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Treating input water for 5 gallon all grain brew

grayeagle

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I have been brewing all grain for some time now and I want to work on getting my water a little better for my beer without getting too technical with it.
I live in the mountains of NE Georgia and our water source is good.  I use city water and I know that I need to get rid of the chlorine first of all.  I know I can use campden tablets or potassium metabisulfite.  Potassium metabisulfite would probably be better to use because it don’t affect the sodium level as much.
The PH is usually 8.2 I know that brewing water needs to be around 5.2 to 5.8 and I know that it depends on what style of beer you are brewing.

The alkalinity is less than 50ppm the chloride is 20 ppm I did not get the water tested for sodium. I only have limited means of testing water at home.  Will a pool supplier give me a water report that will give me the information I need.

I have a source to get distilled water.  I thought I might use a 50 50 mix of distilled water and treat the city water I use with the potassium metabisulfite to get rid of the chlorine and just use the water like that.  Or should I collect 8 gallons of city water and get a recipe to treat the water?

I just want to get a good general recipe to treat all my normal 8 gallons of input water where it will be good for general brewing. 
 
If you're treating your brewing water to remove chlorine and chloramine - that's a great first step. There's always the old adage; if the water tastes good, it's good for brewing. And then there are the brewers who like to take a bit more control of the process. You sound like you are in the latter group and unfortunately that also means it's going to get a bit technical.

There are water calculators out there that brewers can use when making water adjustments such as the one in BeerSmith, Bru'n Water, and EZ-Water, and John Palmer's "How to Brew" gives good advice as well, so you may want to tap into one or more of these resources for general guidance.

Water adjustments are style-specific; what you'd build for an IPA will be very different than what you'd build for a hefeweizen or a stout. The pH that results after your mash-in will depend largely on the grain bill. The above-mentioned calculators will let you plug in your existing water and make adjustments to various salts to get the water profile where you want for the style you're brewing.

A full water report is always a good idea when making adjustments - you can't know what you've built until you know where you started. One of the more popular labs brewers use is Ward Labs www.wardlab.com They'll send you the test kit - you read the instructions and fill the vial and send it back - they analyze it and give you the report.

And then there are the gram-scales and pH meters... You can take this as far as you want, or use only a little bit to suit your needs.
 
Bru'n Water is a very capable water calculator. It has lots of moving parts, so it takes a couple of tries to get all the parts working together. But, it's worth the effort. Be sure to apply the "sanity test" before accepting your first results - I ran the water for an IPA and got a result that called for 43 ml of 10% phosphoric acid in 4 gallons of mash water; I cleared the sheet and started again and got a saner result; never did figure out what I did wrong to get that output.

Bru'n Water is free at https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/        Thanks Martin!!

Bru'n Water requires a good water test. Google Ward Labs. It's worth the effort and the cost.
 
grayeagle said:
The PH is usually 8.2 I know that brewing water needs to be around 5.2 to 5.8 and I know that it depends on what style of beer you are brewing.

The alkalinity is less than 50ppm the chloride is 20 ppm

+1 on campden and wardlabs.com.  And you don't need to get their bottle delivered first; you can rinse a water bottle out with your tap water, and then fill it up with your tap and mail it in one of those fixed rate USPS boxes.  The W-6 test will suffice. 

Your water sounds similar to Charlotte, but it's the pH of the mash that matters most, and then maybe ensuring your sparge water is not too alkaline. 

If you want simplicity, you'd want to absolutely know the Calcium and Magnesium that your have, and then build those up to ~100 ppm and ~15 ppm, respectively.  If that is all you did, your yeast would appreciate it.  Once you get the hang of modifying those, you could easily start tinkering with Chloride:Sulfate ratios for malty/hoppy styles. 
 
grayeagle said:
The PH is usually 8.2 I know that brewing water needs to be around 5.2 to 5.8 and I know that it depends on what style of beer you are brewing.

To be specific, the Mash is in the 5.2 to 5.8 pH range, not the water, itself.

Once treated for chlorine, water tends to be in the 7.4 to 7.8 pH range. This does not have to be adjusted. What matters is the RA (Residual alkalinity) of your mineral profile vs acidity and phosphate of your grains.
 
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