Lob it in?

[Naich]

I'm planning on going all grain in a couple of month's time (got 2 kits to use up first), and while I'm taking heart from Chris-x's advice of "Until you are proficient in the brewing process though, it's worthwhile ignoring water treatment [...]" in another thread, but I'm a bit worried about the hardness of the water round here. Basically, it's filtered through chalk and if you suck it through your teeth the enamel gets instantly fused together and you look like Bugs Bunny. Well, it covers your kettle in fur in about a week, anyway. The figures from the water company are (apologies for formatting):

Code: Select all

Zone         mg/l  mg/l as English  French  German   millimoles    grains
             as Ca  CaCO3  (Clarke) degrees degrees     /litre      /gal
                            degrees            (dH)   (mmol/l)
Cambridge     123    308        22      31       17         3.1     22

That CaCO3 looks huge to me and running this through the calculator seems to give me figure of "CRS required" of 1.49. Bearing in mind that I am desperately trying NOT to worry about the water and concentrate on actually getting a brew done, is it worth chucking 34ml of CRS at my 23L of water or will it really not make that much difference? How does water hardness affect the taste of the brew anyway?

[mysterio]

Yeah it's certainly worth doing that. Your water is very hard and I bet you'd make good stout/porter with it (roasted grains are acidic). But it's a bit alkaline for middle of the road stuff.

It will affect mash pH, which in turn affects things like mash efficiency, and beer pH which affects flavour.

I'm guessing the reason Chris says not to worry about it is it can seem like a daunting subject, with a lot of confusion surrounding it. Most first time brewers can do without 'another thing to worry about' when the focus should be on things like mashing at the correct temperature, remembering to add the hops etc etc.

[Naich]

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll pop down the local Asda and get a job lot of water. It seems the easiest way to go for the sake of a couple of quid. Thanks again.

[jubby]

I'm planning on going all grain in a couple of month's time (got 2 kits to use up first), and while I'm taking heart from Chris-x's advice of "Until you are proficient in the brewing process though, it's worthwhile ignoring water treatment [...]" in another thread, but I'm a bit worried about the hardness of the water round here. Basically, it's filtered through chalk and if you suck it through your teeth the enamel gets instantly fused together and you look like Bugs Bunny. Well, it covers your kettle in fur in about a week, anyway. The figures from the water company are (apologies for formatting):

Code: Select all

Zone         mg/l  mg/l as English  French  German   millimoles    grains
             as Ca  CaCO3  (Clarke) degrees degrees     /litre      /gal
                            degrees            (dH)   (mmol/l)
Cambridge     123    308        22      31       17         3.1     22

That CaCO3 looks huge to me and running this through the calculator seems to give me figure of "CRS required" of 1.49. Bearing in mind that I am desperately trying NOT to worry about the water and concentrate on actually getting a brew done, is it worth chucking 34ml of CRS at my 23L of water or will it really not make that much difference? How does water hardness affect the taste of the brew anyway?

Naich, i think that figure is water hardness not alkalinity. Unfortunately it's confusing as they can both be expressed as mg/l CaC03. My alkalinity is 234 (south Cambridge) so i use 1.1ml/l of CRS unless i boil. I would recommend the CRS if you can determine your alkalinity, or boil with calcium as GW suggests. This is the important aspect of water treatment as it ensures a good mash ph and is fairly straight forward. Any other treatment is mainly just to suit taste. Mysterio is right by the way. You can knock up some great dark beers here