Water Treatment for TTL Clone

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BrewHouse

Water Treatment for TTL Clone

Post by BrewHouse » Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:30 pm

After several years of dodging the whole subject of water treatment, I have finally taken the plunge and decided to give it a go.
I have not had my water lab tested but the local water authority report comes up as hard water. When I put the figures into Beersmith it looks like this:
Ca 114, Mg 30, Na 36, SO4 93, Cl 73, HCO3 285.

Timothy Taylor apparently use their own spring water and so I may be way off the mark here, but I downloaded the water report for the postcode of the brewery and it looks like this:
Ca 14, Mg 2, Na 11,SO4 32, Cl 13, HC03 17.
Completely the other end of the scale in terms of hardness. I know this may not actually be the water profile they use but it seems as good a starting point as any.

I have used the water profile tool in Beersmith to try and calculate how to adjust the water and it comes up blank. If I try and adjust my profile to match Burton water then I get suggestions and so assume I am using the tool properly. When I try and match the guess I have made at the TTL water I get nothing.

I called up the local HBS for advice and got some **sehole telling me how complicated the whole subject is and that these used to have a 400 page book on water treatment etc etc.

Is there something I can do/add to my water to get from A to B? It seems than an option may be to try and persuade Mrs BrewHouse that our health and well-being require the installation of a reverse osmosis filter in the house and try and build the water up from there, but I am not sure she will fall for that and so want to have a look at additions first, if at all possible.

Any advice much appreciated. BH

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vacant
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Re: Water Treatment for TTL Clone

Post by vacant » Wed Jul 26, 2017 4:02 pm

Try brewing with Tesco Ashbeck water or buy RO water from an aquatics centre (expect to pay 10p/ltr) and use 85% to 15% tap.

Then when you confirm that was easy, get an RO filter system for £35; that's what I did.
I brew therefore I ... I .... forget

BrewHouse

Re: Water Treatment for TTL Clone

Post by BrewHouse » Wed Jul 26, 2017 4:44 pm

Thanks Vacant, I thought an RO filter was £150+ hence the dilemma. Just purchased an aquatic one for £35 as suggested. So another question.. Does an RO filter strip everything out of the water? Do I then have to get the RO filtered water lab tested or can I make assumptions?

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Eric
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Re: Water Treatment for TTL Clone

Post by Eric » Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:31 pm

Your own water treated with CRS to reduce alkalinity with some added calcium salts will be a lot closer than RO, Ashbeck or that water report for Keighley.

I'll not say more as it usually ends with great differences of opinion, but advise you watch the video found here and listen to someone who knows and keep an ear out for the word, salts. Note that what you see is just some and that most was already added.
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Re: Water Treatment for TTL Clone

Post by vacant » Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:35 pm

RO is not distilled but close.

After filtering enough RO water the day before a brew, I mix 10% of my very hard tap water which is around 260 alkalinity as CaC03 with 90% RO water. I then test the mixture and expect to get a reading of around 25-30 (i.e. 10% of my tap reading). If my RO filters are failing I'd expect higher - well, that's my theory. I'll probably replace the filters after some more use anyway. After that, a bit of CRS if I can be bothered but definitely some Gypsum of Calcium Chloride for the mash.

A Salifert Carbonate Hardness testing kit is £8 and does 100 tests.
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BrewHouse

Re: Water Treatment for TTL Clone

Post by BrewHouse » Thu Jul 27, 2017 7:00 am

Eric wrote:Your own water treated with CRS to reduce alkalinity with some added calcium salts will be a lot closer than RO, Ashbeck or that water report for Keighley.

I'll not say more as it usually ends with great differences of opinion, but advise you watch the video found here and listen to someone who knows and keep an ear out for the word, salts. Note that what you see is just some and that most was already added.
Thanks Eric, a brilliant little vid. Looks like I have some experimenting to do.

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Hanglow
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Re: Water Treatment for TTL Clone

Post by Hanglow » Fri Jul 28, 2017 11:00 am

There is also this from Orlando in another thread that might help

"
Wallybrew did an analysis and found the bottled version contained 283ppm chloride and 153ppm sulphate suggesting the brewing liquor contained 131ppm and 102ppm respectively, the rest coming from the malt. It came as a surprise to me and many others I'm sure, as there is a tendency to view Bitters/Pale Ales as being sulphate forward. "

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Re: Water Treatment for TTL Clone

Post by BarnsleyBrewer » Fri Jul 28, 2017 12:43 pm

I wouldn't worry too much, even if you have same water and recipe it'll still probably be different to theirs, even with the yeast??
"Brewing Fine Ales in Barnsley Since 1984"
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