Anyone ever mess around with their water much? From John Palmer’s book “How to Brew” it opens up into the world of water adjustments and even states that you can manipulate the chemicals and minerals in you water to replicate water from different regions of the world.
I tried searching but didn’t find a thread that went in depth with this. .
I was just curious to see if anyone has done this, and if it really made i difference in flavor for them?
Search for “bru’nwater” on this forum (it’s a very accurate water spreadsheet) and for posts by “mabrungard” (Martin created the spreadsheet).
This link will take you to a PDF of a presentation that Joe Walts from Ale Asylum gave at MBAA. It’s more information than you probably need.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=ca ... yJ-Zh_bjnAMy interest in water adjustments started when I noticed I had to use a large amount of acid to get into mash PH range. After sending out a sample to Ward Labs I found out I have 258ppm of bicarbonates.
Now I use 50/50 my water and RO water. The first thing I do is use phosphoric acid and adjust all the water to 5.7 PH. Then add a teaspoon of Calcium chloride to the mash to get the Calcium level and chloride to sulfate ratio where it should be.
Thanks for all the info, guys. Its a lot of information. Good thing one of my roommate’s is a Bio Chem major and can help me understand all this. :cheers:
Bru’n Water is my preferred as well. I use it now instead of EZ Water and have been very pleased.
I downloaded it, looks pretty confusing but im sure i’ll get more familiar with it over time.
I like this one.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/Pretty simple and gets me in the ballpark.
