Ingredients Series #4 – Water

Hi all,

Thanks for joining us this week for another post in the ingredients series. This week we’re taking a look at the ingredient that makes up 90-95% of our beer but often goes overlooked. Water. We’ll look at its importance in brewing, a little history of the relationship between the two, how water in different areas of the world influenced popular styles and finally options for treating and properly taking care of your water.

Last Week In New Beerginnings

Last week, in fact for the last few weeks I have been somewhat dull in my goings on in terms of brewing due to starting a new day job, which is nice! Last week was full on training and getting up to speed so hardly had time to think about extra-curricular beer activities!

I promise for your sake and mine that I’ll be back into it soon!

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Water in Brewing

The ingredients we have covered so far in this series, although important in terms of flavour, aroma and arguably make beer..beer, they only make up approximately 5-10% of the ingredients by weight. Water makes up the vast majority of beer so to say we should think about that just as much as the other 5-10% of ingredients is an understatement.

Brewers have been considering water from the beginning, in fact water may have been one of the reasons beer became as popular as it has. Before sanitisation, filtration or any other technologies we use to ensure our water is clean and safe to drink, low levels of alcohol and certain herbs were used to disinfect the water and prolong its shelf life. This was especially useful on ships where sailors would go without a fresh water source for months at a time. Hops provided an anti-bacterial quality to the beer and the alcohol, although very low level (as low as 1-2%!), was enough to prevent more microbial growth and prolong the safe life of the water.

There are many considerations that brewers make for their water, measuring pH, reading their water report or sending their water away to be tested (More on this later), different additions of minerals to adjust the water’s taste or other properties.

All of these considerations and adjustments relate to the water’s chemistry. Water chemistry and the makeup of simple water is an incredibly complex topic with far more information than would be possible to fit into a single post. To that end, I will keep this information fairly basic and centred around what you need to understand to get a head start with water.

Basic Water Components

This section covers the common components of water that brewers look at or adjust. We’ll cover what it is, how it affects beer and ideal levels, leaving the ways of treating it for a later section.

• pH – This is the measure of how acidic or alkaline your water is. pH is vital to many chemical reactions, including many of the ones in brewing. The primary pH to be concerned about is the pH of your mash. This is because the addition of the grains will change the pH, before this the pH can only be estimated, not measured. If measuring your pH to calculate any adjustments, the mash would be the time so you can make sure you add the right amount. The ideal range of pH for a mash is 5.1-5.6, this should ensure you hit the proper levels for the rest of the process. Low pH (acidic) also gives a sour flavour, so pH control is a vital consideration if making a sour beer. I would seriously consider getting yourself a pH meter so you can monitor this important component.
• Hardness – Hardness is essentially the total dissolved minerals in a given amount of water and can be split into two distinct sections. Temporary Hardness, caused by Calcium and Bicarbonates in the water and is removed by boiling, and Permanent Hardness, caused by a combination of Calcium and Magnesium Sulphates. These together, along with the water’s pH and temperature give the water’s total hardness. Some beers require high or low hardness in order to taste right. Another consideration is that very soft water, that’s to say water with very low levels of dissolved minerals, is always quite high in pH and will require adjusting. The same does not work in reverse however, low pH water does not mean it has low hardness.
• Magnesium – Best recommended to be used in very small amounts, this can act as a great yeast nutrient but also dries out the beer’s mouthfeel, if overused, more than around 30ppm (parts per million – 1ppm=1 part magnesium to 1 million parts water), then the beer can dry out too much and become nastily astringent.
• Calcium – Calcium is the main ion that drives the ‘hardness’ of the water, it can act as a yeast nutrient and also works to lower the pH. Best range for brewing is anywhere between 50-150ppm with around 100ppm being the most desired range.
• Sodium – Most commonly added with salt additions, Sodium adds body and mouthfeel to beer but obviously can contribute a salty taste like seawater. Some beers like Gose take advantage of this but even in acceptable beers, too much is considered undesirable. Something to beware of is household water softeners. These devices take away lots of minerals like Calcium and Magnesium that make water hard but their removal comes at a price. They are traded for higher levels of Sodium. Normally Sodium ranges from 10-70ppm and can be increased to around as high as 150ppm before becoming detrimental. 200+ppm is getting into the undrinkable range.
• Chloride – This is not to be mistaken for Chlorine, which is added to most municipal or city water as a disinfectant. Chloride also contributes to the body and mouthfeel of your beer and make it slightly more malt-forward. It can produce medicine-like flavours when used in concentrations over 200ppm. Normal ranges are 10-150ppm and are balanced with Sulphates. A common ratio to consider when designing a water profile is your Chloride to Sulphate ratio.
• Sulphate – In a way, Sulphate is like the opposite of Chloride, it makes for a dry, sharp hoppy beer. In high concentrations it can produce astringent notes in beer that are undesirable. Normal ranges differ depending on the type of beer you’re wanting to produce. Lagers and light beers range from 10-50ppm, 30-70ppm for most malty ales, 100-150ppm for slightly hoppy-er ales and lagers and up to 500ppm for IPAs and other highly bitter beers.

