Water treatment and mashing

[chris20]

We've now done a few all grain brews and in my opinion (and my fellow brewers) they have been very successful, conversion seems very efficient (although not got into beer engine yet) and nice taste. Having had some amazing beer from Tring brewery we now want to make some improvements to our beer. We want to start with the water, having not worried about this before it is becoming more and more apparent that we should start treating our water.

Veolia central website say we have a calcium level of 139 mg/l and hardness of 348 mg/l - this is measured by calcium carbonate

We are mainly brewing pale ales so from my reading it looks like we should use CRS to reduce the carbonate levels by roughly 300 mg/l
Am I right in thinking that we only need to treat the water we are using for the mash as this is the important time for enzymes? So can we just use untreated water for sparging and topping up the final level after the boil?

Thanks
Chris

[Eadweard]

You should treat all your brewing liquor really.

[floydmeddler]

Generally, from what I can gather, most brewers on here treat all water that comes into contact with the grain. Also, you're better measuring the water hardness yourself instead of relying on a central website. This is what you need:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Salifert-KH-Alkal ... plies_Fish

Chrisx1(forum member) has created a video to show how it's done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCpcQ7uh-fA

Finally, tap the results into here and set your beer style:

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water/water.html

You can use PH paper to ensure your mash settles at around 5.3 as well. If it does, then you're fine... I think!

I only know the very basics. However, there are a few experts on here who will jump in and correct me if I'm wrong... so don't do anything yet!!!

[chris20]

Thanks for the info, I was planning on testing the water first and I will treat all my water, I will give it a go at the weekend

[wburgess]

hardness of 348 mg/l

Hardness is a totally different beast to alkalinity, which is what you should be going by! I would be worried if my water had an alkalinity of 300mg/l +

Have a look at the stickies in the grain brewing forums, it will tell you all you need to know!

If you add the CRS to remove that much alkalinity that isn't there, you will strip your elements coating clean off.

[chris20]

Yeah I have been reading a lot of the other threads and am aware that hardness is different to alkalinity but the water board only have hardness on their website not alklinity which I plan to test for anyway. I emailed the water company and they also gave me the following:

Magnesium: <2.0 ug/l
Sodium: 20.8 mg/l
(Calcium) Carbonate: 360 mg/l
Sulphate: <1.0 mg/l
Chloride: 34 mg/l

I thought the sulphate level seemed pretty low, but for my next brew I will only adjust the alkalinity and take it from there.

[Blackjack]

Asked Severn Trent the other day for alkalinity and got back that my area has two mixed sources one at 170ppm and one at 220ppm, and cos. it was relayed third hand they couldn't tell if that was measured as CO3, HCO3, or CaCO3
I know the water is hard and has hardness of 240mg/L so rather than try and treat wrongly I am going to have to work towards pre boiling the mash water as the simplest treatment.

If I do this do I really need to also boil the sparge water ? ( I warm the water in batches cos. my HLT is smaller than ideal.)
At a guess I would have said No.

[Blackjack]

All water must be treated the same - all water must be boiled or have acid added to it equally although additions of salt/minerals can be made directly to the mash tun and to the boiler.

If you are uncertain of the alkalinity of the water you are brewing with then test it, there's even a video to show you how in the liquor section.

Kits on the way.
Isn't fleabay wonderful.