Which water treatments items are needed?

[armedcor]

I've noticed marked increases in my beer quality since I started treating my water. You can ask CH about my water he saw the report. It is incredibly soft and was absolutely horrible for brewing anything but lagers.

It took me ages to figure out why my pale ales and IPAs had such terrible hop character until I started adding sulfate etc it's not just pH that it effects.

[Leann ull]

IMHO , Adding salts at homebrew batch size is an absolute waste of energy . It's basically taking something that can improve efficiencies at mass production scales and attempting to
shoehorn it into small bucket .
Great if you want to learn about water chemistry and all , ( like a science experiment ) but not a practical way to improve your craft brewing for the most of us .

+1 I have to disagree based on my own experience with adding minerals where I have very soft water. After I had my water analysed (twice now) it has been a real eye opener.
Its a complicated topic and probably one of the most difficult areas for homebrewers to comprehend and some of those online calculators are scary but with my own profile and a target profile beersmith gets me where I need to be and allows me focus back on the ingredients for the recipe.
I will agree with you getting the numbers right without a calibrated jewellers scale and you are wasting your time and certainly easier on 60l batches.
Its probably the last step of the perfection of brewing assuming after you have covered all other bases well.
Minute mineral imbalance can have a massive flavour impact on the finished product.
There was an interesting statement from one of our speakers at Brewcon this year, "all we are drinking is coloured water"

[Will_D]

OK all of these ppm's and per ml/L are the exact reason I find water treatment to be so intimidating.

PPM: Parts per million: So if you have 1 million litres of beer, remove 1 litre and add 1 litre of something you now have 1 ppm!

ml/Litre: A mililitre is one thousance of a litre so 1 mL/Litre is 1000 ppm

if you are really small and using micro litres then:

1uL/L equals 1 ppm

HTH! Will

[northernnick]

OK all of these ppm's and per ml/L are the exact reason I find water treatment to be so intimidating.

PPM: Parts per million: So if you have 1 million litres of beer, remove 1 litre and add 1 litre of something you now have 1 ppm!

ml/Litre: A mililitre is one thousance of a litre so 1 mL/Litre is 1000 ppm

if you are really small and using micro litres then:

1uL/L equals 1 ppm

HTH! Will

Haha thanks Will. No it wasn't so much I didn't understand their meanings, more the fact that I upon reading the masses of information on water treatment I couldn't discern what I needed to do from theory into practicality.  To bring my x to Y ppm and I need to use z ml to balance whatever.

In fact, thanks to a few on here I played around with the "water profile tool" in Beersmith and it's actually surprisingly easy. I put in my closest local water profile in Dublin and a target of a hoppy IPA water profile, selected the water amount and it added all the amounts of Calcium Carbonate, Gypsum, etc.

This has certainly taken any confusion out if the process and hopefully I shall notice a difference next brew.

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[dcalnan]

I need to get some acids for my mash additions, looking at calculators now my mash pH has been too high, looking forward to getting the new pH meter.

[mr hoppy]

D your water is low in Calcium. Try adding calcium chloride or sulfate. It should help with ph and it's also important for yeast.


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[wallacebiy]

I need to get some acids for my mash additions, looking at calculators now my mash pH has been too high, looking forward to getting the new pH meter.

Reduce your initial water quantity to achieve pH in the mash .
Or adjust your grain bill , e.g , when brewing stout , increase the amount of Roast Barley .


To all those arguing that the flavour profile of the beer is improved with water chemistry additions , the same can be achieved by varying the ingredients and or water/grist ratio .
In my opinion that's a better route for small batch brewing .

[Leann ull]

It sounds like an interesting technique, but surely you are sacrificing flavour by ingredient manipulation?
I'm gonna stick to using cheap water additions and use whatever ingredients I want

[mr hoppy]

Acid malt?


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[Leann ull]

Yep it's on the link in table 3 of that other thread

[wallacebiy]

It sounds like an interesting technique, but surely you are sacrificing flavour by ingredient manipulation?
I'm gonna stick to using cheap water additions and use whatever ingredients I want

You'll learn alot more about brewing by going the ingredient / mash dilution / sparge additions route .
You will also likely get far more flavour , and more interesting beers .

It's how the different styles of beer actually evolved . Water differed from place to place so brewers experimented with their ingredients and brewing techniques until they found the most efficient
ingredient mix for the local water ( thus creating a style ) when attempting to recreate a style from one place in another , a different set of ingredients would be the most efficient , creating regional variation and sub styles .
One of the things I love so much about beer .

In modern times , when brewing under licence, water profile manipulation is used to recreate a style , with the same ingredient efficiency and mash profile . it's usually a thing like
" what do we add / subtract from our own water profile to get it like the water in X city when we're brewing " not all BUL beers will actually get that much attention though .
Miller brewed in Beamish was a vastly different beer to what you get now around the place . They weren't really bothered in there with water additions .
A few smaller breweries, who may have inconsistent
public water supply and not enough clout with their L.A to get it sorted have gone down the route of R.O. water treatment in house , which to be fair leaves you with nothing in your water really
so you then Have to do additions anyway ( otherwise you'll just get nothing out of your beers ) so they get to play around with water profiles a lot more than most . 
Personally I don't think it's necessary at Homebrew batch sizes , but if you're having success with it , that's fine .

[Archsnapper]

I have brewed the same recipe three times over a six month period according to my original log sheet, the last being during the summer. That last one turned out very different. It was a SNPA clone but came out harshly bitter. Given that my ingredients came fresh from the suppliers and I did exactly the same brewing method, I suspect water is the culprit. So I joined the group buy for a pH kit.
Am I correct that we can't get a water analysis from Irish Water? Equally, because I'm in Skerries, north Fingal, I suspect I receive water from two sources with the volume from each dependent on local weather conditions - Leixlip and the Bog of the Ring. Therefore, because of that variability going to the expense of a private water analysis would prove useless.
Did I also read that the aquarium kits are basically useless? Finally, am I correct in thinking that when I use my pH meter on the mash, I will then be shooting in the dark with gypsum, epsom salts, calcium chloride - or maybe CRS or even - 5.2. Brad Smith says to use 5.2. What do people think?

[Leann ull]

Imark will confirm leixlip is all over the place. Aquarium kits are a good way to get a ref point.
Commercially to have your water analysed it could be 80-100!

[Slev]

I fired off an email enquiring about a price for the following : http://www.lamotte-europe.com/products.php?id=16.

It looks like a pretty good test kit. I saw someone on a uk site quote £168 for the kit, but that the kit is viable for up to 5 years, with plenty of chemicals for testing included. it is pricey, but it could be an idea for a few folk to group together and purchase. could profile your water over a 12 month period.

I have seen m brungard on HBT, say that the salifert kits are useful (and they are alot cheaper). And I've seen folks here and elsewhere compare their results with these kits and professional water analysis favourably.

[johnrm]

I heard about the iDip on a Beersmith podcast.
Wireless jobbie that syncs with your smart phone...
Http://itseurope.co.uk/shop/smart-brew-standard-kit/