So I been brewing little over a year and have always bought 5 gallon jugs of ice mountain water. Figured I was so new at this let me take one thing i could mess up out of the equation. But with the water adding about $10 to per 5 gallon batch I'm looking to see how I can use this giant lake we all live next too.
I've read campden treatment is a must but what other treatments do fellow chicagoans use to make tap water useable?
I've always done extract but going to start some PM batches soon
Campden is unnecessary. Chicago water has no chloramine and the chlorine will be driven off when you heat the water for mashing...plus we have a charcoal filter. I believe we should have the results from water testing at our specific location soon, until then you can ball park some stuff and get real close from the city's quarterly water report. Long story short Chicago has near perfect brewing water for almost all styles. That is to say, it's great all-purpose water, not that it is perfect for any particular one. Some people treat the water, some don't. With our water, it's not gonna make a huge difference, it will make an already fantastic beer outstanding, but it will not make an OK beer turn in to a fantastic beer, if that makes sense. Get everything else in your process dialed in, then worry about the water, or not. For malty beers I add a little Calcium Chloride, hoppy beers get a little gypsum, use this calculator to help you figure out how much, if you want to experiment with it. http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/
This is from the brewers friend database. It's last year's numbers, Chicago releases quarterly reports so there should be a fresh one soon, it varies slightly between rainfall, ice melt and various environmental effects, etc.
Chicago 2014
Chicago, IL, USA Jardine North Distribution (North part of North Side) http://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/water/WaterQltyResul...
Joe is pretty spot on - Chicago water is awesome - it really doesn't even need to be filtered (imo).
The pH is slighly high (although my meter may have been whack, I just got it replaced on Friday and haven't used the new one yet), so acidifying the mash and sparge is something to think about if you're not mashing dark grains but the people who will be able to actually taste the difference will be few and far between.
Calcium in one form or the other (depending on hop vs malt as Joe said) is nice, if not for the water profile but also yeast health.
wow so right from my tap no filter i'd be ok to use. I mainly do hoppy beers so just some gypsum. If I do need to use topoff water should i keep that filtered water since it will not be heated?
I know that at least a few of us have topped up fermenters with untreated tap water, but I've only done so on a kitchen-sink batch that I didn't really care about (since I was just throwing in a bunch of leftover ingredients anyway). As far as I know, it hasn't caused any problems, but I think I'd boil and cool some water if I had to do it again.
Awesome thanks guys. Any tips on moving from extract to PM? Planning on doing 2 5 gallons batches next. Not sure if i wanna do both PM
My tip is to jump right into all-grain :-) A few of us were talking about this over the weekend: it seems intimidating to everyone, until you actually try it. And, with the help of the folks at the brewhouse, you can get up to speed pretty quickly.
Kyle - was the pH around 9? I'm pretty sure all these numbers are seasonal averages, which can throw our water treatment numbers off a bit without us even knowing.