Water treatment

[Sunter0100]

Planning the water treatment for my first all grain batch. I have obtained a water report which is very soft. The report did not include the alkalinity of the water, however based on a water hardness chart it should be in the region of 30-50 CaCO3. I have used the following brupaks water treatment website:

http://www.brupaks.com/water%20treatment.htm

I have calculated that for a pale ale I do not need to add any CRS but need to add 1g per litre of DLS to up the calcium levels. For a 30 litre batch, adding 30 grams seems very high. Have I calculated it correctly?

Thanks

[AnthonyUK]

Sorry I can't help regarding DLS as I don't know what it contains but it sounds feasible for such soft water.
My preferred option would be to use a more detailed method such as Martins Bru'N'Water spreadsheet but it can be complicated to start with.
This will give you more control over thing such as Sulphate to Chloride ratio but as it is your first go you will have more thing to worry about than this

Best of luck on the first batch.

[Aleman]

For a hoppy pale ale 1 tsp of gypsum in the mash and 1tsp in the boil, is more than sufficient.

If you want a malty pale ale (rare but not unheard of) then use calcium chloride instead.

For a balance 1tsp of each.

UNTIL YOU ARE CONSISTENTLY BREWING GOOD BEER, FORGET ABOUT WATER TREATMENT The difference water treatment will make to your beer will not be noticeable, until you have a consistent brewing technique.

The calculators are great (if overly complex), but require you to have an accurate profile of your water in the first place (including alkalinity), if you don't have this then don't guess it . . .kits are available to measure alkalinity, and Murphys do a reasonably priced water profile service.

ADDING WATER TREATMENT SALTS WITHOUT A COMPLETE WATER PROFILE IS NOT WATER TREATMENT . . . IT IS MORE AKIN TO WITCHCRAFT!!!

I'll keep banging on about the simple approach (which will deal with 95% of beers)

1) Remove chlorine/chloramine
2) Adjust alkalinity to the level required for the beer you are brewing (using acid and/or kalkwasser)
3) Adjust the calcium level to a minimum of 100ppm (I simply add 100ppm calcium) using the 'flavour' salts - gypsum (sulphate) and/or calcium chloride (chloride), more sulphate than chloride for hop forward beers, and more chloride than sulphate for malt forward beers.

[Matt12398]

Without knowing what you're brewing it's not very easy to answer as depending on what you're adding and how much to the grist it will impact on your mash pH. If you're adding brweing salts you really need to base that on your grist as much as anything.

[Sunter0100]

Thank you for the great replies.

I am making a hoppy pale ale. I will therefore keep things simple at this stage and add 1tsp of Gypsum into both the mash and the boil.

[Dave S]

Thank you for the great replies.

I am making a hoppy pale ale. I will therefore keep things simple at this stage and add 1tsp of Gypsum into both the mash and the boil.

The important thing is to get the alkalinity right for the style - in the region of 20-30 for a pale ale. Of course you need to know what it is to start with.

[mabrungard]

As Aleman and Dave have indicated, its very difficult to plan water treatment without knowing what your tap water has in it. Get a more complete test of the water quality.

I will differ from Aleman slightly on one bit of advice. If the water is really poorly suited to brewing, there may be little hope of crafting a drinkable beer with it. Therefore, I'm not fully behind the notion that a brewer should forget about water treatment in their early stages of brewing. Good tasting water can still produce bad beer. Knowing what is in your water and performing a few simple steps could vastly improve a brewer's chance of brewing a good beer.

Get the water tested if the water company does not provide enough information on the water quality.

[Wezzel]

My first few AG brews turned out okay but tasted very bitter. I mistook this for too much hop bitterness but now know that it was astringency caused by my London water (I was making fairly pale bitters).

When I eventually used Graham's water calculator and treated the water with a little CRS the improvement was incredible. If it wasn't for this and 'the other' forum I may have given up brewing.

I have since gone onto Bru 'n Water and things have improved even more.

My water is probably an extreme case with very high alkalinity but I wish I had used simple water treatment from the off.