph reading. I put everything into the mash with no sparge. In this regard, ezwater seems, well, easier. Are these my first two concerns? Should I even worry about the profiles yet?

I did run the numbers through the Bru'n Water calculators to adjust my input for ezwater too. Everything is given as ppm of CaCo3, and I had to estimate the bicarbonate.

So, teach me about water. Am I on the right track?

If it helps, here is my water profile:
Alkalinity 263
Residual Alkalinity 189
Total Hardness 270
Calcium 250
Magnesium 20
Chloride 70
Sulfate 64
Sodium 36
Total Chlorine .1
Free Chlorine .05
Chloramine .05
pH 7.2



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[MadBrewer]

Ill start by saying I agree with your statement to use your water as a start when you can and when it produces good beer. The thing is, your water report shows insane levels of alkalinity. Calcium and hardness are good, but high alkalinity will drive your mash ph up and make it difficult to brew light beers very well. Let me ask you what you enjoy drinking and brewing, because what you do for those styles will depend. You have some great water outisde of the alkalinity which acts like a buffer to not allow the mash ph to lower naturally. If you want to brew a light lager you would need to either use a lot of acid in the mash or dillute your water with RO. On the other hand you have perfect water for brewing Stouts, Porters, anything with lots of roast malts that will acidify the mash on its own. The ph of your water isnt what counts, its the ph of your mash that counts because it effects everything after that. So what styles do you want or like to brew. Also how do your different beers turn out? Do light beers end up dark and not as crisp or flavorful as you think they should? Maybe harsh or grainy? Do your dark beers turn out smooth and enjoyable?

I say this everytime water questions come up, it doesnt have to be difficult but it takes some understanding and experimenting to get a feel for it. In this case for certain styles you may be better off starting from scratch for the extreme side of the spectrum. But depends on how far you want to get involved and what improvements you want to make. Btw...ask away, quite a few of us are doing water adjustments.

[mashani]

I'll just add to what he said that sometimes it's simply easier to use acidulated malt to lower the mash PH then it is to adjust the water chemically, if that's the primary concern. Because when you try to adjust something that is "kind of extreme" you can often throw other things totally out of whack. If you take that out of the equation with the "easy mode answer" like that, then you can make less drastic adjustments to your sulfate or chloride ratios without throwing everything off. This is why lots of folks build from RO water if they want complete control, as you take the "throw other stuff out of whack" out of the equation.

[MadBrewer]

Thats a good point. Ill add as far as chloride/sulfate ratio you are about as balanced as can be with that. Its going to be tough to swing that ratio one way or another without adding to the calcium which is already high and there are idial limits to these parameters. I also forgot to mention EZ water gets less accurate with higher water to grain ratios so Brun Water might be better to start out with as you do no sparge. I swear I remember seeing that in the program, at least one of tbe versions of EZ Water.

[mashani]

This might sound stupid, and it may very well be stupid for some peoples water, but it works for me and mine:

One way to increase your sulfate somewhat without adding calcium is to use Campden tablets to pre-treat your mash/sparge water. You do want to do this some days or weeks ahead of time if your going to do it (I typically do it and bottle the water in gallon jugs for later use weeks later, splitting up the campden however I want between the jugs). The sulfites react with oxygen in the water to produce sulfate. You can get about 10 ppm of added sulfate in 8 gallons of water if you were to use a full tablet to treat that water, unless your water is low in oxygen (you can fix that by oxygenating the water if you want to). You will also get around 3 ppm of sodium or potassium at that dosage. As long as that doesn't screw stuff up, pre-treating your mash/sparge/top up water with Campden is a valid way to make such an adjustment. I do this sometimes to increase my sulfate when I don't want to add more calcium (which I usually do not).

Note that this is much more campden then typically used just to remove chlorine/chloramine, it is more full on sterilization levels or even more. And you really really need to be sure your oxygenating your wort later too. Because your scrubbing a good bit more by doing this then the boil will do on its own.

That said, for many of the beers I brew, just this simple adjustment to my water makes a noticeable and very positive difference in the end result, it is often all that I do to treat my water. With my water I can actually use a lot more Campden then I described here if I desire for some beers without any detrimental effect due to the sodium or potassium added.

[BlackDuck]

My alkalinity is worse than yours. Mine is 369. But you can still brew the lighter beers. I us EZ Water to figure my profiles. I will say that I have to dilute my total water with about 40% of distilled water, give or take a few percentage points based on the recipe. Even after diluting, I still have to add a few mL of lactic acid to the mash water to lower the pH. In addition to the lactic acid, I also usually have to add back in a little calcium chloride, epsom salt, and sometime baking soda and gypsum.

Basically, by diluting with all the distilled water, I'm breaking my water down further than it needs to be, then building it back up with the chemicals. Once you get the hang of whichever water profile calculator your using, it's not really all that difficult.

[ScrewyBrewer]

The sodium level is pretty high, if using Campden in your water go with Potassium Metabisulfite instead of Sodium Metabisulfite.

[MrBandGuy]

Wow, thanks for the help! I figured I'd get a bunch of stuff to process, which is awesome. Playing with the calculators, I plugged in a simple 10# 2 row, 1# munich to see where the numbers got me. Using that, it looked like I would need about 5-6 ml of lactic acid to bring the ph down. I know this will depend on the grain bill, but is there a detrimental amount to add?