Brewing Water Around the World

It may or not surprise you that water can taste vastly different around the world. Some water is very hard (like Burton-On-Trent in the UK) and some is incredibly soft (like Pilsen in the Czec Republic, the home of Pilsner). These locations are often associated with certain styles of beer, it was only when I started to research water that I found out why. It’s because the water in different areas lends itself to brewing specific styles of beer.

For example, if you tried to brew a light lager or hoppy IPA in Dublin without altering the water, it would not work very well. This is because the water is soft with a high pH and slightly higher ratio of Chloride to Sulphate. A dark, malty beer like stout would have the right mouthfeel and the dark malts would help bring down the pH in the mash to the acceptable range.

This lead to the creation and utilisation of water profiles for brewing. These would allow brewers to take their water closer to the water profile of another place and change the charateristics of it so they can brew styles of beer that may not normally be able to be brewed with their untreated water.

You can find this information for your own city also in your area’s water report. This should be available from the company that regulates and supplies the water to your area. Alternatively you can send your own tapwater away to a lab to be tested, although depending on where you live this could be expensive. The US has Ward Labs that charges around $36USD for a kit. Here in australia I checked and my local test facility wanted to charge around $200AUD for the same thing, I did not have it done…

Why get this data though? You know the water profile you want, you’re making a big IPA so you just add some sulphates and a bit of acid to dry it out and accentuate bitterness right? For all you know your pH could be too low already and adding more acid will make for low starch conversion in the mash or you could add the wrong amount of Sulphates. Finding out your starting water profile is like knowing where you are on a map before getting directions, it’s essential. Here is a fairly comprehensive list of different areas around the world on Brewer’s Friend.

The one thing to bear in mind with water profiles is that just because you are mimicing Dublin’s water profile, this doesn’t mean that you are getting the same water that Guinness uses for their famous stout. You may be getting close to it but there is no way of knowing what (if anything) that specific brewery does to treat their water. Often breweries treated their water somewhat in an attempt to get AWAY from the limitations that their water offered. So bear that in mind.

Water Treatment Options

There are many ways to treat your water to achieve something close to your desired water profile. Some are as simple as acid additions to lower your mash pH or adding a bit of salt to your water that you know is lacking in Sodium. Others are more complex, I’ll go through the most common additions and methods for treating your water with the aim of demystifying them so you can start to be confident in altering your water. I’ll also provide you with a few tools to help you out with calculating how much of something to add to achieve a certain result.

Filtration
Probably the easiest type of water treatment to get you started is filtration. Filtration can be as simple as the regular under sink drinking water filter or as complex as a multi-stage reverse osmosis filter.

The under sink systems often just contain a sediment filter and carbon filter. The sediment filter will remove large particles that may have collected in the miles of pipes between you and the local water centre. The carbon filter will remove or reduce some off flavour causing compounds like Chlorine and other additives. These systems are effective at making the water taste better than it otherwise would while maintaining most of the mineral content that we as brewers are concerned with. Any adjustments you normally make to your water should stay the same, with the exception of additions that remove Chlorine and Chloramine, like Campden tablets.

