There are a few different programs out there to help you treat your water. But figuring out the right amounts of lactic acid, calcium chloride, gypsum, and any other minerals requires some advanced chemistry OR some very handy software. Water Treatment SoftwareĬampden tablets are pretty easy, half a tablet for 10 gallons and you’re good. It’s the higher sulfates in water from Burton-Upon-Trent that helped give the area the edge on IPAs back in the day. Sulfates are important for accentuating hop bitterness. We’ve already talked about what calcium does for beer above. From everything I’ve read and everyone I’ve talked to this is the last most common thing to add after Campden tablets, lactic acid, and Calcium Chloride. Gypsum ( Amazon), aka calcium sulfate, raises the calcium and the sulfate. So next time you’re low on calcium chloride before a brew and it’s about to snow just scrape some off the street. Photo credit to Maury Markowitzįun non-beer fact: Many places use this to pre-treat roads for ice. Calcium Chloride sprayed on the flat part of the road to prevent icing. Meanwhile, the chloride helps boost flavor and fullness, so don’t use too much if you’re going for a thinner bodied style. However, too much will lead to poor hop utilization so be careful. Calcium also has the added benefit of lowering your pH. Calcium is good in the mash to help enzyme and protein reactions for malt forward beers. Calcium ChlorideĬalcium chloride ( order it from Amazon) bumps up both the calcium levels and the chloride levels. Just add a few drops to the mash water before adding the grain and you’ll bet set. Again, available on Amazon or any local homebrew supply store. To get to your target pH you can add roasted grains, acidulated malt, or more commonly, a few milliliters of 88% lactic acid. The goal is somewhere between 5.2 and 5.6 pH. If your pH is too high or too low that conversion won’t happen properly. The mash is one of the most crucial steps in brewing because it converts the sugar in the grain into a form that can easily be eaten by yeast. Lactic AcidĪfter getting rid of chlorine getting your mash in the right pH range is the most important thing you can do for your water. The following applies mainly to all grain brewing and mashing. If you are brewing extract batches of beer or extract + steeping grains you can feel free to stop here. You can pick them up on Amazon for pretty cheap and any homebrew store worth their name should have it in stock. Luckily, to remove chlorine you can pre-boil it, leave it out overnight, or just add about a half a Campden tablet for 10 gallons of beer. From what I have seen all municipal water sources have some chlorine or chloramine in it and that absolutely must come out if you want to make a half decent beer. If you’re using tap water this is the first thing you should do. There are many minerals and salts you can add to alter your water profile, I’m going to take a quick look at the most common ones. This is also the upside to RO or distilled water as they’re basically a blank slate. This means you really need to know your water profile before going further. Comparing all those reports there are some 20 ppm swings in certain minerals that would change what you needed to add to hit certain profiles. Bromley also shared water reports from Northern Kentucky that he had done every 6 months for 2 years. All water can be slightly different even in different parts of Cincinnati and it will very likely change somewhat throughout the year. One of the problems with water treatment is that there is no single Right Answer. Thanks to for sharing this water report from Erlanger, KY. If you can’t find your local water report or if you want to be exactly sure what’s in there you can send a sample to Ward Labs for testing. Many water districts will give you a water report, though it may not contain all the brewing related info you need. Luckily, Cincinnati and the surrounding area has pretty good tap water to brew with, after you remove the chlorine. There are three main sources, your tap, buying reverse osmosis (RO) water, or buying distilled water. The most important thing to know about your water is where it’s coming from. If I misstate something please leave a comment and I’ll get it corrected.įirst off, if you don’t homebrew and just like enjoying beer, but are still curious about beer and water you should read my previous post where I talked to local Cincinnati breweries about their water treatment. I will say now, some of this may be wrong, but it’s the best I can understand now and I’m relatively confident that it is correct. What follows is my best attempt to share what I have learned. What started with a free book for renewing my American Homebrew Association membership has turned into a two-month long quest to learn about homebrew water treatment.
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