As noted, I was concerned with the calcium numbers as I messed with the addition numbers.

As it stands, I understand my water is good for stouts and porters. I brew a fair share of those, along with lots of IPAs and APAs. I find them tasty and not overly harsh, but I'd bet my palate has adjusted to the water. Not a lot of light lagers around here. But, if I do one, it's good to know I'd HAVE to dilute.


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[mashani]

Unless you are adding so much that you lower your mash PH so much that it messes with the mash and/or your yeast (which I don't believe you would be doing), then where you would run into a detrimental amount of acidulated malt would be where you start to actually taste the lactic acid as "sour", or it throws off the perceived bitterness in a way you find off-putting (usually these things are connected, but not necessarily). What that is exactly might very well vary depending on the kind of beer you are brewing, but is generally considered 400ppm of lactic acid, although I don't think I'd call it sour at that level, just that it starts to change the profile of the beer (like more then 7 IBUs starts to change the profile of beer). I think it would have to be more like 500+ppm for me to even start to notice it as "sour". I think as long as you stay under 7-8% of your grain bill you will be ok, but this actually depends on the brand of acidulated malt, some is more like 1% lactic acid and other brands might be closer to 2%, so I'd reference what the manufacturer recommends.

I've used as much as 5oz of acidulated malt in a 2.5 gallon batch without noticing any difference in flavor that I would call "it made my beer sour". But again this might depend on your grain bill, hops, IBUs, etc, and that much may very well be perceived as slightly sour or at least unbalancing (IE it combines with the IBUs and makes it seem less malty like you used too much bittering hops) in a light lager.

Here is some interesting reading to get some ideas:

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?ti ... experiment

FWIW, a "really sour" modern lambic/gueuze might be somewhere between 2000-5000 ppm of lactic acid. I have read that tests of some 1800s sours found as much as 10000+ ppm. Those folks were crazy back then LOL.

[MadBrewer]

That is another thing that makes Bru'n Water helpful is under the summary page at the bottom it will tell you how much lactate is being added to the beer from the acid and whether it's under the taste threshold or not. I once had a big mess up and added way too much acid, like 15ml to the mash instead of 3. I had to of course raise the mash ph back up with some baking soda. I was worried for sure I ruined the beer being an Amber Lager but it turned out fine, so yes while there are limits, don't worry about it...they are quite high but it will depend. Just like a lot of things in brewing, water adjustments are also quite forgiving.

I almost started talking about making sure to treat your sparge water and add salts to the boil kettle, then remembered you are doing no sparge. Just keep playing around with whatever water calculator you prefer and see how this or that effects things as you go along. I started with EZ Water and I know well...it's easier to use but I found Bru'n Water more helpful and more accurate. You also mentioned whether or not to worry about profiles right now, I know some brewers do for certain beers and I understand you might want that for a beer you want to brew over and over the same but if you are just brewing one off recipes, I no longer chase water profiles. Like you said I like to use my water as the base for my beers. I pretty much only adjust the mash ph these days using lactic acid, I acidify my sparge water and that's about it. You could start with focusing on mash ph and see what it does for your beers. From there, you might want to add Gypsum for hoppy beers to get a little more punch and dry them out or you might want to add more Chloride to Porters and Stouts to really round out the beer, making it smooth and flavorful.

One big thing to remember is since you already have so much mineral content in your water as it is, you really do not need to add anything into the mash. You can simply add your acid for ph correction and then add your salts to the wort in the boil kettle when you want to adjust your chloride to sulfate ratio or water profile. At that point the salts are like seasonings that will impact the finished beer, you do not have to do this in the mash since you already have so much mineral content in your water.

[MrBandGuy]

Ah, that's good to know! Being BiaB (which I swear I mentioned, but maybe edited out), I figured I'd add everything before the mash. Good to know I can add the other minerals post mash.

I jumped on here to ask about acid limits, which you guys answered too. HBT said 5 ml was about the limit, but Bru'n water suggested 13 when I ran the numbers. I'll look for that taste threshold, which I didn't see.

Thanks for the advice on starting with the pH. I'll try to nail that down in the next few batches, and then worry about the ratios. Hooray new stuff to learn!


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[MrBandGuy]

So, I just tapped my first water adjusted beer, a Belgian IPA. It seems softer, rounder, and cleaner to me. Perhaps I am tasting a difference because I WANT to taste a difference, but I'm pretty happy with it!

I just pulled the trigger on a pH meter too, so I can check the accuracy of Bru'n water vs. ezwater. Curiously, I've found up to a 4 ml difference between those two. Probably better I check it myself.

I'm sure I can find this with some reasonable searches, but can someone walk me through the easiest way to use this new tool? I believe I adjust as I have been, then take a sample 20 minutes into the mash, cool it, and measure. Right?


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[Beer-lord]

I take a sample 15 minutes in, cool and measure. Some meters can work with warm wort though I think room temperature is likely best.
What meter did you order? Make sure you follow directions and keep the probe wet with the proper liquid.

[Dawg LB Steve]

NAH, you're tasting a difference because there is a difference. Next thing you will notice your efficiency is going to go up and your yeast will work much better.

[BlackDuck]

I take a sample 15 minutes in, cool and measure.

What do you do if your pH is off? How do you correct it mid mash?