Water treatment

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Budgie

Budgie

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I found myself with a couple of hours spare this afternoon so decided to finally dive into the world of water treatment. (That pun was totally intended and I'm not even sorry! :lol: )

I found this on BYO which was quite useful.
http://byo.com/hops/item/1545-understanding-residual-alkalinity-ph-advanced-homebrewing

My water report had all the figures I needed apart from magnesium. According to the article above, if the magnesium hardness is not available as a separate figure you can estimate it as 20% of the hardness as CaCO3. I misunderstood this thinking that my magnesium (not hardness as magnesium) level would be around 20% of hardness as CaCO3. I then proceeded to perform a series of calculations with incorrect figures. I think. Balls. :doh:

There's every other mineral you could think of listed on the water report, so does that simply mean there's no magnesium present? I guess it might be worth a call to Northumbrian water, but my brain is starting to hurt now, so I'm going for a lie down!
 
As far as brewing is concerned magnesium can be effectively ignored. A small amount, ~5ppm, is desired for yeast health but the mash will add at least this amount. You shouldn't ever need to add magnesium to your brewing water. If you need a figure for a water calculator, put in all the data you have then enter a number for Mg that balances the water profile. It won't be exact but as I said it's not important.
 
Budgie said:
I found myself with a couple of hours spare this afternoon so decided to finally dive into the world of water treatment. (That pun was totally intended and I'm not even sorry! :lol: )

I found this on BYO which was quite useful.
http://byo.com/hops/item/1545-understanding-residual-alkalinity-ph-advanced-homebrewing

My water report had all the figures I needed apart from magnesium. According to the article above, if the magnesium hardness is not available as a separate figure you can estimate it as 20% of the hardness as CaCO3. I misunderstood this thinking that my magnesium (not hardness as magnesium) level would be around 20% of hardness as CaCO3. I then proceeded to perform a series of calculations with incorrect figures. I think. Balls. :doh:

There's every other mineral you could think of listed on the water report, so does that simply mean there's no magnesium present? I guess it might be worth a call to Northumbrian water, but my brain is starting to hurt now, so I'm going for a lie down!
Click to expand...

Wot SS said. When you first get into water treatment it can really give you a head ache. But I would say, after adding some campden for chlorines/cholramines, start to with reading around alkalinity and how to go about adjusting that if necesary and to what level/amount, as alkalinity will contol mash PH.
Then start to read about chlorides/sulphides as these are basically flavour ions which you can use to tweak the flavour of your beer i.e bit more malty or a bit more hoppy. I would say these aren't 'quite' as important as being able to control your mash PH via water alkalinity
 
Cheers, Steve. I had a play around with the water calculator and stuck in a few different numbers for Mg and it didn't seem to change anything much.

Now I've just gotta figure out what I do with all these numbers...

EDIT:

Just seen your post too MyQul, thanks. I've been doing a good bit of reading on mash pH so I think that'll be my next step. I can't use campden tabs in my water as I'm allergic to sodium metabisulfite, (I know, who'd of thunk it?!) so I think I'll need to do some research into getting rid of chlorine in other ways. I do have quite soft water though so maybe it's not so much of a problem.

One advantage I do have is my water seems pretty well suited to pale ales. My parents have hard water that makes much better browns/stouts so I can fill up on hard brewing water if need be.
 

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