Reverse Osmosis - will it get rid of need to boil ?

[setmash]

Hi

Im relatively new to AG, 5 brews under my belt and had a question regarding filtration. Currently I boil my liquor the night before and leave to cool overnight. Its quite shocking what i find the morning after with fur on the bottom of the kettle and a rather unattractive scum on the surface. I remove the water and leave the fur and scum behind before starting my brew. Boiling is a right pain though and it uses a lot of fuel. I had put the surface scum and fur on the bottom of the kettle down to calcium. I have private water and it appears to be quite hard. I need to buy a water filter anyway and wondered if I could use a pumped inline reverse osmosis 5 filter unit (I have low pressure due to having a cold water storage) to do away with the pre-boil...these things cost £200 so dont want to make the wrong decision.

Any advice most appreciated.
Rich

[EoinMag]

Hi

Im relatively new to AG, 5 brews under my belt and had a question regarding filtration. Currently I boil my liquor the night before and leave to cool overnight. Its quite shocking what i find the morning after with fur on the bottom of the kettle and a rather unattractive scum on the surface. I remove the water and leave the fur and scum behind before starting my brew. Boiling is a right pain though and it uses a lot of fuel. I had put the surface scum and fur on the bottom of the kettle down to calcium. I have private water and it appears to be quite hard. I need to buy a water filter anyway and wondered if I could use a pumped inline reverse osmosis 5 filter unit (I have low pressure due to having a cold water storage) to do away with the pre-boil...these things cost £200 so dont want to make the wrong decision.

Any advice most appreciated.
Rich

RO will mean you have to build your water profile yourself from scratch, it gives you a blank canvas, unless you are willing to take water chemistry on full on then I'd reconsider.

[killer]

Hi Setmash;

The answer is yes. It will remove the need to boil the night before. However (and this is not necessarily a bad thing) you will be required to add minerals to the reverse osmosis water to make it more suitable for brewing. If you are considering playing about with water treatment I advise you to read https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/ . Lots of information there - and you don't really need to understand it all but it will certainly point you in the right direction. There is also the water calculator on this website which can help.

Water treatment is one of those subjects that can become complicated quickly - but need not be. Aleman on this forum recommends that people avoid complex water treatment until they are consistently making good beer with the bare minimum treatment. He is probably right, - unless you are chemist or really interested in the subject, keep it simple.

You most likely have very alkaline water due to high Calcium Bicarbonate levels.
One key point - alkalinity and hardness are not the same thing - Hardness can be permanent - a combination of soluble Calcium and Magnesium salts (Usually Calcium/Magnesium Sulfate or Calcium/Magnesium Chloride - or hardness can be temporary - due to Calcium/Magnesium Bicarbonate.

Permanent Hardness is usually good - it adds Calcium and magnesium to the mash - which, amongst other things, helps regulate the mash pH. Temporary hardness (aka Alkalinity) is basically a measure of Bicarbonate in the water. Too much bicarbonate causes a high mash pH. Boiling your water as you do precipitates the Calcium Bicarbonate as Calcium carbonate (the scum you see - it is less soluble) and helps keep your mash pH in the right ballpark.

You have a couple of solutions:

Continue to boil your water.
You could instead add acid to your water - there are several available (phosphoric, lactic, CRS (a mixture of sulfuric and hydrochloric) or straight sulfuric). These remove the Bicarbonate as Carbon dioxide gas.
If you choose to add acid - you will need to measure the alkalinity of your water - you can have this done professionally by, for example, Murphyandsons (they will give you a full water analysis) or you can buy a salifert test and test it yourself. Once you measure it, you can add a known amount of acid to reduce the alkalinity to acceptable levels.
A third option would be to use a mixture of your tap water and reverse Osmosis water effectively diluting the alkalinity level- this is something many people do.

If you choose to use only reverse osmosis water you will most likely have to buy some minerals - like Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) and calcium chloride to increase the amounts of certain key ions - calcium, sulfate and chloride for example. Some people do this because it allows them to generate specific profiles for different types of beer.

Apologies if this sounds overly complicated. I too have alkaline water - and if I don't add acids to my water my beers can taste quite astringent. I have tried boiling and it can be a pain in the ass to have to prepare the night before.

[orlando]

I would first of all get yourself a water analysis from Murphy's to see exactly what you have. I used to do exactly what you are doing to help remove temporary hardness and reduce the alkalinity, the problem is as you describe and you still can't be sure what alkalinity is left. Before you spend £200 on the RO device I would buy some RO from an Aquarium supplies company locally and brew with that to see how it turns out. You will still need to adjust your RO water to ensure it has the right minerlisation for the style of beer you want to brew.

Can I suggest you read through this thread that goes through the whole range of issues around this challenging but ultimately supremely important element of beer improvement.

It is a truism that all water can successfully brew beer, it just won't brew every beer style. That requires water treatment.

[mabrungard]

Sound advice above. Yes, using a RO machine will allow you to avoid pre-boiling your brewing water.

[setmash]

Guys many many thanks. So in short I can use RO but will need to re-build the water profile. The advantage is that I will no longer have to pre-boil water saving a lot of time, energy and effort. It will also help with my long term brewery (pipe dream) project as I can use smaller vessels. If I move to RO would the addition of just Gypsum build me a basic profile to brew from ?

Thanks

[Jeltz]

FWIW I use about 1 third tap water and 2 thirds RO. I stick in half a campden tablet and once its been raised to 71C which is my strike temp I reckon its sterile.

[killer]

Guys many many thanks. So in short I can use RO but will need to re-build the water profile. The advantage is that I will no longer have to pre-boil water saving a lot of time, energy and effort. It will also help with my long term brewery (pipe dream) project as I can use smaller vessels. If I move to RO would the addition of just Gypsum build me a basic profile to brew from ?

