Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

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bitter_dave
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Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by bitter_dave » Fri Jan 29, 2021 11:10 am

Hi everyone,

For my next beer (it's going to be a bitter) I plan to do a salifert test and treat the water with a campden tablet, and Brupaks Dry Liquor Salts (DLS) and Carbonate Reducing Solution (CRS). My water is said to be 'slightly hard' in Whitley Bay (although it looks like it varies quite a bit). I've not done any water treatments since I returned to brewing a few years ago (accept for a campden tablet if I think about it).

Anyway my question is this: do water treatments need to be done on cold water? I have a combi boiler and I have tended to take hot water from the tap to brew with - it speeds up my brew day. Is it possible/wise to treat hot water (it would be about 50 c I think)? I guess the DLS is fine, but what about the CRS/Campden tablet? Any advice gratefully received! Thanks.

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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by Jocky » Fri Jan 29, 2021 11:21 am

CRS/Campden should be fine straight into hot water. When you do your alkalinity test though that will need to be in cooled water, so do that from the cold tap. You should ideally measure the pH of the mash after 15 minutes to check it is in the appropriate zone and allow you to make adjustments in future.

Before you go adding DLS though - do you know what is already in your water supply? Without knowing that then you can't estimate what the effect will be, and adding DLS may have an undesirable effect.
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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by Silver_Is_Money » Fri Jan 29, 2021 11:30 am

Many minerals are actually far less soluble in warm water, and it is precisely this reason as to why hot water pipes are subject to scaling and cold water pipes are not. That said, there are many who toss minerals and acid into their mash water while heating it, or just before doughing in, and many more who add minerals and acids directly into the hot mash itself. It works fine for all of these brewers, so it will work fine for you as well.
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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by aamcle » Fri Jan 29, 2021 11:32 am

Have a look at your water suppliers website some publish an analysis of the water they supply to you.
The use a online calculator to work out the additions you need to make, I would suggest BrewersFriend

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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by bitter_dave » Fri Jan 29, 2021 12:40 pm

Thanks for those responses - really useful!
Jocky wrote:
Fri Jan 29, 2021 11:21 am

Before you go adding DLS though - do you know what is already in your water supply? Without knowing that then you can't estimate what the effect will be, and adding DLS may have an undesirable effect.
I was going to follow the brupaks guidance: http://mail.brupaks.com/water%20treatment.htm

i.e. Original alkalinity in ppm x 0.4 = Calcium in ppm

If I can work out alkalinity it seems I can work out how much DLS to add... or is that not a good idea? I realise it is probably very imprecise (as they say)!

The problem I think with local water reports I've seen is that I'm not sure we are getting exactly the same water source every time

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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by Silver_Is_Money » Fri Jan 29, 2021 3:59 pm

Where is the verification by which to support this contention, I.E.:
Original alkalinity in ppm x 0.4 = Calcium in ppm
I'd imagine the error bars (in terms of 1, 2, or 3 Sigma) to be rather large in association with this likely dubious approximation.

There is likely much better statistical correlation between Total Hardness ppm and calcium ppm than there is between Alkalinity ppm and calcium ppm.

Total Hardness as CaCO3 = 2.4973(Ca++) + 4.11796(Mg++)

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Last edited by Silver_Is_Money on Sat Jan 30, 2021 7:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by Jocky » Fri Jan 29, 2021 9:15 pm

bitter_dave wrote:
Fri Jan 29, 2021 12:40 pm
Thanks for those responses - really useful!
Jocky wrote:
Fri Jan 29, 2021 11:21 am

Before you go adding DLS though - do you know what is already in your water supply? Without knowing that then you can't estimate what the effect will be, and adding DLS may have an undesirable effect.
I was going to follow the brupaks guidance: http://mail.brupaks.com/water%20treatment.htm

i.e. Original alkalinity in ppm x 0.4 = Calcium in ppm

If I can work out alkalinity it seems I can work out how much DLS to add... or is that not a good idea? I realise it is probably very imprecise (as they say)!

The problem I think with local water reports I've seen is that I'm not sure we are getting exactly the same water source every time
Well you can certainly get a very rough estimate of calcium. As SIM has posted, it’s quite inaccurate but for most purposes it’s good enough.

But what I’d ask is why you’re adding the DLS? It’ll add calcium, chloride and sulphate in a fixed ratio. Is that what you want?
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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by Eric » Fri Jan 29, 2021 9:25 pm

I don't know what has happened, but I don't seem able to post what I've written and can't delete the chart below to make corrections. Will try another post.
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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by Eric » Fri Jan 29, 2021 9:36 pm

The extract below is from a Northumbrian Water report of Alkalinity and calcium from 2007.
Header.jpg
WhitleyBay.jpg
If you've not done already, go to Northumbrian Water's website, then, "What's going on in your area" and enter your post code. You should find a water quality report for your supply and its degree of hardness. I picked a Whitley Bay address at random to get values for sodium 21ppm, sulphate 80ppm and chloride 17ppm, slightly hard.

Now while those reports are from significantly different times, by assuming a value for magnesium of 8ppm, which is far from being ridiculous, and entering all values into Graham's calculator on this forum, it gives the following for a Bitter.
GWCalc.jpg
OK, it's a long way from where this thread started, but it could help.
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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by Eric » Fri Jan 29, 2021 9:38 pm

Well that seemed to work as intended. What happened previously I don't understand.
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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by bitter_dave » Fri Jan 29, 2021 10:38 pm

Thank you Eric, that is great of you to do that.

The most recent Northumbrian water report I've seen seems to an average HC03 value of 60, an average value of 102 and a max of 160 - that seems to be quite a range (as I understand it this is between 49 and 131 CaC03).

