Auckland water treatment

[Darren Wood]

Hi all,

Should I bother with water treatment for mashing? Does anyone have any tips/ideas/etc. I haven't bothered in the past but I wondering if I can get more out of my mash if I perform some more SCIENCE on my water?

Cheers

D

[Samuel Loader]

Hi Darren, 

http://nzic.org.nz/ChemProcesses/water/13B.pdf

The above link gives the water profile for all areas of Auckland. I have experimented with building water profiles from scratch using reverse osmosis(RO) water which had good results, but in the end its not worth it because you really need to know what your doing otherwise you could end up with excess sulphur from to much gypsum, salty from table salt or chalky from calcium carbonate.

currently I use 50/50  RO and boiled tap water (to remove chloride)  this I do mainly to same time on brew day only having to boil half the water, but if time is no issue then boiled Auckland tap water will yield good results for any style because its pretty neutral.

Hope this helps 

 

[Rhys Williams]

I see from your profile you are in auckland, so you can download watercare's water report to find your waters base settings.

You can then plug into:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calcu...

You can set your volumes and beer style and then tweak to try to get 5 stars...

[Rhys Williams]

Is there any way to determine what water source you have? I'm in Sandringham and have been using the onehunga water profile, although I don't know if this my water source.

Darren, I add a campden table, 1/2 in mash water and 1/2 in the spare water. This neutralises the chlorimines.