I’m planning on doing an all grain brew. I have a private well and and haven’t had it tested. It taste good and makes good extract brews. I have the option to use water straight from the well or after it goes through a water softener. The water will leave rust deposits if it sits in a bucket or something for a while out of the well. What would be the better option? Thanks.
Until you have it tested to see what the mineral content is you can always go with distilled or RO water and use the primer at this link:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewin ... er-198460/That’s what I did for my last couple and it hasn’t been bad to me.
I would not use the straight well water (Iron makes beer taste like a mouthful of copper pennies), you can use softened water but it will little if no calcium. A couple choices would be softened water and spring water or like Templar suggested but if you do that you will need to add some minerals to the water.
I’ve never tested mine. It tastes fine and so does my beer. You can have more control with your recipes by adjusting minerals but honestly, if your water tastes fine, so will your beer.
Not necessarily so. Some minerals will impart a pleasant flavor to your drinking water, but will do weird things to your beer. Trust me on this…
With extract and even PM batches, the mineral content of the water isn’t such a huge issue, which is where the phrase “as long as it tastes good, it can make good beer” comes from. But when you move up to AG, the calcium, magnesium, chloride, sulfate, and carbonate levels really make a huge difference in how successful your mash is, and what your final taste will be. So, ultimately it’s best to spend the $30(or whatever it is) at Ward lab, download Brunwater and know what you’re dealing with.
Or, you could just start with distilled water and add back salts.
I’d avoid the water softener treated water. They remove calcium(which you want) and switch it with sodium(which you don’t need in large amounts)
I have to respectfully disagree. Even with extract brewing, the composition of your water can make a pretty substantial difference. Malt extracts are basically just concentrated wort, which means they already have minerals included in them as a function of the water used to process them. Using highly mineralized water with extracts can, again, cause problems with the flavor of the finished product by adding unneeded, and often unwanted, minerals. That’s why you’ll see quite a few experienced brewers recommend using distilled or ro water when extract brewing.
The answer to “is my water good” usually depends on what you are brewing. There are long traditions of iconic beers for certain places that were optimized for the water available. So just because the water is good for the extracts you have brewed doesn’t mean they will be good for some other extract that you might brew in the future. And with AG, the pH becomes critical for proper conversion, and the buffering capacity of the water as well as which grains are present play a big part in determining your final pH.
You can either get your water tested and learn the intricacies of water modification (if we brew long enough, we all eventually go there), or you can just brew a batch and see how it comes out.
My well water tastes great, but it makes crappy beer. It is hard & very alkaline. I have to dilute with RO water or treat with lime slaking to make good beer.
What kind of ratio do you dilute?
Thanks]
Personally I would, and have, brew with the water straight out of the well rather than after the softener. You don’t need all that sodium in your beer.
The orange stains do not necessarily mean your water is high in iron. Manganese leaves orange spots as do large amounts of sulfur which you’d notice by smell.
My advice as a fellow private well user is to get your water tested or do nothing and figure out what kind of beers you can brew successfully. For me, fairly alkaline water high in bicarb, dark beers tend to turn out the best without water treatment.
Having said that I get my water tested by Ward Lab a couple times a year and use Brunwater to adjust my water for the specific style I’m brewing.
[quote=“dannyboy58”]Personally I would, and have, brew with the water straight out of the well rather than after the softener. You don’t need all that sodium in your beer.
The orange stains do not necessarily mean your water is high in iron. Manganese leaves orange spots as do large amounts of sulfur which you’d notice by smell.
My advice as a fellow private well user is to get your water tested or do nothing and figure out what kind of beers you can brew successfully. For me, fairly alkaline water high in bicarb, dark beers tend to turn out the best without water treatment.
Having said that I get my water tested by Ward Lab a couple times a year and use Brunwater to adjust my water for the specific style I’m brewing.[/quote]
The 13 years I worked in water treatment, I have never ever seen manganese leave a orange stain, usually greenish black stain the same with sulfur. One form of iron in water can smell like sulfur, if the smell dissipates while the water is sitting in a glass undisturbed it is more than likely iron. A metered softener set up properly will not add excessive sodium in the water, but if your softened water tastes salty do use it in your beer making.
[quote=“Boulderbrewer”][quote=“dannyboy58”]Personally I would, and have, brew with the water straight out of the well rather than after the softener. You don’t need all that sodium in your beer.
The orange stains do not necessarily mean your water is high in iron. Manganese leaves orange spots as do large amounts of sulfur which you’d notice by smell.
My advice as a fellow private well user is to get your water tested or do nothing and figure out what kind of beers you can brew successfully. For me, fairly alkaline water high in bicarb, dark beers tend to turn out the best without water treatment.
