Completely confused by water!

[Cazamodo]

Ok, first off. As of yet IO dont treat my water. And all of my brews are OK, but have the same wierd taste that I cant pinpoint, and I'm guessing it may be my water. The brews have all been the same-ish styles (porters, stouts, darker beers) Since I know I have very hard water.

Now I have a water report from Anglian Water, its basically a sheet of numbers with averages of the water in our area. The differ from supply point to supply point, and some values are just an average of teh whole area not taking into account points of supply, so its nto completely accurate. Am I better to use bottled water? Although I would rather not, but would liek to brew lighter beers!

I tried putting the values into the water calculator, but n ot knowing what I was doing, it didnt make much sense. I see a lot of posts with good info in, but cant really understand them.
What is CRS, I'm guessing a calcium reducing solution?
Also I hear people pre-boil thier water, is this the same as CRM?

If anyone could give me some info, or point me the direction of a good read it would be great!

Also, how do I go about testing my own water? Not completely but just to get the mash PH and hardness right?

[Goulders]

Brewtubeuk on YouTube has a video running through water analysis and GW's water calc. It's only a couple of minutes long.

Also strongandco has a vid on using a salifert kit.

Both good bids

[Naich]

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/home_brew_ ... atment.htm Is a good place to start, but in short, your basic water treatment has 3 elements, listed here in order of most to least importance:

1. Alkalinity - This determines the pH of your mash. If your mash pH is outside the correct range then it can lead to reduced efficiency and off flavours. You can either brew beer types to match your water alkalinity or adjust the alkalinity of your water to your beer type. This is done by boiling it or adding CRS (Carbonate Reducing Solution) to reduce the alkalinity, or adding calcium carbonate to increase it. The relevant part of your water report is the "Alkalinity", which is commonly expressed as mg of CaCO3. Pale ales require something in the region of 25-40 mg CaCO3 but darker beers need more. As a very rough rule, the darker the beer, the more alkalinity you need to get the right mash pH. The alkalinity of the water that comes out of your tap often does not match the water report, so it's best to check it yourself using a Salifert KH kit - see that link above for more details.

2. Salts - Yeast needs calcium and other minerals to work properly. It gets a most of these from the grain but it sometimes needs a bit extra, especially if you boil the liquor to reduce the alkalinity. The standard mantra is to put a spoonful of gypsum in the mash and another in the boil. This should ensure there is enough calcium for the yeast. There are other salts you can add and there are also issues about balancing sulphates/chlorides but this is just tinkering around the edges.

3. Chlorine/chloramine - Standard advice is to put 1/2 campden tablet (sodium metabisulphate) in the liquor for every 5 gallons to neutralise the chlorine and chloramines, but there is some doubt as to whether the small amount of chlorine in tap water has any effect on the taste and many people (including professional brewers) don't bother trying to remove it. Adding too much campden could be worse than not adding any.

Graham's water treatment calculator is a fantastic tool, but it's way more than you need right now, so don't use it yet. As you are just starting to treat your water, my advice would be to just check the alkalinity on your water report and ignore the rest of it for now. If it's too high for the beer you want to brew then buy a Salifert KH kit, a bottle of CRS and some pH strips (5.2-6.8 range). Next brew, test your liquor to find out its actual alkalinity and use the CRS to reduce it. Test it again to check it is now where you want it. Put a spoonful of gypsum in your grist and check the pH of your mash (10 minutes after doughing in) with the pH strips and check it's within 0.2 of 5.7 at room temperature.

There is an amount of trial and error in brewing so it might take a few goes to get things right, but once you can reliably get your mash pH correct it'll provide a firm foundation for brewing good beer and you can then proceed to tinker further if you want to.

[Eric]

Water can be the minefield you think it is, the supply is at times inconsistent and water companies doen't help by confusing the data you do need with the data you don't. You have taken the wisest route by avoiding water treatment until you know at least the main salts in your water and how much of them and can compare those figures with what you want.
Might I suggest you brew a pale beer? It might not turn out quite as you expected but it could be the taste you have found might be from the dark malts rather than your water. If you can, boil your water the night before and add a little gypsum to the mash. In time and as your knowledge and treatments progress you will get more control of the end product.

Buy a testing kit for aquariums to test for carbonate. E-bay?

[fisherman]

I agree buy a salifert alkilinity test kit from e-bay, Then look at Brupacks website regarding information water treatment and caculate how much CRS ( carbonate reducing solution ) and DLS ( dry liquor salts) to add depending on your alkilinity and your beer style. If you study the Brupacks site it should be game over. No problem.

[Cazamodo]

Thanks for the info guys! I cant access that FAQ at work since its blocked.
From my water report, I have found these figures

Hardness as calcium (milligrammes per litre)
152

Hardness as calcium carbonate (milligrammes per litre)
381.75

Alkalinity
264

Im guessing the last one is the one I want. Although like its been ssaid, it may be way off. Ill pick up a test kit. Im guessing the ones I would be after are the KH/Alkalinity ones (Duh) haha but I'll just check . I have PH strips everywhere from when I brewed up thsi years cider. Where can I find CRS? Is it standard in homebrew shops?

[Blue Sky]

Try this thread... Water Treatment Discussion ...and especially the posts by Aleman on the first page that show the Craft Brewers Assoc. articles (3). I copied & pasted them all to a word doc and printed it out for reference.

Also this link... CBA Fact Sheet #1 ...even though Aleman is right and it's mostly an advert for Murphy's Labs, there is some useful info in it to combine with the above.

[Naich]

Alkalinity
264

Im guessing the last one is the one I want. Although like its been ssaid, it may be way off. Ill pick up a test kit. Im guessing the ones I would be after are the KH/Alkalinity ones (Duh) haha but I'll just check . I have PH strips everywhere from when I brewed up thsi years cider. Where can I find CRS? Is it standard in homebrew shops?

That's the one. Judging by the size of the number I'd guess the units are mg CaCO3. Unless you want to only make porters and stouts, you will want to do some water treatment. You can get CRS or AMS (same thing) from home brew shops and I think I bought my Salifert kit off Ebay.

[Aleman]

Also this link... CBA Fact Sheet #1 ...even though Aleman is right and it's mostly an advert for Murphy's Labs, there is some useful info in it to combine with the above.

Unfortunately those links won't work any more unless you are a CBA member as the fact sheets and past issues of BC are now only available to Members.

[Naich]

Also this link... CBA Fact Sheet #1 ...even though Aleman is right and it's mostly an advert for Murphy's Labs, there is some useful info in it to combine with the above.

Unfortunately those links won't work any more unless you are a CBA member as the fact sheets and past issues of BC are now only available to Members.

That link works for me. I can also see all the past issues if I use this link - http://www.craftbrewing.org.uk/bc/backissues.shtml It's probably an old page they forgot to get rid of though.

[Cazamodo]

Cheers guys, a great help!
Had a read through the FAQ and posts today, and got my head around the alkalinity issue, I think.
Ill be buying a test kit, and using CRS to then build up to the beer style I want.
As for calcium, as too much isnt too much of an issue, is it suggested that one spoonfull to the mash and one to the boil will suffice?

[jonnyt]

I reckon a spoonful is around 7g
I used 13g in 32l of water today after using CRS and got a perfect mash PH of 5.2

[Spud395]

Hi Caz, I think someone touched on it already.
I've my own well water which is very hard as a result pale ales were not good.
I tried boiling my water the day before brewing, the difference has been so amazing I havn't bothered looking further into water treatment.

I know you prolly want to go the whole hog, but it might help you out while you get sorted

[Cazamodo]

Ok ordering everything I need. Do i want plain old Gypsum, or DLS...?