Water

[David Jones]

Since water is an ingredient typically used in brewing [citation needed] I thought it would be a good idea to share this resource for those trying to adjust their water profiles.

North Texas Municipal Water District provides monthly water quality reports that include mineral analysis relevant to brewing here https://www.ntmwd.com/water-quality-reports/. These are average values, but I am not sure where in the system the samples are taken. Please note that NTMWD uses chloramine as a disinfectant, so it is probably a good idea to pretreat your brewing water with sodium metabisulfite or potassium metabisulfite since charcoal filters typically do not remove all of the chloramine. The values very month to month (as can be seen in the attached image), but this will at least get you into the ballpark for what is in your brewing water.

If anyone has additional water resources, please add them to this thread.

Also, what mineral additions does everyone like to use and why? I have only used gypsum and calcium chloride but am curious what other brewers have tried.

[James Smith]

Ideally, know where your water originates from. Your report is Wylie's treatment plant, but there are others along with other water districts. I also happen to get my water from Wylie's treatment plant and if you are in the DFW area AND on NTMWD water, this is the likely source.

I use RO water and add salts to build the desired profile based on the water profile tool in BeerSmith, including:

• Calcium chloride
• Gypsum(calcium sulfate)
• Epsom salt
• Baking soda
• Sodium

Chalk is useless IMO. Even though I use RO water, I still add about a half campden tablet for insurance.

[Jimmy Orkin]

Water treatment is 2nd Order or higher skill to learn in brewing. New brewers should focus on using chlorine free water.

The following two images are results from a testing lab, to understand what the mineral content was after Reverse Osmosis. My take away was about 95% of the minerals are removed with RO.

When you are ready to active water treatment, I believe you must leverage either utilize RO (or distilled) water or have a test kit that can measure the important ions in your water at time of brewing to make adjustments.

These reports are from 2008. The RO water was from a Culligan RO machine in my local Walmart. I now use a Windmill water place or a water place called Aqua Bella. I always use a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter to check the water I get. Sometimes I use my swimming pool test kit to analyze my brewing water.

Plain city water:

Carrollton City Water.png (22.69 KiB) Viewed 552 times

After RO:

Carrollton RO Water.png (24.1 KiB) Viewed 552 times

[Jimmy Orkin]

Looking at the RO analysis, I see the RO had TDS of 25. I now expect my RO water to have TDS in the low single digits.

[David Jones]

The table I included is for the Wylie treatment plant, if you follow the length then you can see the Tawakoni and bonham treatment plant reports. I checked with Dallas Water utilities and their water quality report does not include secondary contaminants that are relevant to brewers.

I build my water with a mixture of RO and municipal water. Using 100 percent RO for light beers and 100 percent municipal for dark beers with most beers somewhere in the middle. I do not see the point in adding alkalinity to distilled/RO water when tap water has adequate buffering capacity to prevent the mash Ph dropping too low. I am curious if adding sodium and/or magnesium would make a meaningful difference in the finished product.

I use Brewfather for my water chemistry since that is the program, I use to build my recipes, so it contains the relevant malt and water volume information. I would also recommend the tools available for free in Brewer’s Friend or the Bru’n Water spreadsheet created by Martin Brungard. A simple means to buildup water from distilled or RO water would be to follow the table found in the Anvil Foundry manual. I used the suggestions this table the first time I started caring about my water for an adjunct pseudo lager with good results.

I agree that brewing with tap water treated for chloramine will result in good beer and is the method most new brewers should take, but making mineral adjustments is not as complicated as I originally thought.

[Steve Littel]

I am going to be brewing a Vienna Lager using Kirkland Purified (RO) water. At the meeting I talked to a few of you regarding necessary additions. However, it was more of a general discussion and not specifics for brew day. Anyone have any specific recommendations (type/amounts) for a Vienna style lager using Kirklands Purified/RO water?
1st all grain effort; 4lb Munich, 3lbs Vienna, 3lb Maris Otter and 3oz Chocolate malt. .5oz Nugget and .75oz Hallertau Mitt Hops and WLP 833 Bavarian Bock yeast.

[Jimmy Orkin]

I would go with Amber Balanced from Bru'n Water.

Calcium: 50.00 ppm
Sulfate: 75.00 ppm
Magnesium: 10.00 ppm
Chloride: 63.00 ppm
Sodium: 15.00 ppm
(Bicarbonate: 40.00 ppm, I do not use Bicarbonate for my Ph control. Instead I control my Ph with Phosphoric acid. So, for me, I would set Bicarbonate to zero)

I also have some food grade sodium hydroxide if I need to raise Ph but I have never used it. That means I have never needed to raise my Ph. I use a Milwaukee MW102 Ph meter.

I am using Bru'n Water generic profiles for all beers now.

[James Smith]

I also have some food grade sodium hydroxide if I need to raise Ph but I have never used it. That means I have never needed to raise my Ph.

Make pretzels!

[David Jones]

I frequently use "Costco Purified Water with Minerals added for Taste" at one point I found a water quality report that listed these values for the minerals.

Calcium: 2.69 ppm
Magnesium: 0.11 ppm
Chloride: 6.29 ppm
Sodium: 2.43 ppm
Bicarbonate: 12.50 ppm

These are average values.