Water chemistry variability

I have worked a little bit with LaMotte kits for doing water chemistry and soil chemistry in environmental science classes I used to teach to high school and college students. I never worked with the brewing kit, but imagine it is comparable to the ones that I used. One of the intended lessons learned for the exercises is that different methods have different sensitivities and errors. In the case of the LaMotte kits we used, a lot of the error was the imprecision of a drop and judging color and interpolating between two color standards. I did teach one class where we had a spectrophotometer that we could use in conjunction with the kit reagents and a known standard. I had lots more confidence in those numbers. While you are not going to produce research grade results with most unmodified LaMotte kits, I bet they would still be pretty useful for evaluating brewing water chemistry, where accuracy in the +/- 10-20 ppm range should be fine.

Although I am I have some chemist in me, I do not fancy the idea of doing lots of chem tests to evaluate my water. If I knew my water chemistry changed regularly, building up from RO or store-bought distilled would be mymy approach. In fact, my new house has very minerally tasting well water. I'll probably adopt this strategy anyway.

 

I wasn't able to get a hold of a chemist at the Water facility, but left a message for him to call me back. I'll be asking if I can get a monthly water report for the last two years, up to and including the most recent on file.

The woman I talked to who gave me the previous info, didn't have access to that info, but she made it seem like I should be able to get it from one of the chemists.

Now, based on pweis909's response, I should think that similar accuracy could be achieved from both approaches, with one being quite a bit cheaper (free).

Just something to consider.

 

My town apparently doesnt even have this kind of information. I called the water department, spoke with a guy, we exchanged a few emails, and he sent me what he could(which wasnt much!) and he suggested I send samples out to a private company to get it tested.... thats really weird, my towns pretty big, youd think they would have something like this. I know we have hard water, because we use water softening salts. I think they make the water taste like shit, so I bypass the water softener and use the "hard" water. Beer comes out good. We also bypass the softener for water to make coffee with, and it tastes so much better that way.
Ive thought about getting the water tested, or doing the build your own water with distilled stuff, but Im not really too worried about it. Some of these posts do make me wonder if my beer could get more hop flavor from using different water.... 6 oz in the last 5 gal batch and the hop flavor that I thought itd have just isnt there (SMaSH Maris Otter and Mosaic hops) Im gonna make another SMaSH using probably all Columbus and if I dont get in your face hop flavor Ill try the same recipe again using the distillled store water plus salts and stuff.
Do any of you use water softener salt-water to brew?

 

Minneapolis has a central water softening plant. So all of our water is softened, but I don't have individually softened water.

 

I just dont like the taste of my water once its been softened. I figure that would carry over to the beer. The last time I used the softened water to brew was probably 4 years ago, and I cant remember what it tasted like. Is it a general rule that softer water = more hop flavor? I should really just learn about water, but what I have read so far kinda puts me to sleep. I need to find a good youtube vid on water chemistry.

 

I don't think any video is going to do it. I'd start here...
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/water-knowledge

Also, utahbeerdude's papers on mash pH (though not about water flavor per se) are excellent...
http://homebrewingphysics.blogspot.com/

 

Hardness is actually beneficial to brewing, as that is Ca and Mg. Softeners remove Ca and Mg, replacing witness Na which gives high sodium values. Softeners don't do much to reduce alkalinity. Most of the Midwest had alkaline water.

You need to know the water and what to do about it to make excellent beer.

 

it is possible. the problem can be that a water softener will remove virtually all of the mineral content. good. if the water is alkaline to begin with, you have removed the buffering capability. bad. softeners do not reduce the alkalinity. brewing with alkaline water should be avoided.

Cheers.

 

Heres what the guy from the water company sent me. Does this have enough info to tell me if my waters good enough for brewing good beer or if not, what I should add to it? Going off of other peoples water reports Ive seen posted on here, this isnt enough info... if anyone can give me any kind of insight, I would be sooo grateful. Thanks! I hope you can see it clear enough. Its a .pdf and I didnt know how to convert it to a jpeg without doin the ole print screen trick.

 

Here are the numbers you need:
Ca
Na
Cl
Mg
SO4
HCO3
pH

 

Yeah, isnt that an odd water report? Thankfully my Dad works in a lab and is gonna test our water for me. Thanks for those specs!

 

That is hard and alkaline water, not too much different from mine, and fairly typical if ground water in the Midwest.

I gave up on my water and use RO.

 

To the OP. As hopfenunmalz points out, your water is indeed very alkaline. I probably wouldn't even mess with having it tested. RO + salt treatment (+ acid malt when necessary) is your best route.

 

My beer tastes really good and malty/yeasty in the end product using this water, its just the hops are nowhere to be found. I mean 6 oz in a 5 gal batch should be pretty noticeable. (all Maris Otter and Mosaic I made two 5 gallon batches, same way, one with WLP002, and one with1056 and made starters for both.) 1 oz at 60, 15 10 5 0 and whirlpool. I didnt cold crash or do much in the way of filtering out stuff that coulda been in the fermentor, my siphon was broke so I just attached a hose to the spigot on the bucket and put it in kegs and bottles that way. The stuff in the bottles, even after keeping it in the ridge for a long time, all the yeast settled out but its still rather cloudy/opaque. Both bottles and kegs are nice and malty, but theres is just so little hop flavor Im disappointed in them. Couple of ideas:
1. I had them in sort of too small hop bags (I made them out of cheesecloth and string) But I did squeeze them on one of the 5 gal batches.
2. The hops are weak. (which I doubt because when I was making the bags it smelled up the whole house and also put a couple pellets in some strong chai tea and it was quite bitter and good)
3. Maybe the water has something to do with it?
4. My dad offers that he thinks theres too much yeast in it covering up the hops. My argument against that is the bottled version where all the yeast had settled out and they taste the same.

Its no big deal getting my water tested, my dad is a lab manager and thats what he does all day anyway and doesnt mind helpin out. Plus its fun to learn stuff. I like to save money any way I can, and if that means just buying a few items to rebuild my water instead of buying water and then building that I can save a few pennies. That little shit adds up. Just for fun I might just add a campden tablet and or some gypsum in one 5 gal batch and then make a similar one without using those and see what happens. But Ill probably get my water tested and make the necessary changes once that is done. No use wasting another 6 to 8 ozs of glorius hops if I wont be able to taste them.

 

The problem with hard water is that you usually need to remove things, not add. And that means RO filtering and/or diluting with RO/Distilled water.

 

Have your dad give the water analysis, which is very good to have as a resource.

Read this. Read it again. Read it until it all makes sense. Get a pH meter. Make seriously good beer.
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/water-knowledge

 

Water pH is nice to know, but it is not worth much for brewing, as the buffering capacity of the water in the mash is what counts.

 

I wish I could just shoot all that info into my brain lol. Im going to make it a point to read all of it. Its important. Its like math though, while I may be decent at it, it just bores me. Gotta force myself or be in a certain mood to digest it, ya know?

 

Once again I'm the voice of insanity here. Because our rural water co-op gets it's water from different wells, the mineral content varies on a fairly irregular basis. Early in my homebrewing career I knew that something was happening because recipes didn't turn out as described. Not having access to internet forums I never had a clue water was important so I just adjusted my recipes until my beer tasted right. I'm not going to drive to town and buy 25 gallons of RO water(10 gallon batch), that's absurd when I can just add some more hops and call it good.
If I was a commercial brewer and absolute consistency was critical I'd worry more, but I'm a homebrewer having a good time not obsessing over details.