Richmond va water

[Chrisbrewbeers]

Hi everyone, this is my first post.
I'm just wondering if anyone has experience with the water in Richmond?
Since I have gone to all grain I have had some problems with bitterness over powering everything else. I made some changes to hop addition timing and a few other things I learned(campden tablets) for the 3 batches I have now, but won't know for a few weeks. I feel like I'm chasing a partial mash budget ipa I brewed and added a few ounces hops and 2 lb dme it was the best and had no hint of this taste.

 

[AznDrgn]

Depends on where in Richmond. My wife's family lives on the East end and they have a well so water quality isn't that great but it tastes fine to me. I have no idea about the city water.

 

[Chrisbrewbeers]

I live near the airport so it is city water,there are some old threads on here that seem to say it is decent water. It does have chloramine. I will know more when the last ones I brewed are ready. I used all spring water on one, half spring half distilled and tap treated with campden on the last one. The previous were a mix of RO and Tap with no campden tablet or pure RO.

 

[MKBoitnott]

Chris, if you are interested, the James River HomeBrewers club does water testing for $3 a test, which is an awesome deal. It just gives you the essential mineral counts and alkalinity. I highly recommend that you attend one of our meetings. They are every second Wednesday of the month (including this Wednesday). Meetings start at 7 at Mekong.

Check us out at JRHB.org


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[mabrungard]

If you were brewing a relatively pale beer, it is very possible that high mash pH is the primary source of your problem. Even if you used distilled water, you would still need to use a bit of acid or acid malt in the mash to move the pH down into a good range. If the Richmond water has much alkalinity, then the need for acid goes up. Figure out what is in your water. +1 on joining your local club. That is where you will get the best help by learning from everyone else's mistakes and triumphs.

 

[soonerpike1748]

I live in RVA, and I noticed my best beers were darker beers. After lurking around here, I determined that my mash pH was way high. I've since bought a pH meter and some additives (phosphoric acid and gypsum). I'm using the Bru'n excel file, and it's pretty spot on with estimating my pH. I've noticed that our calcium is low for Richmond, so gypsum helps with Calcium addition and dropping pH, just be careful with it because it also adds sulfur.

jrhb is also keeping a log of the test results. It will be cool to see the range in water results across RVA.

 

[Chrisbrewbeers]

Thanks for all the help, I'm going to definitely try to make it to the homebrew club meeting. I have a Brown ale that has been 2weeks in primary and the gravity sample I took tasted fine. The other 2 in my pipeline are supposed to be red ipa. I'm hopeful they will turn out tolerable at least.