Water Chemistry - Auckland North Shore

[G S]

hi folks, not a regular poster here I'm afraid, but hoping someone may be able to help my slow and steady quest to all grain brewing nirvana.

I think i'm ready to start looking at water chemistry / quality for my mash water. I understand the process should be get a good idea what comes out the tap normally, ie pH, Ca, other ions, and adjust from there.

 

Does anyone have a chemistry report for Auckland's north shore? most probably nice soft waitakere rain water i'd imagine?

 

Or experienced north shore brewers with some hints? Does the ideal chemistry depend on style required, or is there some standard addition that will improve the mash?

[Chad Keven]

pull off a downpipe and collect some water fresh off your roof, thats what i did tastes good

[DP]

I'm in Northcote and have found that you can't go too far wrong with a couple of teaspoons of gypsum. I do a couple of other additions from time to time (chalk and epsom salts) but, to be honest, I have no idea whether they're making any difference. The gypsum seemed to make a difference to bitters and pale ales.

 

I can't remember where it was (probably on this forum) but there was a link to the water chemistry breakdown and the water around here is fairly low on mineral content.

 

***edit***

The water report that I used was here ( Annual Water Quality Report 2010 PDF) and I used the EZ Water Calculator spreadsheet.

[G S]

Many thanks, had been looking on the water care site, but couldn't find that.

FYI, according to the spreadsheet i should be adding

5g Gypsum

5g Epsom salts

7g non iodised salt

to 20l of Waitakere reservoir water, which is what I think comes out of the tap on the n shore.

 

[DP]

There might be others with a better idea regarding water treatment here but I've heard a lot of conflicting information. Perhaps the best advice I've heard is to leave adding stuff to the water until you've got everything else in the brewing process down pat (which I haven't quite yet) and that one of the best things you can do for a start is get rid of the chlorine by leaving it to gas off overnight before brewday or by filtering it out. From there, adding salts and stuff can make a mess of things but I've found with our North Shore water -- yes, from Waitakere -- the gypsum brings out the hops in bitters and pales.

I'm planning a run of ordinary bitters and so I might try variations to see which additions help and which don't. Assuming, of course, that I manage to get all the other variables consistent.

I'd be interested to hear how your additions go. (And what other, more experienced brewers here have to say about additions for our relatively neutral North Shore water.)

[G S]

with you there.

personally have not been getting great BIAB efficiency, around 70%, so was hoping this would improve things there, as well as taste.

 

[Martin Bridges]

I average out the water chemistry from the 3 sources listed in the Watercare report, as I'm sure I've seen something somewhere which suggested that the blend of the water varies.

 

I doubt the water chemistry will have much of an impact on your BIAB efficiency. The mash pH might, I guess, but that's not likely to be far off.

[Reviled]

70 BIAB efficiency is not bad to be honest with you mate, personally I think the most important thing to aim for is consistency, if you are always hitting 70%, then thats a good thing.

 

I think the BIAB system yields a lower efficiency because we leave a bit more behind in the kettle, this can be countered by the wort recovery protocol, which bumps your efficiency up a tad - I quite consistently achieve 75% and am happy with that. I know if I go to a different system I can hit 80-85%, but its not cheap changing systems. Another option is to add a sparge step, which can bump it up another few points.

 

I'm also on the north shore, and dont tinker with my water much, all I do is add a bit of chalk if im brewing a roasty dark beer, and gypsum most other times for my pale ales - the main thing is keeping the mash PH around 5.2, this is a massive factor in BIAB clarity, but won't help your efficiency much.

[James Lawson]

I'm jealous of your Waitakere water. Ours (central AK) comes from Hunua and the bloody Waikato. Sometimes it has a truckload of chlorine in it. I have a big kettle and I lose a lot of water during my boil, and I suspect that topping up with tap water in the fermenter has a pretty negative effect on my yeast. Next brew I'm going to try leaving a kettlefull of water outside for the night and see if it makes a difference.

 

Does anyone have the lowdown on brewing using central Auckland water? I've looked at the water reports and I think it's pretty neutral as well.

[David Malpas]

resurrecting this old post. I've just started all grain brewing and I'm trying to figure out if I need to add anything to my water.

I've found the following water report on the watercare site:

https://www.watercare.co.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/AllPDFs/Publica...

I've also read the relevant chapter of John Palmers' How To Brew.

Firstly, can I check that I'm reading it correctly? Is Alkalinity Total in the watercare report  the same as Alkalinity as CaCO3 in How To Brew?

Secondly, does anyone have any idea which water treatment plants would provide water to Sandringham? If I had to guess I would say either Watakare or Huia - but others might know better?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Dave

[G S]

Was told by a water care guy that the waitakere water mostly goes to Henderson and north around to the shore. Hunua to the central and eastern burbs, and Waikato fills the rest. But when the lakes run dry they can run Waikato/ Takau pretty hard to make up the gap. The systems are all connected so everywhere gets a mix. at moment we may all be mostly Waikato??