Treatment of Soft Water

[RajBoab]

Hi all!

I've tested my water with the Salifert KH/ALK test kit. Result ~15mg/L (basically 2 drops to see a slight colour change and a third to turn the test completely pink).

Ive never used any water treatment (other than a half campden tablet) and my mash is always ~ 5.6/5.7 measured with a PH strip. I'd like to get it down to the ideal of 5.3.

I plugged all my figures, from my water report (Sulphate - 22, Chloride - 9, Sodium - 5, Magnesium - ?), into Wheeler's Liquor Treatment Calc (Alkalinity 15mg/L As CaCO3 - think that's right) and it tells me that I need:

Calcium Sulphate - 6.63g, Calcium Chloride - 3.74g, Magnesium Sulphate - 3.25g, Sodium Chloride - 1.22g

To treat 32L water for 'general purpose'.

Does this sound correct?
If I add the above to my mash would it bring my PH down to the ideal or would I have to add an acid of some description?

Not trying to understand all this, just looking for a good starting point!
My next brew will be a 80/-.

Thanks,
Stuart

[Aleman]

You water is fairly close to what mine used to be (And What I hope it will come back to), and as far as it goes those additions will be fine. . . . You might want to consider adding a couple of grams of Sodium Bicarbonate to 'dark beers' to raise the alkalinity.

An 80/ is all about malt so you might want to reduce the amount of sulphate you are adding and upping the calcium chloride . . . but it would only have a marginal effect on flavour. The problem I find with soft water is that it is fine for making beers with a soft malt profile, but difficult to make a nice crisp hoppy beer. . . .

There is no need to add any additional acid.

[Wolfy]

I plugged all my figures, from my water report (Sulphate - 22, Chloride - 9, Sodium - 5, Magnesium - ?), into Wheeler's Liquor Treatment Calc (Alkalinity 15mg/L As CaCO3 - think that's right) and it tells me that I need:

Calcium Sulphate - 6.63g, Calcium Chloride - 3.74g, Magnesium Sulphate - 3.25g, Sodium Chloride - 1.22g

To treat 32L water for 'general purpose'.

Does this sound correct?
If I add the above to my mash would it bring my PH down to the ideal or would I have to add an acid of some description?

It's a ball-park start for your water treatment - it seems that your water is as soft as ours is here - which is nice in that you can easily and quickly create any water profile that you like.

Calcium Sulphate ( CaSO4 *2H2O) and Chalk (CaCO3) will both raise the pH of your mash, so if you are going to add either of those you may like to add them to the boil rather than the mash.
Calcium Chloride (CaCl2*2H2O) and Magnesium Sulphate (MgSO4 *7H2O) will lower the mash pH so adding those to the mash should help you get the pH down closer to more 'ideal' range (but that also depends alot on your grain bill).

The best thing to do is to add the appropriate salts at the start of your mash and then test the pH, if you need a small addition of acid add it after everything has been mixed and tested.
You didn't mention the pH of your water, but you may also consider adding some acid to your sparge water if it's required.

An easy point to start with water treatment is to simply ensure that you have adequate calcium (at least 50-100 ppm) and then work from there depending on the beer you are looking to brew.
The additions you have there seem to be a little heavy on the sulfate side of things (which is fine for pale hoppy beers) but for something more 'general' I'd have used little or no Magnesium Sulphate and Sodium Chloride and then balanced the Calcium Sulphate/Calcium Chloride a little more to the chloride side of things (as a starting point you really only need to add one or the other).

[RajBoab]

Thanks for that.
I've also noticed that I lack a bit of crispness/brightness with hoppy pale ales.

Stuart

[Aleman]

Calcium Sulphate ( CaSO4 *2H2O) and Chalk (CaCO3) will both raise the pH of your mash, so if you are going to add either of those you may like to add them to the boil rather than the mash.

Chalk will raise mash pH but unpredictably . . . Even adding it to the mash can be hit or miss . . . Hence my recommendation of using sodium bicarb (2g in 5 gallons) as this will dissolve freely. . . .With the chalk what I suspect is happening is that it gets a coating of calcium phosphate around the grains and that prevents it dissolving (but that is only a thoery).

Calcium sulphate will raise the pH of the liquor (calcium is an alkali earth metal after all), but the calcium will react with phosphates in the mash, leaving free hydrogen ions (phosphoric acid is released from the malt as part of the phytin reactions) which will cause the mash pH to fall

[chris_reboot]

thread hijack alert!
I am finding that the last couple of pale ales I've made dont clear down properly, still retain cloudiness.
beer is fine to drink, but dont suffer this with 'normal' bitters and dark beers are no problem at all.
I have soft-very soft water, so is this calcium deficiency?

[steve_flack]

Could be. What's the calcium ppm of your water?

[chris_reboot]

this is a paste from water co:
Calcium - mg Ca/l min 13.5 mean 25.7875 max 62.7

so if we for the sake of argument take the mean, lets call it 26 mg Ca/l, then this is also the same value for ppm (right?)

I will go and get this tested properly, as the variation is too much, and the data is 18 months old, but run with me here!

[steve_flack]

That is a bit low. Although recommendations vary, 100 ppm Ca seems to be a popular target value.

[chris_reboot]

I am currently adding a generous teaspoon of DLS to the mash, and about 1/2 one to the boil, but clearly this is inaccurate at best, and I'll need to get proper stats to do more accurate additions, but the point is, even with that, do we think its the calcium levels causing cloudy pale ales?

[Aleman]

I know of several brewers in the Manchester/Stockport area on soft water who have made dramatic increases in haze reduction by increasing the amount of calcium they add to the mash/boil. I would have thought with your additions you are getting above the minimum figure suggested (60ppm or mg/l) - Fix, but I have had real success when I raise my calcium levels up to 150mg/l . . . I normally split my additions 1/3 to the mash and 2/3rd to the boil (directly to the copper not in the sparge liquor) as I know that calcium is stripped out of the liquor in the mash.

The CBA (Craft Brewing Association) have a spreadsheet on thier website that you can use to determine where your Calcium levels (and other ions) will end up using DLS . . . I have a similar one for using gypsum and calcium chloride

[chris_reboot]

thanks aleman, that's very interesting, I'll follow that up.
I had always been led to believe that the proportions were the other way round, but I may end up swapping over and giving that a try too.

[RajBoab]

As an aside I've never noticed the PH of my mash change that much with the malt bill. It's always 5.6/5.7
100% maris otter brews seem to have the same PH as the chocolate coffee stout (Barley Bottom)

Think I may have a work with the local micro to see what he's doing in terms of water treatment!

S

[chris_reboot]

thats a good idea, if they are serviced by the same water, then copy their treatments, good thinking

[Aleman]

My pale beers with no water treatment are around 5.9, my stouts with no water treatment are around 4.7-4.9

With water treatment they normally end up around 5.2 to 5.4