Thanks

Probably not. If you wanted to brew a porter or stout the absence of any carbonate might actually drop the mash pH too low. Also, the chloride/ sulfate ratio in the liquor is important in many beer styles. So you might be ok for blond hoppy beers or lagers but not so much for malt forward beers where chloride is important. At the very least get some Calcium chloride too.
Four of the most important ions in water chemistry are Calcium, sulfate, chloride and bicarbonate so be able to control these.
You should download the brunwater calculator and have a look at the water profiles for various beer types.
If you are seriously considering forking out 200 quid to buy an RO machine it's probably worth your while having your water tested too - it's not expensive. Then you could blend your tapwater/ RO water and still avoid boiling. Of course, how consistent is your water supply - does it change mineral content ?
Personally I'd love to have an RO machine where I brew, I love the idea of being able to control every aspect of the water chemistry.

[orlando]

If I move to RO would the addition of just Gypsum build me a basic profile to brew from ?

Yes & No. Yes it may fall within a profile that would make a certain style, no if you want to brew all styles. I understand your desire for a shortcut, believe me I want one too and coming to terms with water chemistry easily would have been very welcome, but there isn't one as simple as you want. A good starting point is to read through this, it will give you a basic grounding in the role of water in brewing and how to then deal with your own depending on the style you wish to brew. Simply put, you need to have your alkalinity at the right level, enough calcium for yeast health, pH of the mash in the right range and the sulphate/chloride ratio appropriate for the style. RO will strip out a lot of undesirable stuff but it will also reduce desirable stuff into ranges that are not necessarily conducive to the style you want.

[mark4newman]

HI

I use RO water, I find it pretty straight forward to get the water into the right profile....well much easier than using CRS / Boiling. My water was so high in carbonates, it was almost a waste of time using it for anything other than porters/stouts.

Anyway I got this £117.98....which has a pump (you will need it if you have low pressure), which will save you wasting a lot of water.

https://collinswaterproducts.co.uk/prod ... 7ac81287fe

However, the pump can only run for one hour, before it needs a rest, which is OK if you put it on a timer.

[orlando]

HI

I use RO water, I find it pretty straight forward to get the water into the right profile....well much easier than using CRS / Boiling. My water was so high in carbonates, it was almost a waste of time using it for anything other than porters/stouts.

Anyway I got this £117.98....which has a pump (you will need it if you have low pressure), which will save you wasting a lot of water.

https://collinswaterproducts.co.uk/prod ... 7ac81287fe

However, the pump can only run for one hour, before it needs a rest, which is OK if you put it on a timer.

How long would it take to get say 50l and how much involvement by you does that require?

[mark4newman]

Hi Orlando

It does 190 ltr per day, so it would take about 6 to 7 hours, which seems about right from my experience. (I have a 4 hour pump now and that makes about 50 litres in one sitting)

It requires no attention, apart from remembering to turn it off before it overflows. The timer makes sure that it doesn't run over the time, as over this can break the pump....

Hi Killer

If you wanted to brew a porter or stout the absence of any carbonate might actually drop the mash pH too low.

Indeed but roasted gains, don't need to go in the mash. The roasting has already broken down any sugars, and no diastatic enzymes remain.

Therefore, you just add the dark gains at mash out.

This means you can brew porters/stouts with low or no carbonates. Personally I think this improves them, but then this is my taste.

[killer]

Hi Orlando

It does 190 ltr per day, so it would take about 6 to 7 hours, which seems about right from my experience. (I have a 4 hour pump now and that makes about 50 litres in one sitting)

It requires no attention, apart from remembering to turn it off before it overflows. The timer makes sure that it doesn't run over the time, as over this can break the pump....

Hi Killer

If you wanted to brew a porter or stout the absence of any carbonate might actually drop the mash pH too low.

Indeed but roasted gains, don't need to go in the mash. The roasting has already broken down any sugars, and no diastatic enzymes remain.

Therefore, you just add the dark gains at mash out.

This means you can brew porters/stouts with low or no carbonates. Personally I think this improves them, but then this is my taste.

Hi Mark4newman

True indeed, but many people do mash their dark grains for convenience. I used roast malt as an example but I was more trying to emphasize a point, which was - if you are following a recipe where they mash dark malts, or acid malt, or a large amount of munich or crystal malt, you would need to be aware of the potential effects on the mash pH using just RO water.

[mabrungard]

Mashing or steeping the crystal or roast grain separately from the base malt mash is a viable technique for avoiding a too low MASH pH. However when you finally add those other grains to the wort, the overall pH of the wort will still fall to a level as if you mashed all the grains together. The proper pH produced by the separate mashing technique does improve the quality of the base wort and the enzymatic processes that produced it. But the KETTLE wort pH will be lower than you may prefer. By the way, this separate mashing technique is how Guinness brews their dry stout in Dublin. The Dublin water on the south side of the city has very low alkalinity.

A crisp, acidic flavor may be what you are looking for if you are brewing an Irish dry stout. But it may not fit the bill in other styles. Having the proper alkalinity in your brewing water in order to produce both a desirable MASH and KETTLE wort pH is generally a necessary thing.

[mark4newman]

Hi Martin

My understanding is that the mash PH of 5.4 , is partly because sparging will cause the PH to rise.

However, if you sparge and add the dark grains then this will cause the PH to fall. Therefore, you can just aim for a slightly higher pH to start with ie 5.5 to 5.6, (IE in my case reducing the acid malt) and you will in the right range for the kettle.

Also, I do this because I find the flavour is less astringent, and gives a more rounded flavour in the stouts and porters..In fact I am planning on taking this a bit further and partly using dehusked roasted barley and malt in the next batch....

Anyway, that is what I do, Any thoughts?