1st foray into water treatment…

[Monkhouse]

Hi, I got my water profile off the united utilities website and entered it into the calculator on this forum. Can you tell me if these values look about right? I’ve never done any water treatment before and tbh I’m petrified I’m going to f*#k up my beer!
The beer style is set for stout.

 

[CJV8]

I was in the same boat a few weeks ago, just make sure you take the average values from the utilities website and you should do just fine.

 

[Monkhouse]

Thanks, where did u find was the cheapest place for all the salts?

 

[An Ankoù]

Your water looks pretty good for most styles to me.
I assumed my water was soft, too as I get no scale build up whatsoever and my (heavily used) kitchen kettle is as clean inside as the day I bought it some years ago. But a Salifert test (repeated several times) showed 120 ppm of CaCO3 or equivalent and the Calcium test shows there's hardly any calcium so I don't know what the carbonate is! Anyway, I've started using CRS for the lighter styles and adding Calcium Sulphate and Calcium Chloride.
I'm wondering if the water provider adds the carbonate to neutralise the otherwise acidic ground water from a granitic bed. I'll have to look into this some time.

 

[Monkhouse]

Your water looks pretty good for most styles to me.
I assumed my water was soft, too as I get no scale build up whatsoever and my (heavily used) kitchen kettle is as clean inside as the day I bought it some years ago. But a Salifert test (repeated several times) showed 120 ppm of CaCO3 or equivalent and the Calcium test shows there's hardly any calcium so I don't know what the carbonate is! Anyway, I've started using CRS for the lighter styles and adding Calcium Sulphate and Calcium Chloride.
I'm wondering if the water provider adds the carbonate to neutralise the otherwise acidic ground water from a granitic bed. I'll have to look into this some time.

You think I shouldn’t bother with any treatment? I mean I’m all for that if you think the water profile looks good anyway lol.
Would I have to go the whole hog with all the different salts or just specific ones?
The main reason for wanting to do this is I had a stout that really could have done with more mouthfeel/full palette. I was pointed in the direction of water treatment To help this issue.

 

[Agentgonzo]

The most common salts to add are calcium chloride or calcium sulphate (gypsum). If your water is low in magnesium, you can add epsom salts. Most people tend to use the first two.
I don't think you need worry too much about ruining your beer. Whilst salts do have a noticeable impact, we tend to use a few grams of them in ~25l of beer and the impact is moderate to low (in the grand scheme of other things).

If you want to play/test/experiment, you can also add the salts to the finished beer. If your stout is low on mouthfeel palette, then measure a small quantity of calcium chloride and add it to your glass and get it to dissolve. Then taste the beer and see the difference. Even better if you do a side-by-side comparison with an unsalted one, and get someone else to serve you so you can test blind and see whether it actually makes that much difference to you. If you measure out the weight of a tablespoon (15ml) of the salt on accurate scales, that will give you an idea of what a tablespoon weighs. Depending on how small your measuring spoons go you can use this to approximate how much to put in a glass. eg, I have a 1/8th tsp measure. 1/8th tsp is 1/24th of a tablespoon, which works out at pretty good downscaling from a full batch. Eg, 1 full batch is (roughly) 24 litres, so if I were to put 1 tablespoon of "something" (roughly 10g of yeast from a recent test I did, but probably many g of salts) then the equivalent 1/8th tsp would be the same proportion for 1 litre for the test, so half of my 1/8th tsp per 500ml bottle (I don't have a 1/16th tsp measure)

 

[An Ankoù]

You think I shouldn’t bother with any treatment? I mean I’m all for that if you think the water profile looks good anyway lol.
Would I have to go the whole hog with all the different salts or just specific ones?
The main reason for wanting to do this is I had a stout that really could have done with more mouthfeel/full palette. I was pointed in the direction of water treatment To help this issue.

@Agentgonzo , above, is pretty much on the money. You seem to have soft water with not much alkalinity, which is a boon. You'll need to build up the mineral profile from there, though. Especially calcium salts. I think the difference will be more noticeable in paler beers than in stouts.

 

[Monkhouse]

The most common salts to add are calcium chloride or calcium sulphate (gypsum). If your water is low in magnesium, you can add epsom salts. Most people tend to use the first two.
I don't think you need worry too much about ruining your beer. Whilst salts do have a noticeable impact, we tend to use a few grams of them in ~25l of beer and the impact is moderate to low (in the grand scheme of other things).

