Effects of water used in beer?

[Fifey]

Probably a complex question, but how does water hardness and pH affect the beer during the brewing process, and how does it alter the properties of the beer at the end?

Since moving the brewery to it's new location in my mate's shed/man cave we have been hedging our bets and using roughly 50/50 hard, limestone layer bore water and rain water.

Also, before posting I tried figuring out affect/effect. It's a bit bloody difficult!

[hirns]

Palmer's How to Brew.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15.html

If you have not already read it.

Cheers

Hirns

[Fifey]

Thanks! That's probably stickied somewhere obvious, right?

[Tipsy]

I've just started brewing with rain water and have been using the assumption that it is soft.

I think it will be a few brews until I decide if I'm right or not.

[rotten]

I'm using good filtered town water with great results. Any filtered water would be an improvement at least.
Cheers

[bullfrog]

Do know that there is a difference between filtering and treating. Water treatment will greatly alter the condition of the water and if we're getting to the point where we care about our mash mineral and pH levels, then we should really find out exactly what is in the water and how we should go about altering it. Some municipal water treatment centres will charge for a report of what's in the water, but some don't. It's worth enquiring in any case as I found that although my local mob were supposed to charge me, the bloke I chatted to was more than willing to just email me the results free-of-charge.

[rotten]

Noted - but if I can't taste it or change it, it matters not to me.
Cheers

[bullfrog]

Yeah, that's why I said "if we're getting to the point where we care..."

It's never been a massive deal to me and I often forget to add minerals to the mash to alter things. Still make beer and it's damn drinkable! Justknow that some people take some parts of their brewing more seriously than others so thought that that tidbit of info could help someone.

[speedie]

does that make sense to you fifey?
is there a reason why you are blending scheme and bore water ?
most municipal water is fine for our beer
i do use my bore water which is filtered through limestone for darker beers due to the acidification from those grains it lowers the PH of the mash

[Fifey]

Basically the shed is plumbed with rain water, but we were told, and you blokes seem to be saying the same things, that some minerals and alkalinity is a good thing. So we hedged our bets and used a mix of rain and bore water, in part due to lazyness as didn't want to carry all that bore water to the shed. No point using the town supply where I am, we live in a country town so there's little atmospheric pollution, and there's not much to the south-west of us either.

Cheers for the info!

[bullfrog]

Not a half-bad idea, Fifey, to hedge your bets. You can get pH testers cheap as chips from pool cleaning shops, but if you go in that direction then make sure you test your pH after mash-in. If you're not doing an AG beer (I still do the occassional extract to try to get rid of the mountains of extract I have in my brew stocks from before I went AG) then your water profile is going to mean very little to your end-product. It may alter the hop flavours very slightly but water profile plays its biggest role in the mash.

[Fifey]

I'll fall to all grain eventually! I want to go save up enough money to go overseas first though, don't want beer to turn into another money sink hobby just yet.

[bullfrog]

All grain brewing can be very cheap, my friend. I first started only using a piece of fabric, a $20 stock-pot from Big W and a yoga mat from a $2 store. It's only out of ease, comfort and hey-loo-atmy-shiny-stuff-ness that we all upgrade to expensive gear. If you're already doing extract brewing then it really doesn't add all that much time onto your brew day, either.

Not trying to say that the only way to brew is AG, just saying that it's not that hard nor expensive.

[billybushcook]

Another interesting thread timed perfectly with a change I've made to my brew system.

Up until a few weeks ago I did not worry too much about my water, I knew the PH was a little high because every time I top up my pool, I need to add a little acid to get the PH back down.
What I didn't realise was that pool PH is 7.5 & mash PH should be 5.2.

So I invested in some PH stabeliser from Craftbrewer.

I used it in my mash for the first time yesterday, same recipe as normal & it raised my gravity by 10 points & gave me a much clearer wort!! ...whahoo!!

After reading hirns's link I now realise why, I''ve been doing light pilsen style beers which require a soft mash & the high PH of our water was going against every thing that pale beers stand for!

Can hardly wait to taste it now!!

Cheers, Mick.

[hirns]

Sorry, Mick, I use the Ph5.2 period and have never bothered with water calculations. I should have mentioned this earlier. Having said that I'm using an easy cheat method and it does not apply to if you wish to do a particular style that is based on hard or soft water.

Cheers

Hirns

[speedie]

With the water here in Perth it is reasonably soft and is maintained at 7 Ph (neutral)
After mashin it is nearly in the best range for hydrolysis of around high 5s so it is lowered slightly to 5.5 PH

I now have a greater respect for water quality than in years gone by
There is a brewery in the southwest (bootleg) that use rainwater gathered from the roof of there premises they aren’t on scheme supply they do some additions with there water adding salts minerals etc

So you are thinking along the right lines
speedie

[RUM57L]

Different line than most other posts here but I use water bought from coles in my extract brewing, i have brought the empty containers to work and filled them from the filtered water tap too.. when i felt like being a tightarse

[SuperBroo]

I use rainwater for AG brews.
I contacted the local water authority and they refused to do a water test for me, so dont really know where to go with that.

Beer tastes nice, so not too bothered

cheers,
Grog

[Fifey]

All grain brewing can be very cheap, my friend. I first started only using a piece of fabric, a $20 stock-pot from Big W and a yoga mat from a $2 store. It's only out of ease, comfort and hey-loo-atmy-shiny-stuff-ness that we all upgrade to expensive gear. If you're already doing extract brewing then it really doesn't add all that much time onto your brew day, either.

Not trying to say that the only way to brew is AG, just saying that it's not that hard nor expensive.

I'd end up getting all the toys though, being as weak willed as I am! I want to do partials with mashed grains though.

[drsmurto]

I am currently using rainwater which i adjust using a variety of salts depending on what style i am brewing. For ~6 or so months of the year the house runs of rainwater. About now i need to change over as i don't have the capacity (only 18,000L) to survive summer when it doesn't rain.

The other 6 months i use tap water. SA water provide 5 year average data for the mains water so from that you can get an idea of any changes that need to be made.

For pilsners i use straight rainwater, everything else has a profile created in beersmith depending on colour, and whether i want hops or malt to dominate or be balanced.

I've measured the pH of the mash a few times (remember that it's the pH of the mash that's important, not your water) and it seems to be in the right range so i haven't bothered attempting to adjust it.