Reverse Osmosis, or RO filters are a different animal altogether. Their job is to filter as aggresivley as possible to remove most, if not all of the total dissolved solids and minerals in your water. These filters are generally a fair bit more expensive that the typical under sink system but are great for those who are looking to build their water profile from scratch every time or have seriously high levels of some minerals that require treatment with something more than a standard filter.

Dilution
The other way the reduce the amount of minerals in your water, allowing you to build them back up again is by diluting it with distilled water or water that has less minerals than your main brewing water. This is essential for some styles and water profiles, like the profile for the town of Pilsen, with ridiculously soft water.

Additions
Once you have a starting water profile you are happy with, you can begin to build it into something else to support the beer you wish to brew. This would be your target profile. This is generally done with additions to increase the amount of certain minerals since you cannot take them away without filtration or dilution. See the list below for the most common water additions and the effect they have.

• Calcium Chloride – This is an excellent source of calcium to increase hardness and lower pH along with Choride to affect your Sulphate/Chloride ratio and give a nice round mouthfeel to your beer along with accentuating malt character.
• Calcium Sulphate or Gypsum – This also adds calcium but has the opposing effect to Calcium Chloride, it helps give a sharper hop character and is a good addition to balance your Sulphate Chloride ratio in favour of your hops.
• Magnesium Sulphate or Epsom Salts – IMPORTANT, its highly recommended that you not just use epsom salts that you would find in your supermarket along with bath soaps. This is not food grade and may contain other substances that should not be ingested. Magnesium sulphate is a good way to make a beer have a dryer mouthfeel with prominent hop flavour. Use with care however as too much will make your beer overly bitter and/or astringent.
• Calcium Carbonate or Chalk – This is used for raising your pH and hardening water. Use sparingly though as it does not precipitate back out very easily and can affect flavour.
• Sodium Chloride or Table Salt – This is primarily used to increase your Sodium levels. Be careful using too much as it will make your beer taste like the ocean!
• Sodium Bicarbonate or Baking Soda – Used to increase hardness and your overall sodium levels.

Brewing Water Resources and Calculators
There are many calculators out there that will help you to make the right additions to your water. Almost all of them require at least a little bit of manual work or input for each brew to get an accurate result. They take into account your grain bill, acid additions, starting vs target water profiles and can even tell you how much distilled water to add to dilute your water enough to achieve certain results.

• Bru’n Water – This is my personal favourite. Although it can take some getting used to and even potentially a guided tour or two (watch out for one of those from me! In the meantime there are plenty of others) to get your head around. I have personally had great success in using that tool. You basically feed it your starting water profile and grain bill and it will tell you how much acid to add or calculate mineral additions to help you achieve your target.
• Brewers Friend – I discovered this later the Bru’n Water but I think if I had discovered it first, I would have stuck with it. It’s fantastic, accurate, simple to use and gives you clear directions on your additions, complete with their photo definitions of what a teaspoon measure is! I highly recommend giving this one a try. In the first link is the basic version, here is the advanced version.
• BeerSmith – BeerSmith has its own water profile tool built in. Mostly useful in the desktop app, you can store your profile in there and choose a target profile. The calculator will then help you to calculate the additions you would need to most closely match your Starting to your Target profile.

There are many many more out there but these are the most common. In terms of more information, I have given only a brief glimpse into the world of water chemistry here. I will be covering more detail in a post coming up soon in our in depth ingredients series. In the meantime, one of the best resources I can possibly recommend is a book called Water, by John Palmer, the author of arguably one of the Home Brew bibles How To Brew. The Water book goes in depth on considerations you can make for your water along with the science behind each mineral and addition. A fascinating but potentially mind-bending read, I highly recommend it!

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Thanks for joining us this week with our look at water. Again, thanks for being patient with some somewhat sporadic posts lately while I have been adjusting to a new work/life balance. Now that things are back on a more even keel you should be able to look forward to a more regular post shcedule once more.

Our next ingredients series post, yes there’s another! I know, what could possibly be left right?! The next one will be on anything else you can add to your beer, commonly know as adjuncts. I hope you will read it and be fully confident in your ability to make an Orange coffee milk oatmeal stout in no time!….if such a thing is possible, or even worthwhile, we’ll have to wait and see.

Until next time,

Best,

Sean

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