Water Types and Effects of All Grains

UberUrbock · Joined: 04 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

0.75g per pound of water?!

water weighs 8.33 lbs per gallon...I thought I read in the thread that you were shooting for 0.75 to 1 g/gallon.

so it would seem you added 6.24g/gallon!

am i reading that right,,,,???

cleone · Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:53 pm

You are correct, it was .75g per gallon! Sorry for the typo.

BillyBock · Moderator Joined: 31 Dec 2000 Posts: 561 Location: Ohio

It means that the chalk won't dissolve in plain water without some help from an acid. So you'll want to add it in your mash tun since that's an acidic environment. It doesn't matter whether you add it with dry grain first before striking or afterwards--in either case just make sure it's mixed in.

As far as the liquor tank, if you don't acidify that water, it does pose a problem. In these cases, before sparging I added the chalk addition to the mash tun and then started the sparge--figured that would be close enough.

UberUrbock · Joined: 04 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

I generally use a bit of food grade phosphoric acid to get the Ph right before I sparge.

cleone · Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 10:33 am

This thread is a little old. Taking the advice learned on this thread, have found the following additions (for soft water) to be effective for my brews:

Porter: 1g per gal of chalk (to simulate Dublin/high bicarbonate water). This seems to smooth out the bitterness of the darker malts.

German Styles: .5g gypsum per gal and .5g chalk (to simulate Munich water)

I am sure everyone has their favorite additions, but these have been working well for me.

Chris

DixMay · Joined: 04 May 2009 Posts: 1

[quote="BillyBock"]Your water is soft. According to [url]www.bottledwaterweb.com[/url], your water's analysis is:

Bicarbonates: 7.2 - 20 PPM
Calcium: 3.7 - 8.2 PPM
Flouride: 0.2 PPM
Magnesium: 0.76 - 1.4 PPM
Potassium: 0.59 - 0.7 PPM
Sulfates: 0.81 - 5.1 PPM
Sodium: 2.4 - 4.7 PPM
Total Dissolved Solids: 26 - 60 Mg/l *(except TDS which are parts per million)
Other Principal Components: Nitrate: 0.13 - 0.75 PPM, Chlo PPM

Remember that addition of different ions will provide different flavor results--so ask yourself what it is you think should be different in the beer and pick the salts to help you get that flavor profile.

Also remember, it's the specific ion-load of the water when mixed with a specific grain bill that determines the resulting mash pH. Therefore it's difficult to generalize 'spring water is better than purified water' or vice-versa.

Are you having problems with proper mash pH? What kinds of beers are you making?[/quote]
I think that is a good idea for some water purification at poland...

Smile