Brew UK Forum | Grain
Water Treatment For All Grain Brews
As autumn approaches and things start to cool down a bit I am getting my head around doing my first all grain brew and my thoughts are turning to, amongst other things, water treatment.
My water which originates from chalk wolds in East Yorkshire is quite hard and what I would like to do is brew my first few batches with as little "treatment" as possible so that I get an idea of what my beers taste like from a baseline perspective.
What I do intend to do however is boil or campden my liquor just to get shut of the chlorine and go with that as a start point.
What are your opinions on the above, would you just boil, just campden or both. Would you campden before boiling or after, silly questions I know but it might help others as well as an inexperienced me.
Cheers folks, Steve
Responses
Posted 1 year ago by Admin
Hi Steve, the easiest thing to do it contact your local water company and ask them for the following information.
Calcium 105 mg/l
Magnesuim 2.2 mg/l
Sodium 8.3 mg/l
Sulphate 12 mg/l
Chloride 18 mg/l
Alkalinity (as CAco3) 271
Above are the readings from my local company. You may even be able to get them from their website. I then use a calculator on the the home brew forum, enter my water readings, select the type of beer I'm making and it calculates the amount of CRS (Carbon reducing solution), Gypsum and Salts needed to treat my water. I also add a Campden tablet (crushed) to the water before I start doing anything.
Its well worth the effort as my beer has improved vastly since I've been treating the water. Our water is really hard and it was giving quite an astringent bitterness in my beer. The beer now is much smoother than it was previously and I also get a much better hot and cold break.
Hope this helps.
Regards
Greg
Fermenting:
Conditioning:Pale with Styrians
Drinking:Cascade Pale Ale, Summer Lightning
Posted 1 year ago by Member
Hi autofire
As Greg says, the CRS is the stuff to use for hardness ... but don't do as I did the first time I used it - drop the reading to zero... some alkaline in water is a good thing. You'll need to check, but I believe a reading of about 50ppm is about right.
On the subject of chlorine - boiling or leaving stand for 24 hours will remove chlorine - but much better is the use of half a (crushed) campden tablet for every 25 ltrs of water. One thing to add however, boiling or allowing water to stand will not remove the chloramine (now present in most water supplies) - but the campden tablet will.
Good luck! Like you, I am waiting for cooler weather as I'm finding that I have nowhere cool enough to store my beers. I can control fermentation temperatures but not conditioning ones!
(with grateful thanks to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and slightly adapted)
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