Water treatment when using beer kits

[chastuck]

I am usually an all grain brewer, but just recently I availed myself of six homebrew kits from Wilco's recent Father's Day half-price sale. They were really too good to refuse! I normally go to great lengths when adjusting my water for my grain brewing, as straight out of the tap my Thames water is useless. I use Bru'n Water as my guide, but not quite sure how to proceed with water changes when using a kit, since mash and sparge adjustments are irrelevant. What are people's views on water adjustment for kits? An obvious thing to do of course is still to remove the chlorine/chloramines, but are any other adjustments necessary to the whole batch of tap water you will use?

[Matt12398]

I don't think you'd gain much as all the mashing and hop isomerisation has been done. You're just liqouring back essentially.

I suppose you could argue that harder water could have some impact on the finished brew because there is a more minerally taste to the water.

[AnthonyUK]

When I made kits I never noticed a difference between tap + campden against bottled/filtered.

[barneey]

I just use normal tap water for the kits I`ve been trying of late, always had good results.

[mabrungard]

With the extract already containing the maltster's water minerals in it, there may be no need to alter that mineral profile for your brewing. However, adding even more minerals via the water may or may not be helpful to the finished beer. Therefore, the safest bet is to use the lightest mineralized water you have access to. If your tap water isn't loaded with mineralization, then it might suffice. The main thing to avoid is excessive alkalinity. Alkalinity is the component that can most quickly degrade any beer. If you have the water report and alkalinity value, then you can use Bru'n Water to figure out the acid dose needed to knock most of the alkalinity out of the water prior to brewing. With the alkalinity neutralized, the kettle wort pH is more likely to end up in that sweet spot so that you won't extract harsh components out of the hops during the boil. It will also help the beer end up at a better pH.

[chastuck]

With the extract already containing the maltster's water minerals in it, there may be no need to alter that mineral profile for your brewing. However, adding even more minerals via the water may or may not be helpful to the finished beer. Therefore, the safest bet is to use the lightest mineralized water you have access to. If your tap water isn't loaded with mineralization, then it might suffice. The main thing to avoid is excessive alkalinity. Alkalinity is the component that can most quickly degrade any beer. If you have the water report and alkalinity value, then you can use Bru'n Water to figure out the acid dose needed to knock most of the alkalinity out of the water prior to brewing. With the alkalinity neutralized, the kettle wort pH is more likely to end up in that sweet spot so that you won't extract harsh components out of the hops during the boil. It will also help the beer end up at a better pH.

Excellent advice. Many thanks. I will adjust alkalinity with my newly acquired sulphuric acid from Murphy's; this will up my sulphates as well as they are quite low in my tap water.

[Dave S]

With the extract already containing the maltster's water minerals in it, there may be no need to alter that mineral profile for your brewing. However, adding even more minerals via the water may or may not be helpful to the finished beer. Therefore, the safest bet is to use the lightest mineralized water you have access to. If your tap water isn't loaded with mineralization, then it might suffice. The main thing to avoid is excessive alkalinity. Alkalinity is the component that can most quickly degrade any beer. If you have the water report and alkalinity value, then you can use Bru'n Water to figure out the acid dose needed to knock most of the alkalinity out of the water prior to brewing. With the alkalinity neutralized, the kettle wort pH is more likely to end up in that sweet spot so that you won't extract harsh components out of the hops during the boil. It will also help the beer end up at a better pH.

Excellent advice. Many thanks. I will adjust alkalinity with my newly acquired sulphuric acid from Murphy's; this will up my sulphates as well as they are quite low in my tap water.

What quantity of Sulphuric did you buy? They only seem to want to sell me a litre, even though they have 250 ml as well. Every time I add 250 ml to the basket I get a delivery problem and have to remove it. The guy at Murphy's told me it's because anything under a kg goes by Royal Mail who aren't authorised to carry hazardous substances - fair enough. Then he said anything over a kg goes via courier who are authorised, so if I add a kg of something else it should be OK - er not. I got the same error message and had to remove the H2SO4. Thing is I don't want to have a litre of the stuff hanging round my house.

[chastuck]

With the extract already containing the maltster's water minerals in it, there may be no need to alter that mineral profile for your brewing. However, adding even more minerals via the water may or may not be helpful to the finished beer. Therefore, the safest bet is to use the lightest mineralized water you have access to. If your tap water isn't loaded with mineralization, then it might suffice. The main thing to avoid is excessive alkalinity. Alkalinity is the component that can most quickly degrade any beer. If you have the water report and alkalinity value, then you can use Bru'n Water to figure out the acid dose needed to knock most of the alkalinity out of the water prior to brewing. With the alkalinity neutralized, the kettle wort pH is more likely to end up in that sweet spot so that you won't extract harsh components out of the hops during the boil. It will also help the beer end up at a better pH.

Excellent advice. Many thanks. I will adjust alkalinity with my newly acquired sulphuric acid from Murphy's; this will up my sulphates as well as they are quite low in my tap water.

What quantity of Sulphuric did you buy? They only seem to want to sell me a litre, even though they have 250 ml as well. Every time I add 250 ml to the basket I get a delivery problem and have to remove it. The guy at Murphy's told me it's because anything under a kg goes by Royal Mail who aren't authorised to carry hazardous substances - fair enough. Then he said anything over a kg goes via courier who are authorised, so if I add a kg of something else it should be OK - er not. I got the same error message and had to remove the H2SO4. Thing is I don't want to have a litre of the stuff hanging round my house.

I bought a litre. I didn't even try to order the smaller quantity as the price was quite reasonable. The shelf life is pretty indefinite if sealed tightly, so will last me some time. I keep the bottle inside a further closed container for safety.

[Dave S]

Excellent advice. Many thanks. I will adjust alkalinity with my newly acquired sulphuric acid from Murphy's; this will up my sulphates as well as they are quite low in my tap water.

What quantity of Sulphuric did you buy? They only seem to want to sell me a litre, even though they have 250 ml as well. Every time I add 250 ml to the basket I get a delivery problem and have to remove it. The guy at Murphy's told me it's because anything under a kg goes by Royal Mail who aren't authorised to carry hazardous substances - fair enough. Then he said anything over a kg goes via courier who are authorised, so if I add a kg of something else it should be OK - er not. I got the same error message and had to remove the H2SO4. Thing is I don't want to have a litre of the stuff hanging round my house.

I bought a litre. I didn't even try to order the smaller quantity as the price was quite reasonable. The shelf life is pretty indefinite if sealed tightly, so will last me some time. I keep the bottle inside a further closed container for safety.

I think a litre would last me beyond the grave unless I can think of a secondary purpose. Too weak for use as a drain cleaner. Still waiting for a solution from from Murphy's - several days on.

[chastuck]

After giving this further thought, and revisiting my tap water report and Murphy's paid-for analysis, I have come to the conclusion that boiling my batch of tap water before use will be the answer. My bicarbonates are quite high at nearly 300 ppm, so the key thing is reducing alkalinity. A good boil and rack-off from the precipitate will get this down to about 80 ppm. I think it's safe to assume that the extract already contains the correct water minerals from the maltster, so I will not add anything else. I know boiling the water will drop the Ca level, but the extract should have enough Ca in it anyway. I did consider using sulphuric acid, but when I calculated the acid amount needed to drop the bicarbonates to the desired level, my calculation showed the sulphates and hence the SO4/Cl balance would be too high. If my pitching temperature ends up too high I can always use my immersion cooler (sterilised) to lower it.