www.nthba.org

At the last brew day, I saw that Barrett added salts (or a jar of something I thought he called salts at least) to the big rig and I am curious, what was in it and also, what do most of you do for water conditioning? And what is the purpose? Just trying to learn how to improve the beer I make.

I googled first but didn't really find anything specifically explaining it so if there is a website that explains this, feel free to just point it out.

Jess

I would also like to see what people are using. I just moved to Plano and the water is disgusting here, so I will be buying water from those big jug filling stations and needing to add salts/minerals I am sure.

Well first of all, only God knows what Barrett was adding to his brewing water; the lad can get rather wild. I live in Richardson so my water comes straight from that oasis Lake Lavone. Sometimes when it gets hot enough the alege blooms and it really tastes lousy and actually takes on sort of a brown tint. The water itself is what I would call medium hard with both permanent as well as temporary hardness. You would of course want to run it through a charcoal filter to get rid of any chemical additives the city may add as well as the afore mentioned alege.

The trick in my humble opinion (and some in the club will argue with me on this) is to know what you are dealing with and adjust accordingly. You would probably not want to make a Bohemian Pils with Lavone water but I have had decent luck with many other styles (and you can always buy some distilled water and cut your municipal supply to soften it if you wish). I think the water is almost perfect for darker beers because the dark malts will naturally drop the ph since the water itself is somewhat alkaline. For lighter beers you can run into a problem though because the mash ph will just not get low enough. To counter this, I always add that 5.4 stuff, it is really just a buffer. Oh, and keeping the ph low will also help you avoid the dreaded oversparging problem as tannins tend to leach out of the grain bed more as the ph rises (and that's one reason I batch sparge). Besides the mashing issue, harder water will tend to "sharpen" the bitterness which can be an asset or a liability depending on what you are trying to do. Sometimes all that is needed is to reduce your bittering hops a bit (since bittering will be accentuated). Another thing I like to do with bitter beers is to make sure I am using hops with a low cohumolone percentage as they tend to provide a more smooth bittering. Now, I realize that I am about to get flamed by the purists out there who own RO systems; I just never felt the need to mess with that plus there are many, many other ways to screw up a beer and God knows, I've done them all.

I'm one of the RO purist, but have made many good beers using a simple charcoal filter.

A water report is key to understand what you are working with, so you can adjust your brewing salts to the style of beer your are brewing. There is a water report from Ward labs posted in the Brewing Questions section under Ward Lab Water analysis. This report is from 2008 and for water from the Dallas Water Utilities plant in Carrollton. Your water supplier should be able to provide you with a similar report.

At the very minimum, you need to be using a charcoal filter. The filter will get rid of the chlorine and off-flavors and aromas from our delicious lake water sources here in N. Texas. For dark beers, not much is needed in the way of water treatment. I agree with Bill that the 5.2 product is very good at getting your mash to the right PH and worth using. Lighter beers will need a bit more attention to adjust for the hop harshness that our tap water can create.

also, to make things a little more complicated, the water report from the water company may not truly reflect what's in your water since there could be differences depending on where you are in relation to a pump house and and the condition of the pipes along the way.. you'd be surprised at how many water leaks there are in a system... so take a sample at your source and get it tested.. I just use a high quality filter ( besides just carbon ) that will remove VOC's , cysts, etc... never had a problem yet..

Revisiting this conversation, I am looking at the water analysis report on The Colony water department page and it lists a ton of sodium (at least it seems like a lot when looking at an online brewing water calculator). The water report says there is 363.5 Sodium (ppm). The online calculator lists 10 ppm as the optimum for a light colored hoppy beer. I am looking at this http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemi ... alculator/ and this http://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/. I know it is the same basic website but one seemed easier than the other. Water quality report is listed here http://thecolonytx.gov/Depts/PublicWork ... Report.pdf so maybe I am misreading but it seem pretty straight forward.

So how would I adjust the water profile to match that? Would it be in the best interest of my beer to invest in an RO filter?

RobDrechsler wrote:also, to make things a little more complicated, the water report from the water company may not truly reflect what's in your water since there could be differences depending on where you are in relation to a pump house and and the condition of the pipes along the way.. you'd be surprised at how many water leaks there are in a system... so take a sample at your source and get it tested.. I just use a high quality filter ( besides just carbon ) that will remove VOC's , cysts, etc... never had a problem yet..

Where would I take a sample to get tested?

There is a lab that can perform the tests for you.

www.wardlab.com

I used them a few years ago. The prices have gone up since the last time I used them. I think you could get away with the W-6 test although they do offer a brewers test suite.

For the question above that, would I need an RO filter to remove sodium from the water?

Yes. Use RO or distilled water to dilute or your city water or for all your brewing water.

363 PPM of Sodium seems very high to me. I think the decimal point may be in the wrong place.

I'm late to the party on this thread. You guys that use 5.2 (Walter and Bill), have you ever checked the pH of your mash with a meter after adding 5.2?

Also, is that all you guys use for water treatment for lighter colored beers?

I always use that 5.2 stuff but have never tested the mash after using it; I guess you could say that I'm going on faith. All it really is though is a buffer so I'm sure it's effective. Because I'm lazy and cheap I have never messed with RO water but I will cut my city water with distilled water if I am making something like a CAP or other pils. Some lighter styles don't necessarily need soft water though, Helles and Dorts for example can use harder water although we probably have more permenant hardness than is opitmal. Fortunately for me, many of the styles I really like have traditionally used harder water anyway and if you like darker beers this stuff works out really well for that, especially English styles. One of the reasons I am so big on low cohumolone hops is because of the water I'm using. If you start dumping a bunch of Chinook into an IPA with this water you will likely end up with a beer that has one hell of a bite.

I have not checked the PH of my wort after adding 5.2. I use an RO filter, especially with light colored beers, and build my water based upon the beer style.

Jess,

Plano just posted their water report on their city site. Easy to make adjustments having the report in front of you and using a beer app such as beersmith to help out. I too live in Plano and use a charcoal filter which works great. Have had really good success with water treatment using their report. Also, make it a habit to check mash ph if you really want to dial your brews in.

Good luck, Doug