RO water

Mashing
1

I was doing some research and came across a page where a gentleman posted the following regarding brewing with ro;

-Add 1tsp of calcium chloride per 5 gallons of water
-Add 2% acidulated malt to my grain bill (typically between 3 and 5 ounces for a 5 gallon batch.

He continued to say he basically just adds some gypsum for a hoppy beer and omits the acidulated and i think ups the calcium chloride. Your thoughts? Seems far too simple.

2

This post by chance?

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=198460

I think it’s a simple way to get a decent beer for someone who doesn’t really care to get in the weeds too much. After all, it does say it’s a “very simple” way to get into water preparation.

But, Brunwater makes it easy enough so I don’t really see the difference. Might as well use Brunwater and get it closer to correct. Plus, with Brunwater you can just plug your tap water info into it and use it instead of buying gallons of RO or distilled water.

I used the method you mention in my Hefeweizen and it worked great. Since then, I’ve used Brunwater and it’s also working great.

I think there are always varying degrees on this stuff. How in depth someone wants to get depends on the person. Some people are perfectly fine without really getting into water prep at all, some people buy expensive pH meters and are constantly tuning. I say just do what you like :cheers:

3

There are different stages of water geekiness…

  1. If water tastes good, brew with it. Leave good enough alone. (Nothing too wrong with that…)
  2. Huh, I think I should throw some Gypsum in here, because it’s a hoppy beer. (you end up with alka seltzer tasting beer if you do this).
  3. The advice in the thread linked above. Should get you somewhere near reasonable water.
  4. Saw these in the shop… Accumash packets. Designed to throw into distilled/RO water without thinking about it. I’ve never tried it, so I couldn’t say… might be a good experiment, though, to see if starting to think about water chemistry is “worth it” to you.
  5. EZWater. I use this because it’s really simple and gets you in the ballpark. Anything more complex is kind of out of my league.
  6. Bru’nwater- This is supposed to be the best, and I’m sure it is. It’s just a little bit too much for me to figure out. Totally my weakness, and I’d recommend you start looking at Bru’nwater to start with. If you really hit the same wall that I do, step down to EZWater.
4

I use my home RO water with Brunwater. The biggest single improvement I’ve made since fermentation temp control.

Brunwater is easy. You don’t have to be a chemist, just have to plug and play with the numbers and even that is very quick. You can choose to understand the water chemistry and spend the needed time to read through all the info, and more power to those who do, but i just use it for purposes of improving my beer.

Bought a pH meter and used it twice. It matched the Brunwater predicted pH perfectly, and since my water source is a known constant (I maintain my filter and measure TDS), I don;t even measure pH anymore.

5

[quote=“twotacotuesday”]I was doing some research and came across a page where a gentleman posted the following regarding brewing with ro;

-Add 1tsp of calcium chloride per 5 gallons of water
-Add 2% acidulated malt to my grain bill (typically between 3 and 5 ounces for a 5 gallon batch.

He continued to say he basically just adds some gypsum for a hoppy beer and omits the acidulated and i think ups the calcium chloride. Your thoughts? Seems far too simple.[/quote]

That theory comes from A.J. deLange. He brews nothing but light lagers. If that’s what you brew, that’s not a bad water profile. For anything else, though, it wouldn’t work so well.

6

Bru’n water is easy enough and amazingly accurate if you start with an accurate profile and take very careful measurements when weighing salts.

I did a hefeweizen yesterday and hit pH 5.33 with a prediction of 5.31 from Bru’n water.

Since I switched from spring water to distilled the accuracy has gone way up. I think my profile for the spring water must have been off.

7

Thanks everyone. I cant use my tap water because it comes from a well and smells like gear oil. I tried bru’n water but i couldnt find a profile for RO water. Maybe im too dumb haha.

8

I can actually help with that… On the starting water tab, just set the percentage distilled/RO to 100%.

9

Make sure you read the entire instruction tab (tab 0 on my version) if you’re having any trouble with it.

[quote]If Reverse Osmosis (RO) or Distilled Water is the brewer’s primary water source, then input on Sheet 1 can be skipped and the brewer can move directly to Sheets 2, 3, and 4. Select either RO or Distilled from the Dilution Water Profile selection and set the dilution percentage to 100 percent on both the Sparge Acidification and Water Adjustment sheets. The water adjustments can then be properly entered to create the desired water profile.
[/quote]