Water chem ails

[Just_another_drunkard_666]

I have changed brewing process recently to using distilled water and building profile from scratch using brew salts. Honestly I feel my beers tasted better prior to doing this using just my tap water but since I was unable to get a reliable water profile from where I am I figured that was the safest bet and assumed there would be some sort of ... improvement. I guess the only way would be to brew a recipe back to back one using tap and one using distilled

 

[doug293cz]

What do your built-up water profiles look like? Do you use mash pH prediction software, or measure actual mash pH?

Brew on

 

[Just_another_drunkard_666]

Brun water and at this point prediction only as I really don't ha e the cash for a decent ph meter at the moment. Which means yeah, i guess I have no real clue what's going on. Profile depends on the beer. Last apa I made was in this ballpark, after scouring a bunch of threads on pale ale profiles. Beer tastes like crap lol, and I've made great beer in the past without fiddling with stuff so I dunno. This one also accidentally got exposed to oxygen for a short period of time so maybe that did it in
Ca: 136
Mg: 15
Na: 27
Cl: 51
SO4:315
CaCO3: 10

 

[rburrelli]

Your chloride to sulfite ratio seems really high. 6:1.

 

[Just_another_drunkard_666]

Saw a couple posts suggesting going that high. I know they're all old. Definitely new territory for me so maybe I'm just screwing it all up

 

[hotbeer]

A gallon jug of store bought water is $1 maybe $1.25. Even if it's just filtered water from some other municipal source, it'll probably be a lower alkalinity than your tap water might be and also buffered to a lower pH instead of the higher buffered pH's of the cities and towns I've lived.

I have not felt the need to do any additions yet to the water I use. So brew day is simpler. Distilled and unmodified RO water will need adjustments for all grain brewing.

 

[Just_another_drunkard_666]

A gallon jug of store bought water is $1 maybe $1.25. Even if it's just filtered water from some other municipal source, it'll probably be a lower alkalinity than your tap water might be and also buffered to a lower pH instead of the higher buffered pH's of the cities and towns I've lived.

I have not felt the need to do any additions yet to the water I use. So brew day is simpler. Distilled and unmodified RO water will need adjustments for all grain brewing.

Yeah, I'm aware been brewing all grin for 4- 5 years just was curious if more control of the water profile would lend to better beer. Thus starting with distilled and building a profile from scratch. Just ... doesn't seem to work out.

 

[hotbeer]

If you pick the correct store bought water for your brewing, then you won't have to stockpile as much variety of chemicals for additions.

If I was ever to decide to modify my bottled water, I could probably get away with 1 or 2 different additions.

Though I can also see where control of everything for your water might be just as fun as making beer. So if that's you, I'm okay with that.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Cl: 51
SO4:315

I brew with RO/distilled water and add minerals. Over time, I've found that I don't like beers where the estimated SO4 additions are above 200 ppm.

 

[gunhaus]

I have changed brewing process recently to using distilled water and building profile from scratch using brew salts. Honestly I feel my beers tasted better prior to doing this using just my tap water but since I was unable to get a reliable water profile from where I am I figured that was the safest bet and assumed there would be some sort of ... improvement. I guess the only way would be to brew a recipe back to back one using tap and one using distilled

Ummmm . . . If'n it ain't broke don't fix it. If your tap water made good tasting beer, and your homemade water makes yucky tasting beer, I would THINK the solution would be obvious!

 

[Just_another_drunkard_666]

Ummmm . . . If'n it ain't broke don't fix it. If your tap water made good tasting beer, and your homemade water makes yucky tasting beer, I would THINK the solution would be obvious!

I guess just trying to figure out where I've steered wrong but yes that makes sense

 

[Spartan1979]

My beer improved when I moved to RO water. I don't try to match a water profile, I use the guidelines in the Palmer/Kaminski Water book and that has worked pretty well.

 

[mabrungard]

Ca: 136
Mg: 15
Na: 27
Cl: 51
SO4:315
CaCO3: 10

You used a pretty aggressive water profile. Maybe that level of sulfate is not to your liking?? Sulfate makes the beer finish really dry and it might be too much for your personal tastes or for the beer recipe. I suggest that you back off the sulfate target to around 150 to 200 ppm on your next IPA or PA and see if that suits you better.

 

[Just_another_drunkard_666]

Thanks for the advice, will definitely try that.

 

[bwible]

You used a pretty aggressive water profile. Maybe that level of sulfate is not to your liking?? Sulfate makes the beer finish really dry and it might be too much for your personal tastes or for the beer recipe. I suggest that you back off the sulfate target to around 150 to 200 ppm on your next IPA or PA and see if that suits you better.

I was going to say that too. Problem you’re going to run into is when you back off all that gypsum to lower the Sulfate you are also going to lose a lot of calcium. The calcium comes from gypsum or Calcium Chloride additions.

I’ve seen things saying calcium should be 100 if you can get there. I’ve made beers with it around 60 that were pretty good.

Your chloride is only 51, mine is higher than at at 87 when I use my tap water. Another option is to not use all distilled but mix your tap water with a percentage of distilled and see where that lands you. If you back off the gypsum some you might be able to add some extra CaCl2 for the calcium and keep a good ratio.

I agree 6:1 is pretty high. The last ones I made were about 3:1. You have to play and see what you have and what you can do with it.

 

[IslandLizard]

I was unable to get a reliable water profile from where I am

Have you contacted your water company? They have the ion numbers we brewers are most interested in. When talking to them, also ask about their water sources that supply your tap water, and how much change or fluctuation there is in those mineral numbers such as, for example, seasonal changes or changes due to demand.

If there is a large swing it would be difficult to know what's in your water at any time.
In that case, if you brew much, a (small) RO system can provide you with (near) mineral free water, a blank slate to build upon. We have a sponsor here on HBT who may be able to set you up, or tell you what to look for in a small system that's affordable to maintain.

Otherwise, yeah, just buy RO or distilled water as needed. Some stores have RO machines, use a (cheap) TDS meter to tell you how much the mineral content is, an indication of how well the membrane is working.

Although much rarer now, some prepackaged water is (lightly) chlorinated, so that would need a (simple) Campden treatment before used in brewing.