Treating water for first AG brewday this weekend

[Nermal]

Hi all,

I'm preparing for my first AG brew day. I have a couple of questions regarding the water.

I've got reasonably soft water at home - no limescale build up in kettle / good cups of tea , but welsh water have yet to get back to me with an Alkalinity reading. My local homebrew shop doesn't stock the brupaks CRS. I'm planning on adding a teaspoon of gypsum to the mash and another to the boil to up the calcium as I'm doing a pale ale.

What options to I have for making the water more acidic for a pale ale - and what pH should I be aiming to get the water to ?

I've got use of an inline water purifier at work which I can fill a plastic carboy from - this apparently has a big block of carbon in it - all I know is that it removes chlorine but I'm not sure if it alters the pH.

Any advice appreciated

[Parva]

For your first brew I'd just add the usual 1/2 a campden tablet to remove the chlorine and go ahead and brew. By all means add the gypsum if you want but I would start simple and see how it goes, messing with water quality is something that you can refine when you get to know your equipment and process.

[Nermal]

Thanks for the info Start simple and then tweak if I need to sounds good advice

Three other questions:

- if the pH reading 10 mins into the mash is higher than 5.3 can I add gypsum then or shall I just wait until I do another AG brew.
- should I fill a carboy with filtered water from the mains purifier at work or will tap water and a campden tablet be ok ?
- how long after I add the campden tablet can I use the water ?

Thanks again guys - I'll post pics and a report of how it went

[Nermal]

Good advice - I'll try to stop worrying. I think I told my girlfriend not to add hops to the mash in my sleep last night.