Water Modifiers

[2pigs]

I want to use Burton Salts for my next All Grain Brew.

This would be my first time doing so and this is probably an easy question, When in the process do you add the salts?

[Otis_The_Drunk]

Add it directly to your water.

[Mill Rat]

You probably can't go wrong by adding a half a teaspoon of Burton salts, or gypsum to your mash and sparge water. However, it helps to know where you're starting from before you try to get somewhere.

If you have well water or a tight-lipped municipal water supply, you should probalbly get a water analysis done whether or not your a brewer, just on general principles. Water systems are generally required to post the amounts of nasties in their supplies (e. coli, lead, thorium, etc.), and you can often get these reports off the web. You normally don't find information about the friendly trace minerals the we brewers care about, though.

You should be able to find a phone number for the water system, though. Tell them you want information on water hardness and trace minerals for your home brewing. If you're lucky like me, you'll get a bored chemist that will be thrilled to talk at lengthhhhh about the average, ranges, and seasonal variations in all the salts you care about and more that you don't.

For instance, I found out that my muni water is already fairly soft, and sulphate or carbonate additions are a good idea. I also discovered that I've got plenty of chloride, so I'd skip that item in a recipe that called for a CaCl2 addition. It's not necessary to have this information to brew good beer. It doesn't hurt, either, and can help you get to great beer.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by Mill Rat
If you have well water or a tight-lipped municipal water supply, you should probalbly get a water analysis done whether or not your a brewer, just on general principles. Water systems are generally required to post the amounts of nasties in their supplies (e. coli, lead, thorium, etc.), and you can often get these reports off the web. You normally don't find information about the friendly trace minerals the we brewers care about, though.

You should be able to find a phone number for the water system, though. Tell them you want information on water hardness and trace minerals for your home brewing. If you're lucky like me, you'll get a bored chemist that will be thrilled to talk at lengthhhhh about the average, ranges, and seasonal variations in all the salts you care about and more that you don't.

Public water systems HAVE to test their water, and those results are public record. Period.

For Texas, they have to test for mineral AT LEAST once a year. places like Midland where I live it is more frequent, as our mineral content is high. Laws vary by state and county, but at the very least they have to conform to EPA standards. If they vary from EPA, they must be more stingent.

So your water system cannot be tight lipped, legally, anyway.

[Mill Rat]

I agree that the information that muni water supplies gather is public information, but from a totally pragmatic perspective, at some point an independent analysis is going to be less of a pain in the keister that a full-blown FOIA request with lawyers along for the ride.

It will depend on the political climate, too. Chicago's city hall has gone into bunker mode. IEEE (an electrical engineering professional society) had a speaker from the city's building department lined up to talk about electrical generators. He canceled a week before the meeting because of a genral fear of saying ANYTHING thatmight possibly get misconstrued. Yet for the past two decades prior we've had plenty of city speakers that were glad to present on various topics for us. At this point I think you'd find it difficult to get a Chicago water department representative to confirm that water is wet, let alone be forthcoming about all the trace minerals.

[Mad Scientist]

You mean water IS wet?????

[2pigs]

The city I live in sends me the water report every year and it does not have all the elements that my pro mash water calculator needs, but I have called them in the past to get some estimates.

It was surprising to see that even with adding a half a teaspoon of Burton Salts to 10 gallons, I still don't come close to the estimates of true Burton on Trent water.

So the answer to my question was add the salts to both sparge and mash water. Thanks Mill Rat, Now I'm ready for Sunday.

[Mill Rat]

Originally posted by 2pigs


It was surprising to see that even with adding a half a teaspoon of Burton Salts to 10 gallons, I still don't come close to the estimates of true Burton on Trent water.

So the answer to my question was add the salts to both sparge and mash water. Thanks Mill Rat, Now I'm ready for Sunday.

If you're really concerned about hitting the BoT concentrations fairly close, you'll need to do math. Get the BoT numbers in mg/l, and convert your measurements in and out of metric. The whole power of ten thing in mertic makes the concentration calcs so easy that the conversion calcs are worth the effort, rather than working in grains, and gallons. That is, if your serious about this. I am rarely that serious about getting my salts that precise.

