Can water affect efficiency?

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jceg316

jceg316

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Here's why I'm asking. I've been brewing in NW London and my efficiency has been around 70%. I went to Ireland for a while and increased my efficiency to 80% by mashing for longer.

When I moved back to London, I mashed for the same amount of time but I only got 75% efficiency on a good day, otherwise it's lower. I got a new mash tun, still got quite low efficiency, lower than 75%.

The only thing I can think of is the water which is different. I use pretty much the same grains, end up with the same amount in the fermenter and post boil so I don't think there's a boil off issue etc.

Thanks in advance.
 
Yes..if you are in a hard water area you will have high reserve alkalinity due to the carbonates (mainly Calcium carbonate) that make it hard. If you don't strip the excess carbonates out (eg using CRS carbonate reduction solution which is a blend of sulphuric and hydrochloric acid) then you could find your mash ph is too high and the efficiency will go down.
Was the water in Ireland soft where you were staying???
 
TartanSpecial said:
Yes..if you are in a hard water area you will have high reserve alkalinity due to the carbonates (mainly Calcium carbonate) that make it hard. If you don't strip the excess carbonates out (eg using CRS carbonate reduction solution which is a blend of sulphuric and hydrochloric acid) then you could find your mash ph is too high and the efficiency will go down.
Was the water in Ireland soft where you were staying???
Click to expand...

Makes sense, the water in my area is harder than Ross Kemp interviewing a Columbian drug gang leader. I do have CRS, I use it for my hoppy IPAs and use what JBK water calculator tells me to use http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water.html. However that's to get a desired flavour, not sure if it will get the mash to 5.2, I don't know enough about chemistry. I can imagine though that it isn't quite right because my efficiency hasn't gone up to 80%.

Where I was the water was very soft, never conditioned it and all styles came out really well.
 
that makes sense. I use that water calculator too. CRS is to reduce the alkalinity...though it also leaves some sulphate and chloride. Then you add gypsum and/or calcium chloride to adjust the flavour profile for hoppy IPAs or malty beers. I use one of those salifert alkalinity testing kits...quite cheap and I know exactly how much CRS to use. Sound like you should test your alkalinity yourself and maybe should be adding a bit more CRS that you currently are. I'm in Epsom with ultra hard water and have to add 1.4ml CRS per litre brewing liquor to get decent efficiencies (this based on the Graham Wheeler water calculator)
1.4ml for IPA and bitter
1ml CRS /ltr brewing liquor for stouts.
 
Yes I use Epsom salts as well. I'll look into those testing kits and should probably add CRS to all my brews. Thanks for the help.
 

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