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HOMEBREW Digest #4973
HOMEBREW Digest #4973 Wed 15 March 2006
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
Well water analysis (Jeska) (Calvin Perilloux)
Muncie water ("A.J deLange")
Metallic flavors ("Steve Laycock")
Campden tablets and chloramine (Randy Scott)
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Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 18:54:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Calvin Perilloux <calvinperilloux at yahoo.com>
Subject: Well water analysis (Jeska)
In the last HBD, Dan Jeska posted details on his water analysis.
This water looks a LOT better than his softened water.
Let's consider what he can do with this water for brewing.
For English Pale Ale, let's compare water from Burton-on-Trent.
(See http://www.brookes.ac.uk/geology/8361/1999/phil/water.htm
for an example of data.) His carbonates are in the ballpark.
The main things Dan needs to add to his water is gypsum
and Epsom salts. Kosher/canning salt might help a tad, but
only a tiny amount.
By my calculations (not crosschecked and done in metric, no less),
here's what I think would do best for Burtonising your water:
Add 860mg/liter Gypsum and 420 mg/liter of Epsom salts.
Here are the ion concentrations taking these additions into
account:
Old (Bass) New Net Percent Gypsum Epsom
Item Jeska Burton Jeska Diff Diff Adds Adds
Ca 62 268 262 -6 -2% 200
Mg 21 62 62 0 1% 41
SO4 10 638 654 16 2% 480 164
Rarely does it seem that we can get so close! So if you want
to make 10 gallons of brewing water, use the mg/liter above
and convert to English measures. I did that conversion wrongly
last time, and I'm a bit pressed for time, so I'll leave it
in metric for now.
Oh yeah, and a pinch of salt (no pun intended), kosher salt, NaCl.
Back of the envelope calculation calls for about 35mg/liter.
That's less than 1 gram in 20 liters. Really tiny amount.
For those who start doing this themselves (to crosscheck the
numbers or to do their own analysis) and wonder why 820mg of
gypsum only give 680 mg of ions, that's because gypsum is
actually calcium sulfate dihydrate; similar for epsom(ite)
being a heptahydrate. And so you need to account for the
hydrate portions.
Anyway, for most other beers, I reckon this water is pretty
good. The exception is the famed Bohemian Pilsner where
carbonate-reduction methods should be used.
Calvin Perilloux
Middletown, Maryland, USA
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Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 05:08:40 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Muncie water
Yes, the Muncie report is pretty complete if not consitent (see below).
The first thing I usually do is the residual alkalinity calculation
which gives an idea as to whether mash pH is likely to be OK without
intervention. For this water this is RA = 50*[ (246/50) - (65/20
-11.5/12.15)/3] = 176 which is quite high because the water is highly
alkaline without sufficient offsetting hardness. Now note that the
calcium hardness based on the reported calcium content is 50*65/20 =
162.5 and the magnesium hardness according to the reported magnesium
content is 50*23/12.15 = 94.6 which gives a total of 257.15 which is
quite a bit less than the reported total hardness of 321 so something
does not match up there. Nonetheless it will probably be necessary to
decarbonate this water by boiling or lime treatment before brewing some
styles of beer. 1:1 dilution with RO water should allow most styles to
be brewed without additional treatment and 2:1 RO:tap would be even
better. This has got to be easier than boiling or lime treatment.
Assuming the pH to be below 8.3 almost all the alkalinity will be from
bicarbonate so that the bicarbonate concentration is approximately
61*246/50 = 300 mg/L but one usually doesn't care about the bicarbonate
level except that it is a source of alkalinity i.e. it is the alkalinity
number that is important. We can also observe that the sodium and
chloride levels are not excessive nor is the sulfate though it might be
a bit high for some lagers.
Campden tablets get rid of chloramine and chorine very rapidly. If you
crush them before throwing them into the water they will react more
quickly. As soon as the smell of chlorine is gone the water is chlorine
free.
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Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:43:54 -0800
From: "Steve Laycock" <slaycock at discoverynet.com>
Subject: Metallic flavors
Greetings All!
Well, this is absolutely off topic but something I need some feedback on
from the resident experts..
I have a fairly decent supply of corney kegs and besides putting beer in
them I decided to use one to put filtered H20 in for a trip we took to
Phoenix over Christmas. If you've not been to this town their water is
something to pull your teeth out for.
I put about 5psi on the keg to seal the lid for the trip, and after about
four days the water picked up a metallic taste. It was kindof tangy
metallic and the water was discarded at that point. Some time later I
decided to take the SAME keg to the dairy and fill it with 5 gallons of
whole milk for my cheese making endeavors. I use C02 to push out the milk
from the keg, then bleed off all the C02 after dispensed. As you guessed
the milk is also taking on this metallic/tangy taste.
However that "taste" dissipates with a bit of time.
At first I was concerned about metal contamination into the water, then
realized that the metallic taste must come from the C02 and not from the
Stainless Steel keg itself.
Now all that said... I just want some other brain to tell me that my
conclusion is correct and I will not harm myself from consuming from this
keg. The convenience of using these things for other products are too
tempting, but if my conclusion is correct and the water or milk is fine, how
would you suggest dealing with this problem? In my mind the C02 looks like a
great candidate for keeping the pathogens under wraps, but it imparts the
metallic flavor so easily and nobody will touch this stuff. The only other
thought is to use oxygen to charge the keg and dispense with that. I do
have a 10# oxygen bottle for charging my wort with O2.
Thanks for your thoughts
Steve
Highwater Brewhaus
Pleasant Hill Mo
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Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:15:07 -0600
From: Randy Scott <lists at rscott.us>
Subject: Campden tablets and chloramine
I've always read/believed/assumed that half a Campden tablet (sodium
metabisulphite) in 10 gals. of water would bind free chlorine and
chloramine in a few minutes. But in the last couple days I've seen two
references to letting it sit for 24 hours. Any chemistry majors want to
weigh in on the debate?
ras
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #4973, 03/15/06
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