I am about to brew my first 5 gal in about 25 years, and have just joined this forum (it's terrific by the way). It was all so simple then, and I certainly dont remember any of this chemistry mallarky! Could it be that water quality has changed noticeably over time so it's now more necessary?
My old recipe book (CJJ Berry) maintained that if you had really hard water (which I do) then you could add Calcium Chloride. I never did, and from what I can recall the beer (bitter) always tasted OK - not brilliant but certainly drinkable. But that was 25 years ago, and I'd like to think my taste buds are a bit more sophisticated now. Anyway, the local chemist just gave me a blank look when I asked him if he had any Calcium Chloride!
I'm going to make my first brew (grain) from water straight out of the tap. My question is, (bearing in mind no chemistry degree), what steps should I take after the first brew to see if I can improve it - or is it just a case that if it tastes OK, dont fix it?
To Treat, or Not to Treat
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delboy
Welcome back to the world of brewing, you can get CaCl from the online homebrew shops for a few quid, try the hopshop or hopandgrape.
I wouldn't worry about water chemistry at this stage, the only treatment i would do is chlorine/chloroamine removal with crushed camden tablets (pottasium metabisuphite).
The water companies are probably pumping a lot more of this in to the water now than they did in years gone by.
I wouldn't worry about water chemistry at this stage, the only treatment i would do is chlorine/chloroamine removal with crushed camden tablets (pottasium metabisuphite).
The water companies are probably pumping a lot more of this in to the water now than they did in years gone by.
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Aleman
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CJJ Berry is not a well known author WRT beer, he is more of a wine man, and his beer recipes generally reflect that. You will get much sounder advice on this forum than was ever written by Berry.
Water treatment is a real minefield, and yes things have changed since 25 years ago, water companies now add ammonia to the water which combines with chlorine to form chloramine (a fairly effective disinfectant), but this cannot be removed by heating the water (as in heating for mashing) so the addition of 1/2 a campden tablet to you brewing water the night before is a good idea as this drives off the chlorine . . .If you leave it there it reacts with polyphenols (compound) from the hops to form TCP . . . not a nice beer flavour.
As Berry is more of a wine man he was not aware of the requirements for good water to brew beer with, and generally you need water that is low in alkalinity (it can be hard eg Burton), but the alkalinity must be low (eg Burton
) . . . Most hard water in the UK is derived from chalk and as such has a high alkalinity, traditional advice in the past has been to preboil hard water for 30 minutes the night before brewing . . . and this does work . Especially if you add either calcium Chloride or Gypsum to the water . . . If your water is 'Effin 'ard though it won't reduce it low enough, and to overcome this we can use an acid to reduce the alkalinity to a point that it is suitable for brewing . . . In order to do that we need to know how much alkalinity we have . . . Daab, has come up with a simple test kit that allows you to measure the alkalinity and calculate how much acid to add . . . In fact it is possible to use the kit to directly determine the amount of acid to add to reduce the alkalinity to the desired point.
Do you really need to bother with this . . . There are other more important things to be concerned with, fermentation temperature for example, before you need to consider water treatment . . . Simple treatment is 1/2 a campden tablet in the water . . Heat to boiling and add 1tsp of gypsum (calcium sulphate) and 1 tsp of calcium chloride (available from good homebrew shops) . . . boil for 30 minutes then allow to cool overnight. Rack the water of the sediment that has formed in the bottom of the boiler and throw the sediment away. Brew with the treated water
Water treatment is a real minefield, and yes things have changed since 25 years ago, water companies now add ammonia to the water which combines with chlorine to form chloramine (a fairly effective disinfectant), but this cannot be removed by heating the water (as in heating for mashing) so the addition of 1/2 a campden tablet to you brewing water the night before is a good idea as this drives off the chlorine . . .If you leave it there it reacts with polyphenols (compound) from the hops to form TCP . . . not a nice beer flavour.
As Berry is more of a wine man he was not aware of the requirements for good water to brew beer with, and generally you need water that is low in alkalinity (it can be hard eg Burton), but the alkalinity must be low (eg Burton
) . . . Most hard water in the UK is derived from chalk and as such has a high alkalinity, traditional advice in the past has been to preboil hard water for 30 minutes the night before brewing . . . and this does work . Especially if you add either calcium Chloride or Gypsum to the water . . . If your water is 'Effin 'ard though it won't reduce it low enough, and to overcome this we can use an acid to reduce the alkalinity to a point that it is suitable for brewing . . . In order to do that we need to know how much alkalinity we have . . . Daab, has come up with a simple test kit that allows you to measure the alkalinity and calculate how much acid to add . . . In fact it is possible to use the kit to directly determine the amount of acid to add to reduce the alkalinity to the desired point.Do you really need to bother with this . . . There are other more important things to be concerned with, fermentation temperature for example, before you need to consider water treatment . . . Simple treatment is 1/2 a campden tablet in the water . . Heat to boiling and add 1tsp of gypsum (calcium sulphate) and 1 tsp of calcium chloride (available from good homebrew shops) . . . boil for 30 minutes then allow to cool overnight. Rack the water of the sediment that has formed in the bottom of the boiler and throw the sediment away. Brew with the treated water
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olmarcruse
Thanks chaps, that's made things a bit clearer. I think the answer is to take one step at a time and then see what's necessary.
I take the point about CJJ Berry, and you're right - he was a wine man. 25 years ago, there were very few "beer experts" around - apart from Dave Lines, bless him.
Thanks for your help.
I take the point about CJJ Berry, and you're right - he was a wine man. 25 years ago, there were very few "beer experts" around - apart from Dave Lines, bless him.
Thanks for your help.
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BarnsleyBrewer
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