Hard water mashing

[dj0471]

Hi all

Just getting into all-grain brewing, and noticed that the hard water round here

>>
Water hardness and quality check
Your water hardness:
The water hardness for your property is 341mg/l CaCO₃

This means your water is classified as hard
<<

is on the verge of excessively hard (which begins at 350).

Downloading the water quality components, I have

Calcium at 137.1 mg Ca/l
Magnesium 3.44 mg Mg/l
Sulphate 49.3 mg SO4/l
Chloride 40.94 mg Cl/l

So I bought some phosphoric acid as a way of improving the mash pH, but will this work given the hardness of the water? The early brews I have made are OK but have a slight "earthy" taste which is the same as when I brewed direct from kits.

any thoughts peeps?

[vacant]

My best pale beers were brewed using 90% reverse osmosis water from the garden centre's aquarium dept. I bought my own RO filter system for £34 some time ago.

[jaroporter]

hey and welcome to jim's.

i'd suggest reading the water treatment pages as a starting point. or Aleman has a similar very good writeup on the craftbrewing forum. basically it's not the hardness you're really interested in (that can be good) but the alkalinity (both measured as CaCO3, to be confusing). and don't believe the water company reports either, test it yourself, which is very easy. it can be a very complicated subject if you let it be, but the guides on this site and the other are superb and really simplify it.

[Dennis King]

hey and welcome to jim's.

i'd suggest reading the water treatment pages as a starting point. or Aleman has a similar very good writeup on the craftbrewing forum. basically it's not the hardness you're really interested in (that can be good) but the alkalinity (both measured as CaCO3, to be confusing). and don't believe the water company reports either, test it yourself, which is very easy. it can be a very complicated subject if you let it be, but the guides on this site and the other are superb and really simplify it.

A salifert kit is cheap and lasts for ages. This should be your first step to water treatment.

[orlando]

A salifert kit is cheap and lasts for ages. This should be your first step to water treatment.

That and a proper report for brewers. Combine those two and you have a brilliant starting point. Read Aleman's introduction to water treatment, get some sulphuric and hydrochloric acid, some Gypsum and chloride flakes, Campden tablets if your water is heavily chlorinated, a pipette for precise measurements of the acid and you are on your way.

[dj0471]

Thanks all.

Have ordered the Salifert kit, will see what I find. Meanwhile I will dose the mash tomorrow to the desired range and compare against existing brews (in a month's time . . .)

[asd]

A salifert kit is cheap and lasts for ages. This should be your first step to water treatment.

That and a proper report for brewers. Combine those two and you have a brilliant starting point. Read Aleman's introduction to water treatment, get some sulphuric and hydrochloric acid, some Gypsum and chloride flakes, Campden tablets if your water is heavily chlorinated, a pipette for precise measurements of the acid and you are on your way.

+1 to that!

[dj0471]

By way of an update, I got myself a salifert kit - cool chemistry with colours - and treated the water with CRS according to the guide on here. Got me back into the right range and brewed up (unreasonably) the brewalong viewtopic.php?f=16&t=74781 which is supposed to happen next weekend.

Then for comparison, did the same with 80% Tesco Ashtead water and 20% tap water. pH fine, salifert fine.

Both are bubbling away nicely. Results in 3 weeks

[Matt in Birdham]

Don't overlook lime softening as a way of reducing your alkalinity. I've been doing this for a while now (about 10 brews) and can consistently get my alkalinity down from 240 to 30-50ish, without adding anything back. I've got a 60l batch in the shed now that just read alkalinity at 29ppm as CaCO3 on a Salifert kit, which is new record for me (using warm water at the start of the process).
I use CRS as well sometimes because its less hassle and I have very low Cl and SO4 to start with, but with your higher Cl and SO4 you will likely end up with both in the mid 100's. Of course this might be perfectly acceptable - or indeed desirable -, but it's nice to have another option when you need it (and lime softening is still less hassle than picking up 40l of mineral water, IMO).

[gnorwebthgimi]

I guess we will never know...