Water Treatment for AG Brewing

[Almanac]

Browsing through my library of bits and pieces I've collected over the past 5 years I came across a number of notes on the subject of water composition and what is ideal for all grain brewing.

When you think of it the humble tap water supplied by your local authority is probably not what's used by better breweries of real beers.

Most of my notes were accumulated from expert all grain brewers and then consigned to the box of things I must get to sometime - when I have time

Anyway, as I'm preparing for some AG activity I looked for my past notes on previous AG ferments and came across my water notes.

After reading through 60 odd pages of such information I decided to compile a short guide to water treatment to get the best from your grains and here it is.

Water Treatment Web.pdf

Hopefully some will find it useful.

AM

[Anavrin]

Thanks AM

Not had time to fully digest it yet but I've just printed if off for some Friday reading :-)

[Boozoid]

Awesome job, thats the most concise pamphlet I've ever read on the subject. So easy to follow

Thanks

[Anavrin]

Have look at this water treatment calculator, it's very complicated and there's lots of notes to read to fully understand it but if you can get the info from your water utility company and want to get really technical it's all here http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water/water.html

It was produced by a chap you might have heard off called Graham Wheeler, as far a AG brewing goes, it's fair to say he wrote the book on it

[Almanac]

It was precisely because of that type of over-complication that I prepared my simple summary that covers what is actually necessary. But, some people like complicated, convoluted solutions to simple things...go figure

AM

[Anavrin]

I agree with you AM, the calculator I linked needs a brewer with a degree in chemistry or has nothing better to do with their time once Jeremy Kyle's finished, the complexity puts most people off.

In the past I've just added a teaspoon of DLS to the mash just to make it feel like I was doing some sort of water treatment.

I have a pond with a few fish and so have some water test strips, I'm definately going to get one out, test my tap water and follow your guide next time I get an AG mash going

[Anavrin]

After reading aidanmac simple guide I couldn't resist getting my test kit out and having a look at what my tap water contains, my kit reads directly in parts per million so no need for any conversion and if anyone here lives close to me on the Fylde Coast, there's a good chance you'll have the same level of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) in your water.




My water CaCO3 value reads 80ppm

[Almanac]

Mine's the same but the removal of half of the Carbonate really does make a difference to the end result.

Although this was aimed primarily at AG brewing for distillation the same principles apply to sugar washes in terms of enabling the yeast cells to flourish and complete their job.

AM

[Icefever]

I emailed my water company asking for a test result on ours, they were very helpful sending me all info I needed, also how to find any up to date results on their website.

[Boozoid]

If you goto

http://www.unitedutilities.com/home-customer-my-water.aspx


and type your postcode in you can obtain a fairly detailed water report.

[YHB]

Tried my post code and got this message.

"Sorry - There is no water quality information available for that postcode. Please try an alternative postcode."

Don't know which "alternative" post code to use - Scotland? Cornwall?

Sorry if I sound negative - just developing a good dose of flue.

[Easydrinker]

Do you live in their supply area?
Robert.

[YHB]

Do you live in their supply area?
Robert.

It never asked me that!

First symptom of man flu - common sense and logic go out of the window.

[Magnu420]

this is what i get and im lost to it but apart from its very soft water

Analysis Typical Value UK/EU limit Units
Hardness Level Very Soft
Hardness Clarke 2.100 Clarke
Aluminium <12.7 200 µg Al/l
Calcium 9.40 mg Ca/l
Residual chlorine - Total 0.68 mg/l
Residual chlorine - Free 0.57 mg/l
Coliform bacteria 0 0 number/100ml
Colour <1.14 20 mg/l Pt/Co scale
Conductivity 143 2500 uS/cm at 20oC
Copper 0.0190 2 mg Cu/l
E.coli 0 0 number/100ml
Iron <19.3 200 µg Fe/l
Lead <0.733 10 µg Pb/l
Magnesium 1.74 mg Mg/l
Manganese <0.608 50 µg Mn/l
Nitrate 2.11 50 mg NO3/l
Sodium 19.1 200 mg Na/l

[Almanac]

These sort of reports have little value for our purposes. I can't find any useful information in them either

AM