NTMWD finally posted the January water quality report. Here are the numbers.
Calcium: 55.7 ppm
Sulfate: 94.4 ppm
Magnesium: 4.1 ppm
Chloride: 33.2 ppm
Sodium: 33.4 ppm
Bicarbonate: 100.0 ppm
PH: 7.59
Total Alkalinity 100
Total Hardness 162
The values are up from December, which were.
Calcium: 49.3 ppm
Sulfate: 79.7 ppm
Magnesium: 3.55 ppm
Chloride: 37.2 ppm
Sodium: 24.9 ppm
Bicarbonate: 92.5 ppm
PH: 7.49
Total Alkalinity 92.5
Total Hardness 149
That is an increase in everything except Chloride.
I understood it took more than just adding the minerals to the water to get them to totally dissolve. There has currently been a long discussion on Home Brew Digest on water. It's been carrying on for over a week, and it is very informative. I still admit my knowledge on this topic is limited. I am just happy to use RO or DI water, and add some minerals and pH stabilizer. I don't care to have all of the minerals carry over to the finished beer. I did one experiment a few years back, where I used NTMWD water and added all the minerals to approximate Dortmund water. The beer was not good. Recently I have been using less than the profiles suggest, and I don't care how much stays in the HLT or is filtered out during lautering. As long as some of it makes it through, the yeast and I will be happy.
Is your beer intimate, hand crafted, and artisanally made?
Rather than add the salts to the HLT, put the appropriate amount in the mash tun at the beginning of the mash then stir them in good. Put the remaining salts in the boil kettle. I have calculations for 6 gal. of water. Since most of my batches use about 3 gal. of water in the mash, I put half of the salts in the mash tun. I use untreated RO water for sparging. I then put the other half of my salts in the boil at the beginning. This allows me to keep the RO water I don't use for the next batch since it is untreated. I have seen several recommendations for doing this process. It has been working for me lately. I also don't have any undissolved salts in my HLT, mash tun or boil kettle.
Right. If you want to have all of the salts make it to the finished beer, then that's the way to do it. I really don't want all of them to make it to the finished beer. I made English IPA yesterday. I just treated the mash to about 375 ppm, then I sparged with RO plus 2 gallons of filtered water. The 10 gallon batch should have about 200 ppm (guesstimated). That's enough for my taste.
Is your beer intimate, hand crafted, and artisanally made?
I build my water from RO water too. I take a much simpler approach to the salt additions though. Promash will calculate salt additions to your mash water volumes and for your sparge water volumes seperately. When the combined total is 15 gallons or less, I just do it all at one time.
The only salt I use that won't disolve in hot RO water is Calcium Carbonate (Chalk). When I need to add Calcium Carbonate, I just stir it into the mash. To do this I have promash calculate salt additions for my mash in water and remaining water needed volumes seperately. I add the total amounts of other salts to the HLT. I add the chalk to the mash and stir it in when mashing in. I add the reamaining chalk when sparging begins.
Those who watched me brew at the last brew day saw me do this with the Marzen I did.
The calcium disolves just fine in the lower ph of the mashtun.
Scott Townson
May judges be smitten with our brews and long for our nectars throughout eternity!!
Okay, I found another very interesting presentation on water. It is another by A.J. DeLange. It's called Water Workshop and was a class on water. I still have difficulty with this subject, and hoping to learn what makes sense. I get the sense that it does not make total sense to add all those minerals to water to make a good beer, and that the classic profiles should not be identically matched.
Is your beer intimate, hand crafted, and artisanally made?
