Boiling to reduce carbonate, how much gypsum?

[mcdonald_ajr]

I'm using a combination of filtered water and then boiling to reduce carbonate. I have very hard water here in East Kent. I gather I should add gypsum to the water and boil it for half an hour. My question is, how much of the sulphate will be carried over to the resulting beer? The online liquor treatment calculator suggests I need to add 8 grams of gypsum in total to my 30 litres of liquor. If I add 5 grams to the raw water to reduce the carbonate, do I add only 3 grams to the grist?

Thanks, Anthony

[barneey]

Where abouts in East Kent are you exactly?

[mcdonald_ajr]

Upstreet, between Canterbury and Ramsgate.

[barneey]

Dont know if this will help you out or not,

About a year ago I had the water in Thanet supplied by "Southern Water" tested the results were as follows:-

Ca 123, Mg 4.7, Sodium 31.4, Carbonate 145.1, Sulphate 22.8, Chloride 54.7, Alkalinity 242, Hardness 326

So you if your on the same water supply, you could always have a play around with Grahams Calc with unfiltered tap water.

Have fun

[mabrungard]

I'm using a combination of filtered water and then boiling to reduce carbonate. I have very hard water here in East Kent. I gather I should add gypsum to the water and boil it for half an hour. My question is, how much of the sulphate will be carried over to the resulting beer? The online liquor treatment calculator suggests I need to add 8 grams of gypsum in total to my 30 litres of liquor. If I add 5 grams to the raw water to reduce the carbonate, do I add only 3 grams to the grist?

Thanks, Anthony

You don't need to add gypsum to the boiling water to help precipitate the chalk. If the water has high Temporary Hardness, then the precipitation will occur naturally. But if you want to speed the precipitation, adding powdered CHALK to the boiled water will provide nucleation sites for all that new chalk that you just forced out of solution and all of the chalk will settle to the bottom of the kettle quicker. Using the chalk will avoid the added sulfate. A few grams is all you need. Just enough to cloud up the water. You can add it right after boiling and all the precipitate will be 'dragged' out of the water quicker.

PS: none of that new chalk you are adding will dissolve in the water, so you aren't making the water harder or more alkaline.

[mcdonald_ajr]

Barneey, I got a water report from South East Water and they said:

Ca 93, Mg 2.6, Sodium 37, Sulphate 17, Chloride 29, Alkalinity 309 so not far off your figures. My kettle always furs up quickly, so I know it's hard water. I fitted a third tap to my sink with a plumbed in filter which I use for the kettle (and for brewing!) This stops the kettle furring up. I use a Salifert hardness test to measure the water from the filter. This takes the Alkalinity down from 5.4 meq/L down to 0.4 with a brand new filter. After a few weeks, the filter doesn't work so well and the Alkalinity rises to 2.16 meq/L. Boiling halves it again, back down to 1.07.

One thing I noticed from the water report, was the wide ranges of min and max, probably varying around the year, depending on where the water comes from. I'm guessing when the Aquifers are full of fresh rainwater the levels are lower than when we are scraping the bottom after a drought. The Calcium is shown as a Min of 1.14 mg Ca/l and a Max of 117.2. So I'm relying more on my Salifert testing on the day, rather than reports.

Back to my original question and thanks to Martin for his idea. I think I will stop adding Gypsum to the boiling water as a treatment. I use Graham Wheeler's water treatment technique. My Sulphate levels are high enough in the final brew, and I need the Gypsum to lower the Mash and Sparge Ph and not waste it on the water treatment. Yesterday's brew of a bog standard Bitter gave a Mash Ph of 5.7 by adding 3g Gypsum, 1.5g Calcium Chloride, 2g Epsom Salts and 50g Acidulated Malt to a 9 litre Mash, for a 19 litre brew. I have got it down to Ph 5.5 in the past but that was with a lot of Gypsum and the beer did taste of it! If I use a fresh filter, I can get it down to Ph 5.2, but again need a lot of Gypsum, and the filters are too expensive to change for every brew. The Bitters are OK, they can cope with high Sulphate levels, but brewing lighter beers is tricky and the Sulphate taste comes through if I follow GW's suggestions and add a lot of Gypsum. His British Real Ale book suggests 10g per 23l so that's 20g for two boilerfuls plus he adds 5g to the boil. 25g is a lot of Gypsum!
I'm now following the adage of less is better and trying to limit how much Gypsum I use.

