Help me to take my beer to 11 - Water Chemistry

[Darwin18]

Morning all,

Since I've focused on controlling my fermentation temperatures (chest freezer), liquid yeast starters, and have my all-grain process down my beers have consistently turned out great. I've received good feedback in competitions and won a good share of ribbons.

However, I feel like there is still room for improvement. I haven't focused really at all on my water chemistry. I've pretty taken the adage "If it tastes good don't mess with it" to heart. The water out of my tap tastes fine, but I can't help to think that I could improve upon my beers by looking at this area a little more.

Attached is a copy of City of Raleigh water quality data. I'm not really sure how this data conforms with established brewing water chemistry but I was hoping that you all could give me a hand with this or at least point me towards resources and calculators that could help.

View attachment FinishedWaterQualityReport201306.pdf

 

[itsratso]

the resource is a couple of threads up (brewing water primer). it is stickied.

 

[cgg]

Most of what is on the report isn't very helpful. Phone the city water company and ask to speak with a chemist. Tell her / him that you need to know the ppm of these:

• Calcium Ca
• Sodium (Na)
• Magnesium (Mg)
• Chloride (Cl)
• Sulfate (SO4)
• Alkalinity (as CaCO3)

Then go to Palmer's "How to Brew" water section, read posts on HBT, and there are several good videos on YouTube.

 

[progmac]

i pulled this up from a google search:
• Calcium 15 ppm
• Magnesium 2.84 ppm
• Sodium 28 ppm
• Chloride 14.9 ppm
• Sulfate 40.8 ppm
alkalinity as CaC03 (? suspect source) 31

off hand, it looks like ideal water for lighter beers

do you know if they treat your water with chlorine?

 

[peterj]

The only data in there that are useful to brewing are the Total Alkalinity and the Chloride values. You'll need to request a report for other ions like Calcium, Sulfate, Magnesium, and Sodium. Or you could send a sample off to a lab to get tested. A lot of people use Ward Labs.

You're alkalinity looks fairly low, which is good. You're chloride looks low as well so you will probably end up adding some amount of calcium chloride. My tap water is pretty low in everything and I usually only add calcium chloride and gypsum in modest amounts. You should know your base levels of everything first though so you know how much of what to add.

The brewing water chemistry primer that's stickied is good to read and gives good general advice. The water knowledge page on the Bru'n Water website is very in depth and good to read. There are a few calculators out there that I think are pretty good. I use the one on Brewer's Friend, but Bru'n Water is good, and a lot of people use EZ Water Calculator too.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

 

[ajdelange]

Water chemistry can actually be quite simple.
1. Use RO water or dilute the water with enough RO water that its mineral content is low.
2. Add back enough calcium chloride to give you the sweetness and body you want.
3. Add back some calcium sulfate if experiment shows that you like the effects of sulfate.
4. Use acid to set mash pH properly.
5. Experiment with different levels of sulfate and cloride.

Now as the little guy with the ears used to say there is some devil in the details and you can also experiment with the flavors of ions like sodium and magnesium but these five points are really all there is to it. These are the principles on which the Primer is built.