Water treament guide?

[OldThumper]

I have made about 6 AG brews now and gave been very happy with them and so far I have never treated my brewering water. I have read up a bit on the subject and it sounds like a right hassle and I cannot tell if for "most" people the hassle/extra time is worth it? Is there a simple no nonsense guide to help me make the leap if it is deemed worthwhile?

I live in south hampshire and I think my water is quite hard which apparently is good for light beers, which I tend to make anyway. From what I have read I should always boil the mash water for 30 mins and then rack it and then add a certain quality of epsom salts. This is about as much as I know right now and it is apparent the 30 min boil and racking will significantly extend the time of my brew days. I have never used fining so far and my matured bottled beers are never star bright and I am wondering if this is due to not treating the water? Also, I read that adding a campden for chlorine treatment is not really necessary and I am best getting a water report so I can analyse how best to treat my water (there is no 1 treatment method for the whole country I assume)

So:

1) Do the experts on here always treat their water and is their a big improvement in the taste and clarity of the final beer to make it worthwhile?
2) Is there a simple guide somewhere that shows the novice what to do given that you know what type of water you have?

There are plenty of posts about water treatment but I could find one that gives a simple guide from start to finish.

[adm]

Here's a really simple step by step guide that will get you in the right ballpark:

1) see Chris' recent post here.
2) add a teaspoon of Gypsum to the mash, and another to the boil.



I'd keep the Campden tablet though - one crushed tablet per 50L of water. Dissolve in a little boiling water and stir into your brewing liquor. Do this before you adjust the Alkalinity (I don't know why, but it just feels like the right order....)

If you want to get more complex, then you can use Graham's excellent water calculator here, but the method above gives excellent results and has really made a difference to my beers.

(EDIT: Pipped to the post by the Maestro himself}

[gunner]

I recently followed chris's excellent post on water treatment.I had been using the GW method of gypsum,boil,cool ,rack and its a PITA,especially if your brewing more than 5 gallons IMO.

I contacted these peoplehttp://www.water-guide.org.uk/.On the right side of the page is a list of water companies,which fortunately for me had portsmouth water on it.It has Hampshire water.
I contacted PWC, they put me straight through to the lab,they called back in 5 mins with my total alkalinity figure expressed in Hco3.I then followed chris's post on water treatment that has been linked in this thread to get my TA expressed in CaCo3.Now armed with this reading all i needed to do was order my CRS,which once added to my brewing liquor will save me loads of time.

If you decide to stick with the boil method i would recommend treating your water the day before.

[OldThumper]

Wow, thanks for the very quick replies!

Chris, that is a very very very useful post Not sure if my water comes from the River Test. I am in Totton so may be.....

It now sounds dead easy to me. All I need to do it

1) Get my total alkalinity, either via water board or via a aquarium kit
2) Add 1 campden to mash water, followed by relevant ml of CRS
3) Add 1 campden to sparg water, followed by relevant ml of CRS
4) Add 1 tsp of gypsum to the 90 min boil. 1 tsp to the mash as well?

Can I forget about DRS, not really knowing what it is? I can also forget about buying some PH test strips as the above is a guaranteed way of getting a good mash and sparg PH, assuming my total akalinity figure is correct.

[EDIT]

OR, use Graham Wheeler's approach which apparently produces as good a results but you need to prepare the day before to save time on brewing day:

*
Boil all your water vigorously for thirty minutes the night before you brew. This will get rid of most of the carbonate. As it comes to the boil add about 10grams of gypsum for every 25 litres. It might be best to slurry the gypsum in water first with a blender because it is a bit difficult to get into solution.

Turn off the boiler. When the precipitate has settled (takes a while), rack the water off the precipitate into a secondary vessel. Then optionally add a gram or two of Epsom salts (That dissolves easily).

There you are - job done! No water analyses or CRS necessary, and it doesn't matter (much) what your original water is like
*



Thanks again!

[Parp]

I've only recently started using tap water.

Before that, I used either bottled or filtered water.

Now I do the Campden tablet treatment, then gypsum.

Since doing this, I've noticed the brews are a lot better, with less niggly little off flavours, and they retain much more hop flavour/aroma.

So, even my simple treatment seems worth it!

[OldThumper]

Chris where are you based? You seem to know the area well!

I am in Hounsdown so I best get a test kit if it is variable. There are a few aquarium places around here so I will have a butchers this weekend but for now I will go for the boil rather than CRS approach (don't have any CRS yet and I want to brew early next week)

Also, as you seem local, you may know that Totton is within the Southampton boundary to get extra Fluoride added to its mains water supply soon (parents need to teach their kids not to eat so many sweets and go to the dentist more regularly so the rest of us don;t get added goodies in their valuable water) so do you know if this will affect my brewing? I have not seen anything about Fluoride and brewing and as I understand it Fluoride already exists but in tiny quantities.

thanks!

