BeerBorg

Figured might post this here, too. Maybe not seen under the water heading, maybe working with water might be intimidating, but if you can come up with your local profile, then maybe it is a step that can help someone.

Anybody interested in water profiles can go to Brewers Friend and click on tools, then water profiles. Hundreds of them posted by users, found two from our local water source,all of Western Lake County has the same source, one from Mentor, Oh and one from Willoughby, Oh and they matched, one was posted by my LHBS . Here is the link:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/water-profiles/

My tap water profile is this:
CA+2 = 33
MG+2 = 9
NA+ = 13
CR = 22
SO4-2 = 28
Alkalinity (HCO3) = 65
PH = 8

Sweet! I've often thought of researching or testing this.

Mine is...

Ca+2 = 31
Mg+2 = 6
Na+ = 11
Cl- = 19
SO4-2 = 10
Alkalinity = 82 (HCO3)
pH = 8.1

We are going thru water at LHBS brewers Forum last Thursday and the next meeting, led by a 30 year homebrewer, whose daughter has a brewery in Delaware, Oh Staas Brewery, found we have some of the best water straight from the tap and need very little treatment. It looks like yours is very similar to ours. Did an exercise using the Residual Alkalinity Chart from Palmer's How to Brew.

Nice. I use Brewer's Friend as my default brewing software too! Not sure how this will effect my brewing process, but I've added my city to my profile.

I have terrible brewing water. And this past weekend I made a batch of my Pale Ale with water adjustments. In addition to adding lactic acid, epsom salt, and calcium chloride, I also had to dilute almost 45% of my total water with distilled just to get the numbers right and balanced. It's the first time I've brewed this recipe with the adjustments, we'll see how it comes out in about 6 weeks.

I like the EZ Water Calculator the best.

BlackDuck wrote:I have terrible brewing water. And this past weekend I made a batch of my Pale Ale with water adjustments. In addition to adding lactic acid, epsom salt, and calcium chloride, I also had to dilute almost 45% of my total water with distilled just to get the numbers right and balanced. It's the first time I've brewed this recipe with the adjustments, we'll see how it comes out in about 6 weeks.

I like the EZ Water Calculator the best.

I like that one too. For future ref. Wal-Mart supercenters have RO water at the front of our store anyway, but it is considerable cheaper, if you buy the 5 gallon I thought was around 30 cents/gallon, than buying gallons of distilled. You have brewed this particular recipe quite a few time, right Chris? This will be a great comparison for you then. With the adjustments that you made it should be very noticeable, letting the hops and the malts standout better.

Yes, I have brewed it a few times. And I have even submitted it to competitions too. And I am constantly getting comments like harsh and astringent. This adjustments should reduce these characteristics drastically.

I never would have thought that my water was that crappy. I would highly recommend that you spend the $40 and send it off to Ward Labs for a test. Adjusting the water profile is really quite easy with any of the great water calculators that are found online now.

The thing is, I honestly wouldn't know what to do with this information. Or how to engineer my tap water to customize it for a particular style. Much less test it after I've customized it.

I know my tap water is "hard", because there are mineral build-ups around the tap, and if you boiled a pot of water away completely, there would be a white deposit left behind. But it makes beer that is more than satisfactory. The only time I make any change is the rare time I make a pilsner. I "soften" the water by cutting my tap water with two parts distilled water.

Don't get me wrong; I understand that for some folks this information is fascinating and valuable, and they really get a kick out of knowing such things, and actually making changes for specific batches of beer. That's part of the fun of this hobby for them, and I'm glad for them. Me, I get my joy from researching ingredients and formulating recipes, from the process itself, and from the satisfaction of enjoying the final result.

Dave, once you use the helpful software, it's not that complicated. For me, I think it made a huge difference in my pales and IPA's. I no longer use the PH stabilizer and only use the salts. But if you're happy with the beer you're making, there's no reason to change a thing.

