Water Treatment in Hard Water Areas

[BrewBoyJoe]

Hello All,

At my place in Harrow, London UK, the water is off the scale in terms of hardness. 320mg/l of Calcium carbonate is the published figure! For this reason I boil the night before, adding about 8gram gypsum for 30 litres and one of Epsom salts once cooled. In short, I've been following Graham Wheelers water treatment suggestions. Still, as I sometimes make large brews (well, large for my kitchen!), the last was 40 litres, I often end up making more on brew day with CRS! I also add gypsum to the boil as well 5 gram. (23 litre batch) All as per Graham's guidelines.

After the above (and without the CRS treated water), my pH sticks for last two brews show just below 5 at start of the mash! (range 4.6 to 6.2) I’m inclined not to believe them! If anything the pH should be a bit high, say 6.0! (Appreciate it should be (5.3 – 5.6 or so) The sticks I use were recommended and by no means the cheapest! From TheHomeBrew shop UK which has served me very well so far! Not having the yardstick of a reference solution, it’s hard to know what to do! Still, my all grain Deuchers IPA was very good!

I want to get things consistent in terms of hop utilisation for which I hear water chemistry is critical. Someone pointed me towards Five star 5.2 buffer. I'm slightly concerned they don't tell you what's in it! And £12.50 before delivery is quite a lot for what most likely salt that costs practically nothing at trade! The whole boiling thing is using a lot of gas and is a bit of a faf! If I used the five star, would I need to do anything else as well? Couldn't find the instructions on-line.

What recommendation's do you have for brewing with my kind of hard water? Also, what about the pH sticks? Can you recommend some good ones? Would you be inclined to believe the reading I've been getting, given my treatment regime and hard water?

I need to get it spot on for the next brew which will be a pale hoppy ale, which I'm told getting the water treatment right is very important... and less so for say a dark ale like London Porter, which is well suited to the local water chemistry, hence the name.... Perhaps you can recommend some reading material?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Cheers,

Joe

[vacant]

Mine is around 265. I find CRS is more convenient and cheaper than boiling. I use a salifert kit to test carbonate* then use the appropriate amounts of CRS and DLS. I reckon if I've got the liquor roughly right the mash pH will be acceptable too. I do have a cheapo pH meter which confirms that but I wouldn't necessarily trust it so don't bother testing most mashes.

If you want hoppy, I've heard calcium chloride bring out hoppiness, better than gypsum which brings out maltiness (DLS is a mixture).

* I do a 2ml low resolution test the night before and add CRS to bring it down just enough. I do a 4ml test on brewday and add any small adjustment.

[Martin G]

Hi vacant, I was advised that a ratio of sulphate to chloride that is biased to sulphate brings out hops, and a bias to chloride brings out malt.

[vacant]

Yes, you're right. It's that way round

Re-reading GW's water calculator note it appears 2:1 sulphate:chloride will do for most lesser mortals.

[Eric]

With similar water, long before the internet made this sort of exchange possible, my better beers were always dark. Trying various water treatments making measurements using pH strips, they were at best interpreted as 5.8 regardless of what salts were added.
Later, when able to measure the alkalinity of the water in use, then add CRS to neutralise it to 20 or 30 ppm CaCO3, the strips had little purpose other than to confirm the treatment gave a mash pH of 5.3.
A few people have lately questioned the accuracy of their papers, but I've not had that problem. From my own experience this could mean either that my strips are good and there are others freely available that are not, or, that unless the water is treated precisely, you likely won't get a good mash pH.
Are you actually measuring your water's alkalinity or taking the figure from some other source?

[BrewBoyJoe]

I took these figures from the water report available for download from Veolia water after I put my postcode in. They are almost a year out of date now. In cases of alkalinity and hardness, the figure is shown as the same for mean, high and low, suggesting they only take one reading. It would be good to know the variation, as I suspect it could be quite high! I will purchase a salifert kit for testing hardness as recommended, and good to see they're so cheap. Yes, thanks for your comments about the sticks! Whats the point in me buying and using them if I'm not going to believe the reading. I will pH test my mash after the altered treatment regime following on from my hardness tests

Still, I'm not sure if Grahams widget works very well without complete figures for salt. I will give Gramhams extensive notes another read through! I will write to Veolia water and ask them about the figures for magnesium sulpher etc. absent from the report. May say I've got funding for a health study or something, otherwise they'll probably ignore me......

[dave.wilton]

I I will purchase a salifert kit for testing hardness as recommended, and good to see they're so cheap.

There may be a test for hardness as well, but I believe what you are most interested in is the total alkalinity (as CaCO3 ppm) which is a measure of carbonates. The total alkalinity is what controls the majority of pH in the mash and what you treat with CRS. Water reports don't normally give total alkalinity so ensure you have this figure (not something else expressed as CaCO3). In central London it is normally about 180-220ppm, based on my measurements and others i know here. Hardness is a measure of calcium and magnesium (and possibly some other minority cations I'm not sure).

I think that is all technically right, I'm not great at chemistry but just wanted to stop a common mistake.

I dont have magnesium either so I just use 20 which I found on a general water report for London. I don't think our water is mg deficient which i think would be the only issue for yeast health (not flavour). I got Ca (108ppm) levels from Thames water in 3 days, they were very helpfull didn't need to know why I wanted it (we do pay them shed loads each month!).

[rossi74]

I will write to Veolia water and ask them about the figures for magnesium sulpher etc. absent from the report. May say I've got funding for a health study or something, otherwise they'll probably ignore me......

The last time I emailed them I got a very helpfully and quick response. Good luck