Going to try out some chemistry....

So over christmas I acquired a PH tester and some chemicals for adjusting water profile, this isnt because I am having any obvious issues with my brews but mainly because I am curious to see if it will make a difference to the beer and the required kit is relatively inexpensive (yes I know opening a can of worms etc etc ). I have never bothered to do any water adjustment before apart from adding campden tabs for de-chlorinating and have used bottled water on a couple of occasions.

So I am planning on doing 2 batches of the same recipe, 1 using treated water and 1 untreated water. I live in a v.hard water area so will be testing with a pale ale recipe based on the Greg Hughes book and basing my water treatment on the water calc from this site (in theory this should be the type of beer most improved by altering my local water). Not sure exactly when I will start but will use this thread to record findings and probably ask for advice along the way :geek:

Here is my local water report:
Let the science commence!

HisDudeness said:

So over christmas I acquired a PH tester and some chemicals for adjusting water profile, this isnt because I am having any obvious issues with my brews but mainly because I am curious to see if it will make a difference to the beer and the required kit is relatively inexpensive (yes I know opening a can of worms etc etc ). I have never bothered to do any water adjustment before apart from adding campden tabs for de-chlorinating and have used bottled water on a couple of occasions.

So I am planning on doing 2 batches of the same recipe, 1 using treated water and 1 untreated water. I live in a v.hard water area so will be testing with a pale ale recipe based on the Greg Hughes book and basing my water treatment on the water calc from this site (in theory this should be the type of beer most improved by altering my local water). Not sure exactly when I will start but will use this thread to record findings and probably ask for advice along the way :geek:

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Nice experiment. I got a murphys water report for Christmas (my mum thought I'd gone mad) and am looking forward to tinkering when I get the results. Haven't sent it off yet though.

It's kind of the easy way out because I'm not figuring it out myself, but as gift it seemed like a good idea.

Not sure I'd be bothered to go to the extent of brewing two batches of the same beer (maybe if I had more time and goodwill from the missus on my hands) so let us know how you get on.

Garethhuwwilliams said:

Not sure I'd be bothered to go to the extent of brewing two batches of the same beer (maybe if I had more time and goodwill from the missus on my hands) so let us know how you get on.

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Probably just do 5L of each to keep it simple, think this is the only way for me to prove to myself whether its worth doing with some measure of objectiveness! :hmm:

HisDudeness said:

Probably just do 5L of each to keep it simple, think this is the only way for me to prove to myself whether its worth doing with some measure of objectiveness! :hmm:

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Ha! Maybe don't do the experiment in case they turn out the same! Or at least, don't let me know, ignorance is bliss and I'll convince myself the beer is better for my faffing about with chemicals.

so :-
Calcium 115
chloride 72
magnesium 8
nitrate 20
sodium 46
sulphate 105
ph 7.54

hardness 127.6

magnesium is low, but not a problem as it comes from the wort anyway. chloride to sulphate ratio roughly 1:2 need to check what that indicates in terms of hoppy v. malty.

quite hard as you say.

My waters well 'ard.

It's so hard, you don't choose to drink my water, it decides to hydrate you.

Twostage said:

so :-
Calcium 115
chloride 72
magnesium 8
nitrate 20
sodium 46
sulphate 105
ph 7.54

hardness 127.6

magnesium is low, but not a problem as it comes from the wort anyway. chloride to sulphate ratio roughly 1:2 need to check what that indicates in terms of hoppy v. malty.

quite hard as you say.

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1:2 is hoppy.

Looking forward to seeing the results from this test.

Twostage said:

so :-
Calcium 115
chloride 72
magnesium 8
nitrate 20
sodium 46
sulphate 105
ph 7.54

hardness 127.6

magnesium is low, but not a problem as it comes from the wort anyway. chloride to sulphate ratio roughly 1:2 need to check what that indicates in terms of hoppy v. malty.

quite hard as you say.

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Thanks twostage, am I right in thinking the 'alkalinity as calcium carbonate' value goes in the CaCO3 box on the calculator?

Twostage said:

1:2 is hoppy.

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That makes sense, never really had an issue with beers lacking hop flavour

I have very soft water so totally different. The main issue does seem to be the sulphate to chloride ratio, and your water seems well set for hoppy emphasis. You might want to try adding some calcium chloride to malty/ dark brews.

I don't have a ph tester, I've never tested ph, so I've no idea how much difference it could make adjusting the mash ph. But I know the Marble brewery, which uses the same eater as me, does nothing except add gypsum to pale beers, and their beers are great, so I'm not too driven to faff about with water adjustments. I'm not convinced by the water chemistry stuff, so will be interested to see how you get on. I believe good eater chemistry should make s difference, but the advice seems to vary so much, and some of the best brewers do little or nothing. I'd like to know my mash ph, but the one time I ordered ph test strips they were missed off the order, and never arrived after I called them.

Beyond getting the mash ph in the right range, I feel that water additions are about flavour, and therefore about personal taste, so I'm wary of anything that tells me what is right. Experiment like you do with other ingredients and decide what works.

Bit more brewing waffle for the cybersphere...

I'm mainly doing it as my bitters tend to have a particular taste that I think is chalky. It's not desperately unpleasant but I'm trying to get rid of it and think water is the suspect as it's as hard as nails round here.

If it doesn't fix it at least I can rule it out as a variable.

This paragraph about mash ph is from byo.com

Unless you are brewing very specialized beers using undermodified malts, very pale malts, or soft water, you shouldn’t worry too much about pH. You may need to make some adjustments such as boiling or adding gypsum, but for the most part the wort will take care of itself. Expensive pH meters will give you very accurate pH readings but are probably only necessary if you are aiming for very specific results.

To be honest if it makes little difference to the end product I will be happy as I won't need to bother in future, but until I can do a side by side taste test it's going to be at the back of my mind that maybe it could be better than it is. This is the beer paranoia that comes from reading too much....

HisDudeness said:

Thanks twostage, am I right in thinking the 'alkalinity as calcium carbonate' value goes in the CaCO3 box on the calculator?

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Probably, I'll have a look. I use the John Palmer spreadsheet.

When you say 'on this site' do you mean the brewers friend stuff ? and are you using the simple version which seems fairly straight forward.

I'm looking at the old forum water calculator at the moment

HisDudeness said:

I'm looking at the old forum water calculator at the moment

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When I click the calculators link I get the brewers friend site.

It's the one with a link at the top of this forum on the sticky thread

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/water.php

This one. And yes, alkalinity as CaC03 is the one.