At the meeting this month, we got on a short discussion about water adjustments. Somebody (I think it was oc_eric) mentioned the Palmer spreadsheet, which can be a little daunting to start out with. I had found the attached 'EZ Water Adjustments.xls' on http://www.homebrewtalk.com a ways back, and have been using it exclusively. If your prone to try out water adjustments, this may be a decent way to get started...
I used to use Palmer's spreadsheet. The first step is getting your water tested at Ward Labs so you have a starting point for the spreadsheet. After using the spreadsheet for a while, I got a pretty good feel for making additions of gypsum, chalk, calcium chloride, etc. Now I just do it by feel, but I developed that feel by using the spreadsheet for almost a year. When I talked to Palmer about using the spreadsheet, he readily admitted that it is kind of a best guess type of thing anyway without doing a complete pH analysis on each batch.
I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada down at Trader Vic's
When getting your water tested at Ward Labs, do you want to test your straight tap water, or water that has run through your filter? My guess would be after you have filtered it, but then you might run into the issue of the filtered water changing if you needed to replace your filter or bought a new one, etc. How are you guys doing it?
I'm sure some folks do it differently, but I tested my cold tap water. Not the hot, because that goes through the water heater. I use my base water numbers from that sample.
Granted, some water districts will take more or less from some water sources over different parts of the year, so it very well could be a moving target. However, I believe (hope) that the differences are (on the whole) pretty small in comparison to the additions I might be making.
Usually, I am just using the additions for Relative Alkalinity, to help target a healthy mash pH. But in the case of my porter, and english browns, I wanted more hardness for mouthfeel. So I upped my chalk for the boil.
I have not tried to match a particular locale's numbers. I am really just tuning for a good RA and chloride ratio. And I usually try to find combos that ultimately mean smaller additions in total... just to be on the safe side...
--LexusChris
"A woman drove me to drink, and I hadn't even the courtesy to thank her." – W.C. Fields
I'm with Chris on this one since I am just trying to hit somewhere close to my target RA.
Scott, when I tested my water, I ran it through my carbon filter so it would be the same water that I brew with. The carbon filter, to the best of my knowledge, does not remove particulates and minerals, it only removes chlorine.
I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada down at Trader Vic's
That's a great way to go floyd, a lot of breweries start with RO water and build it up themselves. The downsides are that it's more expensive to buy RO water and with home RO units you would typically have to collect your water over several days.