Dave....I had much the same thoughts as you at first. But after 3 years of sending my Pale Ale to competition and each of the 3 years getting comments of astringency and harsh bitterness, I figured there had to be a problem. Then in another water discussion, MadBrewer explained what different water profiles could lead to. So I had my water tested by Ward Labs. It's very simple, but it does cost $40. After I got my results back, it was clear that my water profile was leading to the harsh bitterness and astringency. So, in an effort to improve my beer, I started messing with the water calculators.

Here's a couple of pics of the EZ Water spreadsheet that I used this past weekend to brew my pale ale with water adjustments.
In these pictures you can see the top section is where you enter your water profile, which is the information straight from the Ward Labs results. Here is where you also enter your water volumes.
Section two is where you enter the specific grain info for the batch.
Section three is the mash pH information.
Section 4 is where you enter the information on your additives to bring the pH up or down.
and the last section is the results after all your info is entered. Right now, I am shooting to get the mash pH and all the numbers in the last section in the "green".

Basically, you enter your starting water profile, then just play with the additives until you get the final results your looking for. You can see the numbers change as you adjust the additives. It's really pretty easy.

In my case, since my starting numbers are so high, I dilute both the mash and sparge with distilled water, you can see that in the first section. Then I added calcium chloride, epsom salt and lactic acid. The results are that all my numbers are now in the "green". And most notably is the Chloride/Sulfate ratio at the very bottom right. It is now in the "balanced" range. Without any adjustments and using just my tap water, this number (and a few of the others) were way out of whack.

We'll see how the ending product is, it's sitting happy in the fermentation chamber right now.

Hope this helps explain a little bit on how to use the calculator.

Just put this out there as a public service, some people may be hesitant to send off water sample, thought maybe having a resource to find your water profile if someone had posted it in your vicinity. I do know that the two listed in my county are credible, my LHBS has tested and posted one set, also confirmed w/ local brewery, and the other posted matched his entry. The water profile is the same throughout our county, from the same pumping source.

Beer-lord wrote:Dave, once you use the helpful software, it's not that complicated. For me, I think it made a huge difference in my pales and IPA's. I no longer use the PH stabilizer and only use the salts. But if you're happy with the beer you're making, there's no reason to change a thing.

Yeah, not only am I happy with the beer I'm making, but the scores and comments I've received on my competition entries leads me to believe that most of the shortcomings in my beers are recipe-related rather than ingredient- or process-related. The only two exceptions were the pilsner and the ordinary bitter, the first of which requires extremely soft water, and the latter one should use Burtonized water. Other than those two, it would seem my tap water is well-suited for general brewing.

I can see where, if someone's beer just wasn't satisfying, it could make a big difference, but for me right now, that's more tinkering than I care to do for a result I may not even be completely aware of.

I had my water tested a few years ago. It's sourced from Lake Michigan so it's very stable brewing water. I have thought about having it tested again but I know it's within the ballpark well enough for me. My water was tested as:

Ca: 35ppm
Mg: 12ppm
Na: 8ppm
Cl: 18ppm
So4: 24ppm
Alkalinity: 106
Bicarbonate: 128

With my water as is it's OK for middle of the road beers like Pale Ales, Amber Ales, Brown Ales. But additions have made for better beers especially for certain styles. When brewing something really light (Cream Ale) I need to acidify my mash quite a bit to knock down the ph. When brewing dark beers like Porters which are my favorite a little Chloride really helps round out the malt flavor and make for a smooth, robust beautiful beer. I don't brew a lot of hoppy beers but I have found some Gypsum helps to highlight the hop character. With any of these additions I'm talking slight additions, it really doesn't take much for improvments.

Following what some major craft brewers do for their beers has also helped me make some of my best beers. For instance Lagunitas IPA, they add Gypsum in the mash to get the Calcium up to 100ppm. They add Gypsum to the kettle to get 75ppm Calcium into the beer. Firestone Walker adds a mix of Gypsum and Calcium Chloride to the water for most of ther beers. They have an RO system and aim for 100ppm Calcium in the mash with 2/3 comming from Gysum and 1/3 coming from Calcium Chloride. This stuff seems like a lot to understand, it may seem like "too much fuss" but it's really not. Just like anything else just takes some time to get a feel for it. It's one of those things that can take your beer from OK to great. It's just another tool to help make the best beer you can.