Water Treatment

[stquinto]

G'day fellow brewers,

For those of you who go into more details with their brews, or who go for AG brews, how many of you treat your water ? I haven't bothered so far, but all of the recipes in the Brew Father app have details about addititives to put in.

Since I now have some scales that go down to the 1/100 if a gram, I could do so. Do many of you bother ?

Cheers !

[Shamus O'Sean]

1 hour ago, stquinto said:

G'day fellow brewers,

For those of you who go into more details with their brews, or who go for AG brews, how many of you treat your water ? I haven't bothered so far, but all of the recipes in the Brew Father app have details about addititives to put in.

Since I now have some scales that go down to the 1/100 if a gram, I could do so. Do many of you bother ?

Cheers !

I do.  My water in Melbourne is pretty soft.  So a good starting point for most brews.

I don't know much about it though.  Other than selecting my source water and the Target Profile and making the additions that Brewfather recommends.

Does it make a difference?  No idea.  Are my beers still okay?  Sure.

[kmar92]

I think that water is very important for brewers, I would do more with my profiles if I could get a good analysis of my town water. So not knowing what that analysis is I use RO water, I am still not sure of what that RO water looks like chemically but it does give me a consistent base water I guess. 

[ozdevil]

getting you analysis   of your water   is pretty easy and free  , but the water company are not obligated to tell you, NSW waterboard is the best i have seen for  water analysis as they freely give this out on there website for homebrewers

the other way is you pay someone to get the analysis...    

RO  water is great as it gives you a clean water profile. RO water is my next investment    planning on  5 stage ro filter with pump

like you @kmar92  water is important part for brewing  . i dont think people have to rush out and worry about it when they are starting out

currently   i am just using a caravan filter that gets rid of chlorine and chloromine (probably  leaves a bit behind)









 

[Classic Brewing Co]

I use a Pura Tap for all of my brewing water & will continue to when using the AG system, even the sparge water. Pura Tap claim their filters remove a lot of nasties so that's good enough for me

A Puratap has been scientifically proven to remove a significant number of chemicals from your water, including 99.9% of the chemicals listed below.  Testing from the Australian Water Quality Centre has certified that a Puratap can remove chlorine, chloroform, herbicides, pesticides and trihalomethanes amongst other things.  Our pre-sediment filter will also remove dust, algae, rust and other undissolved particles.  We dont want to bore you, and to be honest, the testing results are hard to read!  But if you have more questions please call us and we can make sure we give you the information you require.

[Journeyman]

On 3/25/2022 at 10:05 PM, kmar92 said:

I think that water is very important for brewers, I would do more with my profiles if I could get a good analysis of my town water. So not knowing what that analysis is I use RO water, I am still not sure of what that RO water looks like chemically but it does give me a consistent base water I guess. 

I have a 'remineraliser' after the membrane to add back in essential minerals. I read a paper that looked at what RO purity can do to the liver and kidneys - it may not apply to beer nor to anyone with a healthy diet but 90% of people do NOT have a healthy diet these days and RO can leave essentials out of liver and kidneys as they both need things like calcium and magnesium to function properly.

So I add it back in anyway, even though my deit IS healthy.

On 3/26/2022 at 6:34 AM, ozdevil said:

RO  water is great as it gives you a clean water profile. RO water is my next investment    planning on  5 stage ro filter with pump

I'm not sure why you need a pump. Mains pressure is fine to push through the membrane and adding a pump may just destroy the membrane in short order.

Unless you mean to pump the water OUT of an RO collection tank?

I got my system on eBay - for about $150 or so I got the 5 filters, & the remineraliser - I already had a 9L tank under the sink from the previous set. I went the new lot because a 4 filter setup from a place in QLD cost me north of $400 - it was much cheaper to buy a whole new setup than just replace filters from there.

Might want to step up from the 50gpd versions though - I got a 75gpd and wish I'd gone for the 100gpd but the flow rate is noticeably better than the previous set up.

[ozdevil]

13 minutes ago, Journeyman said:

I have a 'remineraliser' after the membrane to add back in essential minerals. I read a paper that looked at what RO purity can do to the liver and kidneys - it may not apply to beer nor to anyone with a healthy diet but 90% of people do NOT have a healthy diet these days and RO can leave essentials out of liver and kidneys as they both need things like calcium and magnesium to function properly.

So I add it back in anyway, even though my deit IS healthy.

I'm not sure why you need a pump. Mains pressure is fine to push through the membrane and adding a pump may just destroy the membrane in short order.

Unless you mean to pump the water OUT of an RO collection tank?

I got my system on eBay - for about $150 or so I got the 5 filters, & the remineraliser - I already had a 9L tank under the sink from the previous set. I went the new lot because a 4 filter setup from a place in QLD cost me north of $400 - it was much cheaper to buy a whole new setup than just replace filters from there.

Might want to step up from the 50gpd versions though - I got a 75gpd and wish I'd gone for the 100gpd but the flow rate is noticeably better than the previous set up.

The pump into collection tank which will be the brew tank or jerry cans

[Otto Von Blotto]

I do. I start with distilled water so I can make any type of profile I like, except for one or two recipes that I've found to be their best with untreated tap water. 

Originally I started doing it for pilsners to recreate the soft water profile that suits them best, and early on I did an experiment batch of that beer making it with tap water which confirmed my hunch that the softer water made a better beer. After a while I decided to extend to doing this for most other batches as well. It definitely makes a difference. 

Edited March 28, 2022 by Otto Von Blotto

[ozdevil]

7 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I do. I start with distilled water so I can make any type of profile I like, except for one or two recipes that I've found to be their best with untreated tap water. 

Originally I started doing it for pilsners to recreate the soft water profile that suits them best, and early on I did an experiment batch of that beer making it with tap water which confirmed my hunch that the softer water made a better beer. After a while I decided to extend to doing this for most other batches as well. It definitely makes a difference. 

how you getting your distilled water   ?  i would have thought that would be an expensive way of doing it .  mind you i buy heaps of distilled water  for my  cpap  but to brew batch with distilled water  would be costly

 

[kmar92]

@ozdevil you can buy a distiller and they are not that expensive, but they are also not fast to produce distilled water and yes they are expensive to operate as they are like a big kettle that has to run for a fair amount of time to produce a larger quantity of distilled water, they will produce about 1l of distilled water per hour.

[ozdevil]

4 minutes ago, kmar92 said:

@ozdevil you can buy a distiller and they are not that expensive, but they are also not fast to produce distilled water and yes they are expensive to operate as they are like a big kettle that has to run for a fair amount of time to produce a larger quantity of distilled water, they will produce about 1l of distilled water per hour.

yes i understand you could by a distiller   alot of people who have sleep apnea use them for the cpap water.

just didnt think they would be worth the hassle of collecting   x amount of water for brewing with

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

12 hours ago, ozdevil said:

how you getting your distilled water   ?  i would have thought that would be an expensive way of doing it .  mind you i buy heaps of distilled water  for my  cpap  but to brew batch with distilled water  would be costly

 

Like Kmar says I have a distiller and just make it myself. It usually takes about a week to fill a 25 litre cube, but I only run it during the day so it uses the solar power to run off. Normally I make enough for 3 batches. 

The way I saw it when I started on it, it was a lot simpler than trying to soften the tap water using other methods. There may be better options now I could invest in, but I don't mind the way I do it. 

[ben 10]

On 3/25/2022 at 8:12 PM, stquinto said:

Do many of you bother ?

Did, don't anymore apart from removing the chlorine. chloramine