The mean values for my postcode are 91 for sulphate, 15 for sodium and 15 for chloride. I'll have a look at that calculator.

The truth is I'm not the most scientifically minded, and I really appreciate all the help I get from this forum!

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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by Eric » Sat Jan 30, 2021 12:17 am

For basic water treatment, by that I mean what most commercial UK breweries do, the science is not very complex. It is necessary to have a reasonable idea of the minerals in your water and how they influence the brewing process and the finished product. It is beneficial to have your water tested, but from what we've so far found, it should be easy to treat.

Variation in mineral content can be easily measured with a TDS meter. I saw one on eBay the other day for £3.19. They measure the electrical conductivity of a water sample, the greater the mineral content, the more electrical current will be conducted. The readout is only meaningful if the water is a saline solution, but at least one will show if your water has changed and a rough idea of by how much. As you are aware, a Salifert kit will measure alkalinity perfectly accurately for our need. I intend to post how I deal with the variation in my supply in the near future. Your water has about half the mineral content of mine and therefore, If I can control mine, yours will be easier. Have confidence.
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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by Carnot » Sat Jan 30, 2021 9:34 pm

I am a little intrigued by this post. Firstly I would agree with Eric, very sound advice. But, what are you brewing? All grain, brew in a bag(BIB), kit? I am not quite sure. Why do you think that you need a campden tablet (sodium metabisulphite - which is an oxygen scavenger).

If you are all grain or BIB then what is the point of a campden tablet, unless you wish to add to the sulphate which is already on the up side of typical. You then wish to add more acid to control the alkalinity. Fine if you are going all grain or BIB, but not really necessary for a kit brew because all the hard work has been done. Alkalinity control is more important at the mash stage than the fermentation stage and there is not a need to add a campden tablet as you are about to boil the wort- duh. Boilng will reduce oxygen and "sterilise" ( actually disinfect - sterilse is exteme disfection which we cannot really do) the wort.

If you are kit brewing then a campden tablet in the kit wort is the last thing you need, unless for some reason you will to delay yeast pitching.. The yeast needs oxygen to multiply. I brew a lot of mead and I never use campden tablets and I do not boil the wort. Everything is done around 30 deg C, with fermenation around 20 deg C. The most important point is a srong yeast culture.

I am also twitchy about pH ( this is the correct notation. PH or p.h or P.h is wrong). A pH determination is only applicable to an aqueous solution. Once you start adding organic material (soluble sugars) then things get a little interesting as the probe measures hydrogen ions, and organic materials really have an influence, apart from temperature. By all means measure the liquor pH ( temperature compensated of course) but the mash pH - well good luck. I suspect it will drive you crazy because the mash will top a out at around 10% sugars for beers not exactly an aqueous solution any more. Just to make it even more intresting you had better have a decent pH meter and probe. I do not have a huge confidence in "cheap probes". Unless you look after your pH probe properly then good luck. The worst thing that you can do is soak your proble in distilled or demin water. It needs to be kept in a KCl solution of the right strength otherise you can dream on. With regard to conductivity meters I would go with Eric - a very useful tool. If you can, look on eBay for a Nalfloc of Dearborn conductivity meter. Bullet proof - they will last a lifetime.

I will now await the avalanche of criticism. But there again I have a thick skin.

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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by McMullan » Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:18 am

[quote=bitter_dave post_id=855176 time=1611915008 user_id=36
Anyway my question is this: do water treatments need to be done on cold water?
[/quote]

Adding brewing salts at mash in is my preference. One of the key reasons for water treatment being to control mash pH so enzymes function under optimal conditions. I add them dry too, to ensure all calculated additions actually get added, rather than stuck to the inside wall of a mixing vessel. You’ll hear some say not all mineral salts dissolve well in hot water, but the mash isn’t hot water. It’s a complicated aqueous solution of biological molecules. A malted barley soup. Nor are there any problems to worry about in terms of measuring mash pH. People have been measuring pH in all kinds of aqueous solutions for decades without any noticeable issues, beyond academic debate. Some people get anally retentive about mash temperature - the effects of temperature on pH (pH value decreases with temperature). Again, they use water as their model. The effect of temperature on pH of a slightly acidic malted barley soup, somewhere in the 60s range vs 25℃, is going to be trivial. Some people aim for a slightly higher pH value, 5.5 +/- a point (0.x) or two, especially in dark ales. But we are in personal preference territory here. It’s not a make-or-break decision. The main point is that you have a reference point (pH value) to work from relatively to your brewing environment and brewing method. You have the option to tweak pH to your taste.

Some people add a little (1/2 tsp) of either calcium chloride or calcium sulphate late in the boil, if yeast have issues flocculating after fermentation. I do this for pale beers, where FV wort might be a little ‘anaemic’ as far as calcium goes, due to my water being grossly deficient in calcium.

What I find most important of all, though, is to ignore online 'experts' talking shite and spreading misinformation. Especially when it’s offered under a pretence of science and confused home-brew lore.

I’d definitely accept advice from Eric and Jocky, though.

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Re: Temperature of beer when doing water treatment

Post by bitter_dave » Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:21 am

Hi Carnot, this is gong to be an all grain beer. Grain is going to be mashed on the stove (2.5 to 3 litres approx per kilo of grain. After mashing I’m going to tip the contents into my 30 litre burco boiler which will have A grain bag in it and about 15 litre water at about 77c. Give it a stir and remove grain bag and drain. Possibly sparge the bag a bit. I’ve tried various ways of brewing but i’ve discovered I like mashing on the stove.

I would use about half a crushed campden tablet per 25 litres to deal with chlorine. I’ve read that this does the trick.

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