Water - is there an easy way?!

[Darren Wood]

Hi (Auckland brewers)

I'm hoping to be able to shortcut the learning curve with water additions and get some tips/advice/amounts for salt additions.

I'm in central (Kingsland) Auckland so this only really is applicable to those near me. I have started using that 5.2 Mash pH Stabilizer from Starsan so I'm going to assume that the PH is good. I have looked at a number of calculators, Beersmith, etc but it's still all quite a mistersy – I'm hoping for some quick wins here. What I'm wanting to know is what additions do you guys add for hoppy beers? Is there a Auckland water profile for hoppy beers kinda thing I could just use?

Thoughts, ideas, help? Or, indeed, just tell me to get lost...

[Peter Smith]

I like Kai's as you can use the advanced bit if you want to buffer with Calcium Hydroxide

http://braukaiser.com/blog/blog/2011/03/07/brewing-water-spreadheet...

I have a blue lab ph meter and find the results match the spreadsheet.

[Ben Dean]

I use this online calculator, it's pretty straight forward to use and guides you with what additions you need to make based on style of beer.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calcu...

However, I have found when using Gladfield ale malt my mash pH is always .2 higher than what is calculated, so worth taking into consideration if you use Gladfields yourself.

[Darren Wood]

This is a pretty useful tool. Nice to see it has a Auckland water report built in a some preloaded style profiles... Will need to read the documentation thoroughly to fully get my head around it. Some homework tonight, m'thinks!

Thanks for the help :)

[zxr400]

I'm in the same boat and am still working it all out.  Unfortunately there is a bit of learning but its not too hard if you put a couple hours aside.

what I did was

Get a copy of your local water report.

download the ez water calculator spreadsheet. (get the metric one)

put your grainbill into the spreadsheet along with your water report readings.  This will give you a good base to work with

you can then play with numbers by adding acidulated malt to lower PH and adding things like Gypsum for Hop forward beers, etc.

I found that I need to add 2 tsp of gypsum to my IPA's and 100ish g of acidulated malt to get me roughly where I want to be.

I'm no expert but just my 2c

If you use Beersmith - an update is coming out on the 9th August.  Its supposed to have additional functionality for water profiles and adjustments.

[Darren Wood]

Nice to hear there's a Beersmith update on it's way. And thanks for the '2 tsp of gypsum to my IPA's' comment - that's the kinda shortcut I've been looking for ;)

I'm hoping the 5.2 stabiliser will do the same thing as acid malt additions...

[Peter Smith]

Take a look here as well if you already have Beersmith

http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/forum/topics/beersmith?commentId=15...

this is how Druid explained it to me, if its not correct I would appreciate some help myself as I may have not picked up the full BS concept of water additions.

I still like Kai's sheet as well,  we are lucky in Auckland, we are a bit blessed with nice water to brew with.