Filtering water for Beer

[Cellar_Rat]

I seem to have been bitten by the AG brewing bug.

In conversation, someone rightly pointed out that the biggest ingredient in beer is water - and did I filter it? He had found it made a fantastic difference to a lot of things they eat and drink after installing one.

Needless to say this has got me thinking.......

Does anyone else filter first?

[DaveH]

I don't filter - I use Tesco Ashbeck bottled water. It's perfect for AG brewing - 2 Tsp's of Gypsum in the mash, and bingo!!! Think there's a big thread on Jim's about it (including chemical analysis results etc). It's a great base for all styles - plus it's only a quid per 5L. Ok, so it adds 6 or 7 quid to the price of a brew - however, you're working from a known constant - makes water treatment easier (yeah i know - Lazy Quacker hehehe)

[fatbloke]

There' a number of bits of information I've read about water, when it comes to brewing, fermenting and even from the distilling world. They tend to allude to the negative impact of the presence of calcium and magnesium salts in the water - in my case this usually presents itself in the form of Chalk in the water. For a lot of my fermenting, I now use reverse osmosis water and then rely on the other ingredients to provide all the nutrients and trace elements that the yeast requires.

People seem to go on about "minerals in the water being needed for yeast health", but for a lot of digging around, it seems that for water based minerals to make much of a difference, you'd need to be thinking along the lines, of the kind of "mineral levels" found in raw sewage i.e. generally, the levels in drinking quality water are negligable.

"Soft" water is fractionally on the acid side of neutral, as opposed to "Hard" water which is slightly alkali. While I'm only alluding to tenths, if not hundredths of a percentage point, it does seem to point toward the yeast preference to acid environment - but I also suspect you'd need to look more into the chemistry of yeast to know more about whats actually going on (other than the obvious, of course)......

[lockwood1956]

I now use reverse osmosis water and then rely on the other ingredients to provide all the nutrients and trace elements that the yeast requires.

People seem to go on about "minerals in the water being needed for yeast health", but for a lot of digging around, it seems that for water based minerals to make much of a difference, you'd need to be thinking along the lines, of the kind of "mineral levels" found in raw sewage i.e. generally, the levels in drinking quality water are negligable.

All manner of salts and minerals as well as vitamins are needed for yeasts to perform well. some ingredients (grapes for example) ahave almost all of these present. I never depend on water to provide these things as they are not present in enough quantities. A good quality yeast nutrient however, contains all that you require, in particular diammonium phosphate and vitamin B1


always read the labels and dont use cheap nutrient, its like trying to run a ferrari on parrafin
regards
bob

[Cellar_Rat]

.. so it adds 6 or 7 quid to the price of a brew ..

7quid !!
7 quid !!
7 quid !!
7 quid !!

PER BREW. J H C and I thought crown caps were expensive !!

i am going to give one on these a go... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2709429704...84.m1439.l2649

8 quid for all you can drink !

[fatbloke]

7quid !!
7 quid !!
7 quid !!
7 quid !!

PER BREW. J H C and I thought crown caps were expensive !!

i am going to give one on these a go... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2709429704...84.m1439.l2649

8 quid for all you can drink !

Don't forget, it's not "all you can eat" Brian. There'll be some sort of filter element inside the housing, and the same as my RO unit (yet to be installed), you do need to change the filter element periodically - the RO unit says after about X amount of time (from memory), but as I'm just installing it for my mead making, and for Clare to water her orchids, it should last - though I'm intending to get a TDS (total dissolved solids) meter, so I should be able to keep it down to less then about 50 PPM. Either way, my unit should strip out all the chalk, as well as any iron, chlorine, chloramine, etc etc, and leave me with water that will be fine and very, very neutral for my batches........

It could also, be down to the recipe, as there's plenty of reputable brewers hereabouts that would be in the same boat with their water i.e. Harveys in Lewes, Shepheard and Naeme over by the Medway area, and even the brewing nazi's at Fullers (swines for moving the brewing out of Horndean - HSB doesn't taste the same)....... Hence it's either in the recipe or they're using some sort of treatment plant to filter their water !

[Cellar_Rat]

[QUOTE=fatbloke;89261]...Don't forget, it's not "all you can eat" Brian. There'll be some sort of filter element inside the housing ....QUOTE]

John there is an element - replaced every 3000 litres. So that makes a brew 7.5 pence. It will be interesting to see if it makes a difference.

At the height of bottled water sales I did hear about a company who were legally selling filtered tap water. !!

What does RO do that filtering doesn't ?

[rjb222]

RO is a safer water and if you add an ultraviolet light you will have no bugs at all in your water. This is done through the RO membrane which is finer than any straight filter. The RO system I have has a set of pre-filters one for particulate and one for chlorine before going through the RO membrane.With certain brews I have been told by Peter Smith RJS sommelier that RO water is over filtered and could cause fermenting problems as too much is taken out. This he claims would only be in straight concentrate wines the ones that are 9 liters in the box and make 23 liters these apparently lack enough minerals that the yeast need and depend on water for those minerals the RO membrane is fine enough to take these minerals out.

[Cellar_Rat]

I have been reading baout RO - Peter is not alone. A couple of sites have suggested such.

[jonewer]

I dont quite understand the need to filter the water. You arent going to remove any of the mineral content and you're about to dump several kilos of particulates into it anyway.

As to RO - you need some alkalinity in your water for the mash. The enzymes need a pH of around 5.3. No alkalinity would result in a mash thats too acidic.

In the past beers were brewed according to the local water profile. London has hard water so Porter became the thing to drink. Burton has a different, less hard profile so it became famous for its paler ales. The more roasted your malt, the more acidic it is, hence porter did well in London would not do well in a soft water area. Generally, you need about 30mg alkalinity for a pale beer, about 50 for a bitter and 100 or so for a porter. You can adjust for this by adding CRS.

[rjb222]

In actual fact you are correct that filtering water is not an absolute necessity. Where the line gets a little murky is the added things to our water such as fluoride or chlorine. Chlorine will evaporate off given time and room temperature. Fluoride is a different matter. But a pre-filter that removes these elements should be all that is needed for beer.