I'm also puzzled as to what the ideal Ph is. GW suggests 5.3, but other sources suggest 5.5 is best. I suspect my Ph papers aren't accurate enough for this to matter really, and 5.7 is probably fine. I get a reasonable extraction anyway, so I'm probably worrying about nothing. Being a bit of a scientist I just like to get things "right"

Anthony

[mabrungard]

Back to my original question and thanks to Martin for his idea. I think I will stop adding Gypsum to the boiling water as a treatment. I use Graham Wheeler's water treatment technique. My Sulphate levels are high enough in the final brew, and I need the Gypsum to lower the Mash and Sparge Ph and not waste it on the water treatment. Yesterday's brew of a bog standard Bitter gave a Mash Ph of 5.7 by adding 3g Gypsum, 1.5g Calcium Chloride, 2g Epsom Salts and 50g Acidulated Malt to a 9 litre Mash, for a 19 litre brew. I have got it down to Ph 5.5 in the past but that was with a lot of Gypsum and the beer did taste of it! If I use a fresh filter, I can get it down to Ph 5.2, but again need a lot of Gypsum, and the filters are too expensive to change for every brew. The Bitters are OK, they can cope with high Sulphate levels, but brewing lighter beers is tricky and the Sulphate taste comes through if I follow GW's suggestions and add a lot of Gypsum. His British Real Ale book suggests 10g per 23l so that's 20g for two boilerfuls plus he adds 5g to the boil. 25g is a lot of Gypsum!
I'm now following the adage of less is better and trying to limit how much Gypsum I use.

I'm also puzzled as to what the ideal Ph is. GW suggests 5.3, but other sources suggest 5.5 is best. I suspect my Ph papers aren't accurate enough for this to matter really, and 5.7 is probably fine. I get a reasonable extraction anyway, so I'm probably worrying about nothing. Being a bit of a scientist I just like to get things "right"

Anthony

Yes, that is a lot of gypsum and it is no wonder you can taste it. I have not read the Real Ale book, but I notice that there are water calculators here and on other UK sites that recommend far more ionic content than I've found good for beer flavor. I suggest that brewers take a look at the Water Knowledge page on the Bru'n Water website to get an understanding of more reasonable ranges for brewing water ions.

I suggest that there is no 'ideal' mash pH. But, I do find that beers tend to turn out better when the mash pH remains in the 5.3 to 5.5 range (room-temperature measurement). Mash pH is another one of those variables that the brewer can use to dial in certain effects into the beer. Lower pH helps produce a thinner, more fermentable wort while higher pH can improve body and help extract more color and flavor from roast malts. (there are more effects that pH produces)

Unfortunately, paper pH strips have not been found to be accurate or reliable for mash pH checks. A freshly calibrated pH meter is the best resource, but the plastic ColorpHast brand pH strips are a decent alternative. They have a consistent inaccuracy since they tend to read mash pH about 0.3 units lower than actual. But, that is easy to correct for. Those plastic strips are otherwise reliable. As usual, a brewer should ALWAYS remove a sample of wort from the mash tun and COOL it before testing pH. There is a shift in pH with temperature due to the chemical activity. Cooling the wort sample is especially important for those using a pH meter. High temps are bad for the pH probe and it shortens their life. I use a glass shotglass that has been chilled in my freezer to hold my wort sample and cool it quickly.

[Aleman]

I'm also puzzled as to what the ideal Ph is. GW suggests 5.3, but other sources suggest 5.5 is best.

As Martin says there is no 'ideal' pH . . . pH 5.3 is the point at which you get the most efficient conversion of starch to sugars by alpha and beta amylase . . . Important for accountants but of little importance to brewers Anything in the range 5.2-5.8 is fine (temperature has a much higher effect on wort fermentability than pH) . . . indeed I have had great stouts with a mash pH of 4.8 when I forgot to raise the alkalinity of my brewing water

[barneey]

Another thing you can try is to pop down to Tesco`s buy a load of 17p tesco own brand water, theres not much in the stuff (i`ve posted the contents of the make up on Jims) but with a few small mineral additions will get you quite a good profile.

Trial it to see if you notice the difference between the Tap & Tesco, at the moment its what I always use, that is until I finally put my tap water treatment to rest.

[orlando]

Are you going to use the RO kit Barneey? If not......

[barneey]

Not at the moment, its still unused in its original box just sitting there on the shelf......

I was interested in macdonald`s findings, taste issues due to being in close proximity, although its with another water supplier the overall isnt that far away.

[orlando]

Not at the moment, its still unused in its original box just sitting there on the shelf......

I was interested in macdonald`s findings, taste issues due to being in close proximity, although its with another water supplier the overall isnt that far away.

We're not talking about a well known purveyor of meat patties I take it? Or a onesy?

[mcdonald_ajr]

Unfortunately, the original McDonald of beefburger fame sold out when he had only one restaurant!
That was a decision I bet he regretted!