Hey all!
I visited this week's Tuesday Brewday, and Matt said you guys needed someone to work out water chemistry stuff. He said someone might have gotten the water reports already from the city department? If that's the case I would be happy to help figure out what people need for water chemistry conversions. Anything in particular that people want?
Joel Timm
Hi Joel,
Glad you are interested in water, have you read "water" by John Palmer?
There is lots of work to be done in the brew house to get the water up to snuff. I have pulled the Chicago water report and will post the relevant info below, however it is really only a starting point. Ideally we would be sending samples of the brew house water out to get analyzed every 3 months until we felt the results were consistent enough that we could predict the water chemistry. Unfortunately the cities water chemistry changes by season so it is not a fixed thing.
Second, we used to have a charcoal filter but it died. I installed and then we reversed a line so hot water was flowing through it. We really need to get another one hooked up on the cold side inlet to the hot water heater. Once this it up it will also affect the quantity of minerals remaining in the water.
As for water modification, it is a bit complicated. There are 3 basic reasons to modify water.
1. Adjust the ph
2. Adjust the flavor
3. Ensues yeast Health and good fermentation
We certainly could buy all the mineral and acid adjustments for the club. They are cheap, especially in bulk. But it's tough to understand how to use them. We could write up some rules of thumb for differnt styles which would allow everyone the benefit of water treatment but would not teach them they why. But it is pretty easy to mess up a beer if you don't know what you are doing.
I am happy to help coordinate any efforts you want to put into this area but cannot commit much time to actually working on it.
James
IMO, a charcoal filter on Chicago water isn't necessary. Nothing much is really going to change, or that can't be changed with an addition of Campden that costs pennies and takes way less time.
We definitely need to be adding some Calcium (more for yeast health, I would think), so bulk quantities would be nice.
Definitely could call for a workshop/class once we have a solid water report in, though.
I had planned on getting the water analyzed once we have the filter replaced.
https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/water/supp_info/water_quality_resultsandreports/comprehensive_chemicalanalysis.html
I've posted this link previously,
also, Jeff, the water filter parts are in, so we will be able to send in a sample and get a report specific to our brewhouse.
With this water, CaCl2 and CaSO4 is all you really need for basic treatment with just about any style, and NaCl for styles that require it (namely gose) is not difficult to get. I have excess MgSO4 I can donate also, but a large bag at walgreens costs only a few dollars.
Hey all!
So in my adventures I came across this person who did all the number crunching. He even made an excel document you can use to get anywhere you want, and a better explanation of how to use it than I could ever do.
Most of the stuff is available for free, with the rest unlocking with a donation to the author (pay what you want).
You can enter the info from the water report earlier on this thread and use it to get to whereever you want to end up.
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/
I found it on reddit's r/homebrewing, which is a pretty cool resource itself.
Cheers guys!
Joel
Thanks for putting that up Joel. From the looks of it, that is an excellent tool! Are you going to swing by the BH Tuesday for December's Tuesday Brewsday?
Joel,
I've used the Bru'n Water spreadsheet for my last half-dozen or so brews, and been generally pleased with the results. I like the summary page it generates, which I bring with me, along with my beersmith recipe page, when I brew. It's a bit more involved than the EZ Water calculator, which is another relatively well-regarded tool.
As James said, however, without several reports on the water actually coming from our taps, we're working a little bit blind. I'd be very interested to see how a water report from the brewhouse compares to the city's water report.
-Adam
I could never get Bru'n water to work right. I'm Brewer's Friend man myself. They have a bunch of other calculators that are super handy too, like a temp correction for hydrometers so you dont have to cool your sample all the way down. http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/