If you want to play/test/experiment, you can also add the salts to the finished beer. If your stout is low on mouthfeel palette, then measure a small quantity of calcium chloride and add it to your glass and get it to dissolve. Then taste the beer and see the difference. Even better if you do a side-by-side comparison with an unsalted one, and get someone else to serve you so you can test blind and see whether it actually makes that much difference to you. If you measure out the weight of a tablespoon (15ml) of the salt on accurate scales, that will give you an idea of what a tablespoon weighs. Depending on how small your measuring spoons go you can use this to approximate how much to put in a glass. eg, I have a 1/8th tsp measure. 1/8th tsp is 1/24th of a tablespoon, which works out at pretty good downscaling from a full batch. Eg, 1 full batch is (roughly) 24 litres, so if I were to put 1 tablespoon of "something" (roughly 10g of yeast from a recent test I did, but probably many g of salts) then the equivalent 1/8th tsp would be the same proportion for 1 litre for the test, so half of my 1/8th tsp per 500ml bottle (I don't have a 1/16th tsp measure)

Really great info thanks so much. One other thing with that calculator- it says total volume of water- does this mean the total volume you use even though some of the water is absorbed by the grain? Like if I’m measuring out the salts for the total volume of water and then only adding that amount to what amount of water ends up in the kettle then surely that amount of salts would be too much as some of the water is left behind in the grain?
I’m struggling to put into words what I’m meaning unfortunately! If you understand what I’m talking about please raise your hand

 

[Agentgonzo]

Total water is your starting water, including any losses etc. If you start out with 20l of strike water and 10l of sparge water, the total water is 30l, even if it makes up 23l of beer

 

[Monkhouse]

So for example, the last stout I did had a total finished volume of 25l and my total losses including the grain absorption loss was 13.7l, total end volume being
25l + 13.7l = 38.7l
After the grain absorption (7.7l) I’m only getting 31l of wort drained off into the boiler and this is what I add the salts to so why does the calculator want to treat the full amount of wort or water (38.7l) when I’ve only got 31l of wort/ water at the boiler stage?

 

[Monkhouse]

I think I’ve thought too much into this and missed the obvious! I see now the calculator is dividing the total water amount into mash additions and boiler additions so ignore my last post lol

 

[Monkhouse]

I’m planning on doing the Jon finch hefe Weiss on the weekend, what beer style do I select in the water calculator to get the right water profile?

 

[foxy]

I’m planning on doing the Jon finch hefe Weiss on the weekend, what beer style do I select in the water calculator to get the right water profile?

I would work on getting your pH right first before mucking around with what water goes with which beer. You will only really need 2 salts, calcium chloride and calcium sulphate, magnesium you will have enough in the grain to cover that.
Get yourself a pH meter and as I have mentioned to you before, steep your specialty malts and concentrate on getting the mash pH right with the base malts. Makes the salt additions so much easier. Shoot for a mash pH of 5.2-5.6 but remember to add .35 on for your room temperature figure, the 5.2-5.6 is pH at mash temperature.

 

[Monkhouse]

I can’t steep my speciality malts separately as they all come mixed together in a bag from malt miller.

 

[foxy]

Ask to get them delivered in separate bags will make life so much easier.

 

[Monkhouse]

Yeah I’ve already tried that, they can’t.
I’ll be honest when I found that water calculator on this forum it seemed to look like water treatment was quite a simple thing, input your water and it tells you what to add to make it better- is this not the case? If not then I think I’m in way over my head.

 

[foxy]

Yeah I’ve already tried that, they can’t.
I’ll be honest when I found that water calculator on this forum it seemed to look like water treatment was quite a simple thing, input your water and it tells you what to add to make it better- is this not the case? If not then I think I’m in way over my head.

It is a very simple thing to adjust your water, made even easier separating the specialist malt from the base malt. Are you buying a kit? Poor service if you put in an order and it all comes in one bag. Get yourself a mill and be in complete control.

 

[Monkhouse]

You can buy the ingredients separately and they come separate but if bought as a kit (which is cheaper) they come mixed.
I dont really want to go into a very technical procedure with water treatment, all I see is ppl on this forum saying they just chuck a bit of gypsum in etc and saw the calculator and thought I could just do as the calculator stated.
Tbh I don’t even add campden tablet to date and I’ve never had any medicinal off flavours. The reason I’ve stayed away from campden is that I’ve read it can kill off yeast if not left for 24 hours before pitching yeast and that just wouldn’t work for me with the way I brew. I use my hot tap (combi boiler) to part heat the mash water then it goes into a tea urn to heat up to strike- this is usually around 15litres or so depending on liquor to grain ratio. I then use this water for the mash and heat up another 20litres of fresh hot tap water for the sparge.

 

[foxy]

You can buy the ingredients separately and they come separate but if bought as a kit (which is cheaper) they come mixed.
I dont really want to go into a very technical procedure with water treatment, all I see is ppl on this forum saying they just chuck a bit of gypsum in etc and saw the calculator and thought I could just do as the calculator stated.
Tbh I don’t even add campden tablet to date and I’ve never had any medicinal off flavours. The reason I’ve stayed away from campden is that I’ve read it can kill off yeast if not left for 24 hours before pitching yeast and that just wouldn’t work for me with the way I brew. I use my hot tap (combi boiler) to part heat the mash water then it goes into a tea urn to heat up to strike- this is usually around 15litres or so depending on liquor to grain ratio. I then use this water for the mash and heat up another 20litres of fresh hot tap water for the sparge.

All good make your own way.

 

[CJV8]

Thanks, where did u find was the cheapest place for all the salts?

Salts are usually so cheap it's best just to get them from wherever you usually order your supplies from. I last ordered mine from Get Er Brewed as I was ordering grain anyway, but next time it may be Malt Miller.