Fish pond treatement for beer brew water?

[Alky]

Still having trouble with the water here in Wiltshire which is a chalky area.

Would it be a good idea to use fish pond treatment to get the sh*t out of the water?

I've been boiling it to date but lately it has ended up as a slightly cloudy finished product and a very slight smell of acectic acid in spite of scrupulous sterilisation.

[Aleman]

Still having trouble with the water here in Wiltshire which is a chalky area.

Would it be a good idea to use fish pond treatment to get the sh*t out of the water?

NO!

[richard_senior]

Buy one of those drinking water filters, like britta...
They work really well and they're fairly quick. It should do 25L in half an hour or so, in one litre batches probably. Bit of a boring job but if you really think the water is affecting the taste then it's probably worth the effort.
I'm sure you could rig up a little filtering rig in no time that would do the whole lot while you got on with something else.

[Aleman]

Buy one of those drinking water filters, like britta...

Or even 5 5L bottles of Tescos Ashbeck Spring water which is pretty soft, and cheaper and quicka than a brita

[Alky]

Thanks, I'll bear that in mind. I've just had a chat with the water company who tell me that I am in a very hard water area (never!) and they are popping me an analysis in the post so I'll go from there and post it here when I get it for advice.

While messing around I noticed that the tap water although perfectly clear
becomes cloudy when boiled and allowed to cool. Comparison with a glass of boiled bottled water shows that this cloudiness doesn't happen with that so it seems that the calcium is released into the tap water by the boiling.

As I have been boiling all water to drive the Chlorine off I am wondering if I'd be better off using a camden tablet to get rid of the Chlorine. I.e would this disturb the calcium far less by not boiling the water? (If that makes sense.) If so how much of a tablet do I add to 5 Gallons and is it ok for kit beers to do this and at what point would I add the tablet?

I'm selling alkalinity test kits which also explain how to treat your water using CRS. You'll need some digital scales, a 1L pet bottle (preferably like the ones used for supermarket own brand tonic water with narrow necks) an 1L of distilled/de-ionised water. The rest is in the kit and costs £2.25. pm me your address if interested.

[richard_senior]

Just looked up Tesco Ashback..
89p for 5L! I think Aleman has the solution (no pun intended).

[Aleman]

Tesco Ashbeck water is too low in alkalinity iirc and a very expensive way to brew.

But to check if it is the water you are using, there is nothing to stop you using 4 of the bottled water and 1 of the (campden treated) tap water. Yes it does add a cost to the brew, but its cheaper to use that than throw away another poor result

The purpose of using and Alkalinity testing kits is that the water alkalinity can vary from day to day even hour to hour in some places, the kit are sold on a non profit basis and will determine the alkalinity of your water at the time of testing and can also be used check you have treated the water correctly. For the price of 32L of Ashbeck water you test your water 60 times and that also includes the cost of the CRS to treat it.

Absolutely, it is one of the the most important thing you can measure on a brewday. Of course you don't actually need to treat with Acid to reduce alkalinity, you can always dilute it with water of a lower alkalinity like the ashbeck (and test again to check what level you are brewing with )

As I have been boiling all water to drive the Chlorine off I am wondering if I'd be better off using a camden tablet to get rid of the Chlorine. I.e would this disturb the calcium far less by not boiling the water? (If that makes sense.) If so how much of a tablet do I add to 5 Gallons and is it ok for kit beers to do this and at what point would I add the tablet?

Of course in theory you don't have to treat water (apart from removing chlorine/chloramine) to make kits . . . although using a water with low dissolved solids would have a benefit with kit making as you are adding a minimal amount of additional salts to the wort . . . which should have been made with an 'ideal' salt balance anyway