[OldThumper]

Thanks again Chris

I'm going to assume you are within 10 miles of to my area then and at least know somebody here

[OldThumper]

Guys,

I just bought a carbonate test kit to get my CaCO3 level and I hope it is the correct one

http://www.seapets.co.uk/products/aquar ... t-kit.html (I only paid £5.50 off the shelf)

I think this is the same type of test kit that Chris linked to in another thread? http://www.aquatics-online.co.uk/addtob ... sp?skid=98

Assuming I bought the right type of test, the KH test (no need for the GH test) has reported that my CaCO3 level = 170.

All I need now is to get hold of some CRS.....

[OldThumper]

Ah bummer. I was not sure but I read in the leaflet "alkalinity is principally composed of bicarbonate ions and carbonate ions. The temporary hardness or carbonate hardness (KH), also composed principally of carbonate ions, generally reflects actual alkalinity".

This is what has thrown me then

So the KH figure roughly reflects the aklanity of the water but not exactly it seems.

Ok, I'll try to get a decent answer from Southern water....

Cheers Chris

[Graham]

Ah bummer. I was not sure but I read in the leaflet "alkalinity is principally composed of bicarbonate ions and carbonate ions. The temporary hardness or carbonate hardness (KH), also composed principally of carbonate ions, generally reflects actual alkalinity".

It could possibly be the right thing. It seems that the German aquarium industry use the term KH (carbonate hardness) to refer to alkalinity. The Salifert test kit calls itself a KH test kit, but we know that it measures alkalinity. That one could be the same. The fact that they use the term Karbonate is a good indication of that. The instructions should give a clue.

Oh soddit. beaten to it.

[OldThumper]

Thanks for replying Graham and Chris.

A figure of 170 sounds totally feasible given my location. Even if I assumed my CaCO3 was 200 to 220 rather than 170 would I infict any damage by adding ever so slightly more CRS than necessary?

Anyway, I will try and reach Southern Water monday to see what they have to say as it seems I cannot be sure about this test kit at all.

The way the test kit works is by simply keeping count of the number of drops of the KH fluid you have to add to the water sample until it turns yellow/lime. It starts off blue after 1 drop and then after 17 drops it went a lime colour and you then multiply this by 10, giving 170 CaCO3. FYI the leaflet refers to carbonate hardness as alkalinity and there is some guff such as "carbonate hardness (commonly referred to as alkalinity) is a measurement of the capacity for water to neutralize an acid, known as buffering capacity. for standard aquarium situations with pH values between 6.0 and 8.2 alkalinity is principally composed of bicarbonate ions and carbonate ions. The temporary hardness or carbonate hardness (KH), also composed principally of carbonate ions, generally reflects actual alkalinity".

So these Germans dudes refer to carbonate hardness as total alkalinity it seems, although I cannot be sure, hence trying to contact southern water!

[OldThumper]

Great stuff Chris!

Right now I am making a brew using the "boil off the calcium carbonate for 30 mins" approach (with gypsum and epsom salts). i don't have an pH test strips so I don't know if it has worked or not. When I have my CaCO3 figure I will source some CRS and use that for my next brew as boiling the night before is a try pain and costly.

BTW: How do you know my source is the same as Eling? Is this info published somewhere on Souther Waters web site? All that I can find is that for my postcode it says "Your water is pumped from underground sources in the chalk at Timsbury"

[OldThumper]

Thanks a lot for trying Chris.

I have had no joy from Southern Water yet and all the lady could give me was a figure of 7.64 for CaCO3! She claims she will phone me back after I refused that figure but I am not expecting the phone to ring anytime soon. I will try again later to see if I get somebody else.

After some Googling it seems many people state that KH implies total alkalinity in the aquirium world so I think the best I can do is use my figure of 170 CaCO3 to calculate the level of CRS needed, measure the pH of my next mash (5 mins in) and if not around 5.3, record number and make adjustments using CRS next time I mash. If pH is below 5.2.5/3 then I need to reduce the amount of CRS next time, right?

Can I increase/decrease the pH of my mash on the fly? A little CRS to add acidity (bring pH down) and some sort of chalk (calcium carbonate?) to get pH back up?

[OldThumper]

Must I go get a syringe etc to accurately measure 1ml of CRS or does somebody know what 1ml of CRS weighs in grams? The smallest ml measurement I have is a 5ml test tube.... sorry for all these questions

[OldThumper]

Okay I have a 1ml syringe now but I cannot be sure this test is correct due to the results I am seeing.

I am currently at 260 CaCO3 (added 26 drops of KH fluid to the 2L of water + 1ml CRS) and the test has not completed yet (the water needs to turn from blue to lime/lemon and it is only just starting to turn blue).

This is puzzling. The way the test kit is supposed to works to fill a 5ml test tube with tap water and you then count the number of drops of the KH fluid you add to the test tube until the water turns lime colour. In my case it is 17 drops and you multiply this by 10 to get your CaCO3 level, which is 170.

Given that If 170CaCO3 is correct then I would expect to haev to add 8 drops to my 2L water (8 drops * 10 = 80 CaCO3) but as I am on 26 something is clearly not right.

Obviously I cannot treat 5ml of water with a tiny tiny amount of CRS and do the test that way.