brew liquor chemistry

[Peatbogbrewer]

Below is an analysis of the water i brew with i got from Yorskhire water:


Substance Typical value UK/European limit Unit
Calcium 56.8 - mg Ca/l
Magnesium 5.4 - mg Mg/l
Residual chlorine - free 0.23 - mg/l Cl2
Residual chlorine - total 0.32 - mg/l Cl2
Coliforms 0 0 no/100ml
E-coli 0 0 no/100ml
Aluminium 20 200 µg Al/l
Colour 0.6 20 mg/l Pt/Co Scale
Conductivity 274 2500 µS/cm
Fluoride 0.06 1.5 mg F/l
pH 7.88 6.5 - 9.5 pH Units
Iron 11 200 µg Fe/l
Nitrate 12.69 50 mg NO3/l
Nitrite 0.009 0.5 mg NO2/l
Sodium 13.7 200 mg Na/l
Turbidity 0.09 4 NTU
Copper 0.0142 2 mg Cu/l
Lead 0.22 10 µg Pb/l

What i can glean from this is that my liquor is fairly alkaline (near pH and moderately hard. So looking at this do i need to start adding additives to make my water worthy for brewing with and if so can anyone out there recommend what i need to add?
Cheers

[BenB]

Water pH doesn't matter. You need alkalinity which will predict mash pH.

[BenB]

I should expand- Alkalinity and alkaline water are not the same thing. You can have moderately high alkalinity (buffering) yet acidic water....

[duncans]

Hi,

Calcium, sulphates and chlorides are the key numbers along with residual alkalinity.

I couldn't see the sulphates or chloride number or residual alkalinity. Is this on the report?

[orlando]

Get a proper analysis from WallyBrew on here. Local water companies have legal requirements to report water content but as you can see from this they are not doing this for brewers. You may also find these figures are often averages. You need to know precisely what you have from a brewers perspective.

[Peatbogbrewer]

Hi,

Calcium, sulphates and chlorides are the key numbers along with residual alkalinity.

I couldn't see the sulphates or chloride number or residual alkalinity. Is this on the report?

This is it I'm afraid.

Get a proper analysis from WallyBrew on here. Local water companies have legal requirements to report water content but as you can see from this they are not doing this for brewers. You may also find these figures are often averages. You need to know precisely what you have from a brewers perspective.

Ah nice one, can anyone give me a summary of how they treat their brew liquor and why?

[orlando]

Hi,

Calcium, sulphates and chlorides are the key numbers along with residual alkalinity.

I couldn't see the sulphates or chloride number or residual alkalinity. Is this on the report?

This is it I'm afraid.

Get a proper analysis from WallyBrew on here. Local water companies have legal requirements to report water content but as you can see from this they are not doing this for brewers. You may also find these figures are often averages. You need to know precisely what you have from a brewers perspective.

Ah nice one, can anyone give me a summary of how they treat their brew liquor and why?

Every one has water that will make some kind of beer, great beer even, it just might be that this is not the only beer you want to drink. The reason for treating water is to make it more suitable for a particular "style". Without getting into BJCP interpretation debates there are some very broad brush strokes as to what sort of water makes particularly good types of beer. For example Bitters are best made with harder water and low alkalinity than say a Pils Lager, which prefer softer water with very low alkalinity. Stouts and Porters taste better if there is a preponderance of chloride over sulphate and higher alkalinity. Knowing precisely what your water is to start with gives you the opportunity to manipulate that water into one more suited to what you are brewing. The factor you are also looking to control is the pH of your mash, which is a subject for later. So that's the why and the how part was described earlier in the thread. One step at a time, read the article by Aleman for a fuller explanation, just don't go flinging stuff blindly into your water because someone said so, we don't do Alchemy here.

[Piscator]

From a mashing perspective the simplest and most worthwhile first step is to understand where your alkalinity level is - get a Salifert alkalinity test kit for this... they are available on the bay or in aquarium shops.

Once you have this piece of information you can determine what treatment (if any) is needed to adjust your alkalinity to suit the type of beer you wish to brew.

Alkalinity is not a measure of pH - but a measure of your water's ability to resist the changes in pH that happen during the mash. High alkalinity in your liquor will prevent the mash from reaching a level that allows the enzymes in the malt to work at their best... and this is the aim of mashing so it really pays to get it right.

Another thing to consider for the mash is calcium - and whether you have enough. This aids the mash in reaching the optium pH.
This is an area where opinions differ - in the US around 50ppm is considered plenty but in the UK brewers often aim for about 100 - 150ppm which suits tasty British ales.

The other parameters like sulphate:chloride ratio are not factors in creating ideal mashing conditions but are a factor in determining how the finished beer flavours balance and can be altered to promote hops/bitterness or malty flavours... however the method you use to reduce alkalinity can impact on this balance so once you are ready to tackle flavour balancing a good water analysis such as the service provided by WallyBrew is the key to getting it right.

Any mineral salt additions should be guided by a water analysis rather than a chuck it and chance approach since the analysis puts you in the driving seat.

In a nutshell the main factors are:
Get alkalinity right for the style
Adjust sulphate:chloride ratio of the brew to suit the style (consider the effect on calcium levels when deciding how to do this)
Brew the beer
Enjoy the beer

[Peatbogbrewer]

Orlando and Piscator, thank you, i know where to start now....