Water Treatment Questions?

[Horatio]

Hi all,

I have trawled various posts on here trying to find out what I should be doing to my water for brewing. I am now starting to feel a little stupid as I am struggling to make sense of things. I have had a conversation with a chap at my local water authority and have been given the following information.

Most recent PH figure is 7.6

Most recent alkilinity (expressed as mg/l CaCO3) is 172

I will be mostly brewing things like Wadworth 6X, TTL, and bitter in the 1.040 to 1.060 ranges. What do I need to do to my water to help ensure my mash PH is okay? I have a bottle of CRS and some gypsum at the moment; is there anything else I need?

All help and advice will be greatly appreciated.

[mysterio]

You're targeting an alkalinity of around 30 mg/L for your typical amber coloured beer. Go to the Brupaks website and calculate how much CRS you need to achieve this for your given brew length.

Ideally you want to know the content of other elements in your water like Calcium, Chloride, and Sulphate. If you don't know, bung in a teaspoon of Gypsum in the mash to make sure theres enough Calcium for mash reactions, yeast health and so on.

[Horatio]

Thanks mysterio.

The water people emailed me some info as follows:

Chloride: 72.714
Sulphate: 88.020

I have no idea what these values represent as there is no other information other than a list of names and the values? There is no mention of calcium anywhere! I've worked out the CRS so I suppose I should just add the gypsum to the mash?

[mysterio]

I recommend reading the notes to Graham Wheelers water treatment calc, and also Chrisx1 & Graham's various posts in the Brewing Liquor forum

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water/wate ... s.html#top

You've probably got enough Calcium in your water based on what you've posted. The numbers probably represent mg/L. Reducing the carbonates and neutralising chlorine/chloramine is all you really need to do. A teaspoon of gypsum or calcium chloride won't hurt.

[Horatio]

Thanks again Mysterio.

I have now read the notes and entered all my data into the calculator and it says I need to add the following to my liquor:
Gypsum 5g
Calcium Chloride 1.7g
Epsom Salts 3.5g

This is for 35l of brewing liquor for bitter style beer. I think I'm going to brew a Waddy's 6X the same as my last AG and compare the two brews.