[Mad Scientist]

A very useful site that i have used for years is www.megaconverter.com

It i s free, but there is always one add at the top of the page but NO pop-ups. Easy to use and menu driven. If you cannot find the conversion you need there, then you are playing with weird numbers & units of measure....

[2pigs]

I'm not looking for exact Burton water, I just wanted to make my water closer.

I finished brewing and noticed at the bottom of my hot liqour ketttle, some of the salts were not disolved.

Would it be bad to boil the salts in a small amount of water and then add this to the mash and sparge water next time? Probably a not so smart question.

BTW, the megaconverter is nice. meganice.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by 2pigs
Would it be bad to boil the salts in a small amount of water and then add this to the mash and sparge water next time? Probably a not so smart question.


I was going to say yes, but many times, minerals become less soluble at higher temps (hence the deposition of CaCO3 in tropical areas, but not temperate...ooids anyone?), and the only reason that the salts we add to brewing water do not precipitate is becasue they do not reach their saturation point, at least the way we mix for our needs (seawater is obviously much, much different). So skip that extra step, it probably will not do much good. Just stir real well when heating your water.

[Mad Scientist]

They reason I say 'many times' is that some minerals are different (think of it like sugars), but for the most part our 'water minerals' become less soluble at higher temps.

[2pigs]

good stuff

[takhsh]

Originally posted by Boerne Brew
They reason I say 'many times' is that some minerals are different (think of it like sugars), but for the most part our 'water minerals' become less soluble at higher temps.

I do not know enough to say what I am going to say, but I put my thouhgt anyway, hoping that I will trigger the right guy to give us the correct response.

What I know is the higher the temperature the solubility of any salt would increase (the opposite is true with gasses! In order to dissolve more CO2 into the beer one needs to lower the temp!). However, some salts may 'change' as the temperature gets higher. For example one acid salts may become neutral, and the new salt has a lower solubility, and hence it percipitates. This explains why in a boiler the bottom has always deposits of salts.

Having said this, it agrees with the previous statement that some water mineral become less soluble at higher temps, although at first the two statements were in disaggreement!

Do I make sense? Any chemist out there?
takhsh

[Mad Scientist]

I am an environmental scientist, so I have alot of chemistry in my background, esp. for water chemistry.

What you said is not wrong, and in fact is a further explaination of what I said i.e. that many solubility changes are due to pH changes.

I generally view most organic (but non-volatile) compunds as being more soluble as temperature increases (such as sugars). Most inorganic compunds (such as CaCO3 -calcite, CaSO4 -gypsum, etc, etc) as being less soluble as temp increases, but only to a point. There are optimum solubilty temperatures and pH solubilities for given a compounds or element. And this is only the real, real short answer.

That being said to go to specifics generally requires a good deal of information, and the general knowledge of what you want to do. In addition, you'll needs some refrence infomation as well, where the solubilites are given for different conditions, such as pH, temp, other minerals or elements present, etc.

Or you can just do what I do, and find some software to do if for you. Doing it by hand really sucks.

For most brewers, a detailed water quality report (which you have to ask for--see first part of this thread), and Palmers chart from his website should be enough if you feel the need to change your water chemistry.

My general opinion is that in homebrewing you are not trying to replicate commercial beers (okay not always), but make your own unique brew. In doing that, utilizing your local water chemistry is one way to achieve this, as we know that different water chemistries cna produce different beers, even from the same malt hops and yeast.

For that reason I do not Burtonize my water--ever. At the same time, I am forced to use R.O. water due to the unsuitibility of my local water for personal consumption, much less brewing. I usually only treat the water with a bit of gypsum to promote a lower pH and to accentuate the hops a little. However if my local water supply was suitable for brewing, I probably would only filter out the chlorine.

[HogieWan]

Originally posted by Boerne Brew
A very useful site that i have used for years is www.megaconverter.com


I just use google. Just type something like "5 liters in gallons" Including the"in" is the key

[Mad Scientist]

Darn thise smart guys at google!

I've been using meagaconverter longer than I have been using google.....as many other things that google does, I never thought that it might convert units so easily. Good call hogie

[denver brewhoo]

Boerne, my water is suitable for brewing and I agree with you re local character....but my water is chlorinated with chloramine which doesn't boil off and which is said to promote chlorophenols....I post this slightly OT question because I can see I'm in the presence of some knowledge here....how do you feel about removing chloramine via campden tablets (potassium metabisulfate)?

