Water Adjustments

[imark]

Thanks Dr Jacoby. I was misinterpreting my water report. I was reminded of the talk you gave at brewcon. I plugged my water report into brunwater and after several years of trying to get my head round this I think the penny has finally dropped.

[Dr Jacoby]

I have the slides from the talk if you'd like to take a look again. PM your email if you're interested.   

[Motorbikeman]

Soft water is usually good for any pale beer, ales included. When you include darker malts, especially roasted malts, you usually need to offset the acidity of the malts plus the low buffering potential of the soft water with some baking soda or chalk.

Thanks.   But when you say adjust, is there any particular measure.
As you are on the same water main as myself, how much baking soda would you use for a 25l batch?

Has anyone used    Tesco Perthshire water?   pH 6.2       and 1.50euro for a gallon.

[armedcor]

I dunno. Since I've started adjusting water and primarily adding gypsum to hop forward beers they've been turning out much much better, The hops which used to be very muted now actually shine through. There's much more aroma and flavour.

It just goes along with everything I've read on water adjustment as well.

[Dr Jacoby]

Thanks.   But when you say adjust, is there any particular measure.  As you are on the same water main as myself, how much baking soda would you use for a 25l batch?

Cue unsatisfying answer: it depends...on what malts you are using, the grain to water ratio, what pH you actually want to settle on, how much salt you are happy to include in the beer etc.

If I were brewing a stout I'd probably use from 5 to 10 grams of baking soda, but I use a lot of water in my mashes so your mileage might differ. A tsp wouldn't see you too far off I reckon. Give it a go and see how it turns out 

[Dr Jacoby]

I dunno. Since I've started adjusting water and primarily adding gypsum to hop forward beers they've been turning out much much better, The hops which used to be very muted now actually shine through. There's much more aroma and flavour.

It just goes along with everything I've read on water adjustment as well.

Gypsum is great for hoppy beers in terms of flavour etc. I was talking about pH control in the mash. You can add gypsum to the boil for flavour if you like.

edit: just to clarify, you can use gypsum to lower the pH in the mash if you need to, and since it introduces calcium it has other benefits too. I've often just used gypsum in hoppy beers for pH control.

[armedcor]

I get ya. I mean I only started doing water adjustments and ph control when I had my water tested so I'm sure it's all a contributing factor!

[molc]

For my hoppy beers I'm just putting in gypsum and calcium chloride until my ph is good and I gave a so4/cl ratio around 1.8. Is that enough for now or am I doing something silly?

[Dr Jacoby]

That's fine. Roughly how much of each are you adding?

[garciaBernal]

Sorry for interrupting but where is the best place to get a full water report preferably in Ireland? Sorry for the slight hijack. Thanks.

[Dr Jacoby]

I got a few from the HSE in my area but I'd recommend you get diy test kits for calcium and alkalinity. Water reports only give you a snap shot. Regular testing will tell you how stable your supply is

[molc]

That's fine. Roughly how much of each are you adding?

I use Bru water, but no  more than 2g of each on 20L of water.

Also, generally, keep an eye out for group buys on the water testing. There were rumours of looking to do it about every 6 months last time we were getting them done, which would have one coming up in the spring/summer...