what do you use and why?...

[bigdave]

Living in a hard water area, I have only ever treated my liquor with 1/2 a campden tab and nothing else. What do you treat your liquor with and why?

[steve_flack]

I use CRS to reduce alkalnity down to 50ppm for pale beers are 150ppm for dark. I used to use DLS for bitters and pale ales but I'm moving over to gypsum for that. I have fairly high calcium in the water but want to increase the sulphate to crispen up the bitterness in my pales.

Oh...and I carbon filter the water and chuck in a crushed campden just to make sure.

[leedsbrew]

The water in Guiseley is soft so I use campden and CRS in the HLT. Gypsum in the mash and then Calcium chloride and Epsom salts in the boil. I have a loose grasp on why I add all of these but mainly its becouse the water treatment calculator tells me too!

[dcq1974]

Check out this most excellent link

http://www.murphyandson.co.uk/BrewingAr ... ywhere.htm

[boingy]

Always campden.
If it's a dark beer then nothing else - my water is fine as it is.
For pale ales I arse about with different combinations of stuff each time. Must get more scientific about that one day...

[Aleman]

Usually the water here is very low in carbonate so there is no need to reduce the alkalinity (In fact I add sodium bicarbonate to increase it for dark beers . . . I also use calcium carbonate dissolved in carbonic acid to do the same thing). . . . At the moment the alkalinity has risen unacceptably high for pale beers (~135mg/l) so I use CRS to lower it to around 30 mg/l (Although I am looking at using 1 Molar Sulphuric to do the same for my hoppy pales).

I then add a calcium salt to bring the calcium level up to around 150 mg/l (Or add 150 mg/l in normal circumstances where the calcium level out of the tap is about 16 mg/l)

If I remember I may add a small qty of magnesium sulphate as well just to bring the magnesium level up a bit - Magnesium is required as a trace element by the mash and yeast and usually there is more than enough available from the malt anyway.

If I am making a hoppy beer I add calcium sulphate, if its a beer with a defined malt profile then I use calcium chloride . . . Or more usually a mixture of these to bias the balance where I want it to be.

I treat the Mash Liquor separately (adding the salts to the grist) and add the sparge salts directly to the boiler.

[TC2642]

I have moderately hard water so I use C.R.S. for pale ales and bitters. Nothing for stouts, porters and the like.