Having said that I get my water tested by Ward Lab a couple times a year and use Brunwater to adjust my water for the specific style I’m brewing.[/quote]
The 13 years I worked in water treatment, I have never ever seen manganese leave a orange stain, usually greenish black stain the same with sulfur. One form of iron in water can smell like sulfur, if the smell dissipates while the water is sitting in a glass undisturbed it is more than likely iron. A metered softener set up properly will not add excessive sodium in the water, but if your softened water tastes salty do use it in your beer making.[/quote]
I’m no water expert, apparently you know more than I. I was just repeating what my water guys told me. Maybe they’re no experts either…
However my water is not high in iron, yet we sometimes get orange rings at the surface in the toilets…
[quote=“dannyboy58”][quote=“Boulderbrewer”][quote=“dannyboy58”]Personally I would, and have, brew with the water straight out of the well rather than after the softener. You don’t need all that sodium in your beer.
The orange stains do not necessarily mean your water is high in iron. Manganese leaves orange spots as do large amounts of sulfur which you’d notice by smell.
My advice as a fellow private well user is to get your water tested or do nothing and figure out what kind of beers you can brew successfully. For me, fairly alkaline water high in bicarb, dark beers tend to turn out the best without water treatment.
Having said that I get my water tested by Ward Lab a couple times a year and use Brunwater to adjust my water for the specific style I’m brewing.[/quote]
The 13 years I worked in water treatment, I have never ever seen manganese leave a orange stain, usually greenish black stain the same with sulfur. One form of iron in water can smell like sulfur, if the smell dissipates while the water is sitting in a glass undisturbed it is more than likely iron. A metered softener set up properly will not add excessive sodium in the water, but if your softened water tastes salty do use it in your beer making.[/quote]
I’m no water expert, apparently you know more than I. I was just repeating what my water guys told me. Maybe they’re no experts either…
However my water is not high in iron, yet we sometimes get orange rings at the surface in the toilets…[/quote]
Manganese will most certainly leave a pinkish to orangish stain. The compound that causes this color is manganese sulfate.
My water will leave this type of stain on my plumbing fixtures. By the way, just to avoid argument, iron is below the detection limit in my water, so it isn’t a factor here.
I plan on sending in a sample to get tested this spring when it warms up, don’t think it’d still be in liquid form otherwise when the received it. I think I’ll probably just buy spring water til then to be safe.
Thanks for all the input.
Good idea.
[quote=“65SS427”]
Manganese will most certainly leave a pinkish to orangish stain. The compound that causes this color is manganese sulfate.
My water will leave this type of stain on my plumbing fixtures. By the way, just to avoid argument, iron is below the detection limit in my water, so it isn’t a factor here.[/quote]
Same here Marty. Iron is <0.01 according to Ward Labs.
Hey Danny, you said you get your water tested a couple times a year. Do you see much change in the report from time to time?
Thanks
[quote=“tnelson2002”]Hey Danny, you said you get your water tested a couple times a year. Do you see much change in the report from time to time?
Thanks[/quote]
Not huge. Below are 2 from a little over a year apart. I had another one around December '13 but can’t locate it.
I take pH readings with a meter and pH has gotten consistently lower ever since that last Ward Labs report. Last Wednesday when I brewed I got 6.5pH. Maybe because we’ve had more rain in the last year?
I was told there could be seasonal changes by a local pro brewer who is also on well water.
I’m about to send off another sample just because we had our water treatment system serviced and there was a lot of sediment and gunk cleaned out.
It may be overkill but I’ll likely continue getting a report once a year.
March 2013
pH 8.1
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 202
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.34
Cations / Anions, me/L 3.2 / 2.9
ppm
Sodium, Na 10
Potassium, K 1
Calcium, Ca 39
Magnesium, Mg 9
Total Hardness, CaCO3 135
Nitrate, NO3-N < 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 7
Chloride, Cl 9
Carbonate, CO3 6
Bicarbonate, HCO3 122
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 111
Total Phosphorus, P 0.34
Total Iron, Fe < 0.01
“<” - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit
July 2014
pH 7.7
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 187
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.31
Cations / Anions, me/L 3.0 / 3.0
ppm
Sodium, Na 9
Potassium, K 1
Calcium, Ca 37
Magnesium, Mg 8
Total Hardness, CaCO3 126
Nitrate, NO3-N < 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 6
Chloride, Cl 12
Carbonate, CO3 < 1.0
Bicarbonate, HCO3 137
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 113
“<” - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit
[quote=“tnelson2002”]What kind of ratio do you dilute?
Thanks][/quote]I diluted 70%RO, 30% well water; but it depends on your starting water. Ward Labs is your friend!