And could you explain what I'm adding TO my water (besides taking OUT the chlorine/chloramine) by using this stuff? Evidently winemakers use it at greater concentrations to kill wild yeast and bacteria, but that's at about 20 times the concentration I've heard recommended for chloramine removal, i.e one tablet per gallon of must vs. one tablet per twenty gallons of mash/sparge water.

[Mad Scientist]

Myself, I'd get a carbon filter, even one of the inexpensive ones from wally world will do the trick. I advocate doing this since it will also remove excess iron as well, and some other undesirable water contents. A campden tablet, from what I know, will not.

I am not sure what is in a campden tablet, but I'll find out.

BTW, most public water systems these days use chloramine, it (obviously by not boiling off) stays with the water far longer, but it also leaves disinfection by products that are very bad for you.

[Mad Scientist]

I think there might be a high sulfite concentration as part of the tablets, but as I said, I'll find out.

[Richter]

Originally posted by Boerne Brew

BTW, most public water systems these days use chloramine, it (obviously by not boiling off) stays with the water far longer, but it also leaves disinfection by products that are very bad for you.

My water report states 'the only treatment performed ... is low-level disinfection with chlorine.' No mention or chloramine.

Am I correct in thinking this will largely evaporate over an hour or so if left in an open pot?

[BrewDog]

Campden tablets are very cheap (like $2.35 for a bag of 50 at my LHBS). Each tablet is about the size of an aspirin. 1/2 a tablet will remove the chlorine and/or chloramine from 5 gals. I always throw one into my HLT when I start filling.

They are msde from potassium metabisulfite or sodium metabisulfite.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by Richter
My water report states 'the only treatment performed ... is low-level disinfection with chlorine.' No mention or chloramine.

Am I correct in thinking this will largely evaporate over an hour or so if left in an open pot?

I would personally perfer to leave it over night, works better that way, particularly if you are making a beer that might be sensitive to the presence of chlorine, like smoked beers.

Or you can take brew dog suggestion and add 1/2 campden tablet.

[Mill Rat]

Originally posted by Boerne Brew
I would personally perfer to leave it over night,

If you're going to leave it overnight, boil it with a cover on the pot, and by the next morning it will have cooled off and be both chlorine-free and very close to sterile.

[BrewDog]

Here's a good page on this. Note that it says that boiling water treated with chloramine does not remove the chlorine very well.

Water (http://www.bodensatz.com/staticpages/index.php?page=20020502195741436)

HTH-

[Richter]

Thanks for that info. My next beer is in fact a smoke beer. Maybe tomarrow. Do you know why this style is more sensitive to Chlorine?

[Mad Scientist]

compounds in the smoke, react with the chloinr or chloramine (which ever the case may be) and form chlorophenols, not pleasent tasting. If you cannot remove the disinfection agent with a filter or a campden tablet, just go buy bottled water or take your caboys and fill htem at wally-world (cheaper).

[Richter]

I just looked this up for chlorophenols (http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs107.html)
Looks a little scarey. Can they be toxic? or just medicinal tasting when they form in beer?
My guess Cl is unlikely to be a health hazard if added to public water supplies. But then we don't often smoke our water.

[Mad Scientist]

Everything is toxic, it is just a question of how much it takes. In other words, it takes a lot of water but very little mercury to kill you.

That being said chlorine has concentrations useful to us for disinfection, but it does not takes much to be dangerous, as chlorine is one of those that does not take much.

The ASTDR page you linked is more of a worst case scenario...they always seem to scare the crap out of people who read them.

I would imagine that the concentration of chlorophenols present as a recation product of the smaked malt and chlorinated water are low, but the document said, it don't take much.

BTW, chloramine has worse by-products than straight chlorine...look up TTHMs and HAAs.

[Richter]

Very interesting. Looks like TTHMs might take 2 days to disperse just letting the water sit. Carbon filter may be more reasonable, if anything.
All this about tap water may pale against the question of chlorinated pools and hot tubs however. Looks like higher levels of DBP's there. And if AquaMD (who obviously have a product to sell complete with scare tactics) can be trusted the primary route of exposure is inhalation. Now we're talking serious issue close to home! :eek: