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Water treatment needed?
I was looking to do a Special Biter. In the BJCP description, it says, "Often medium sulfate water is used." What does that mean? I do have my towns water report, but I don't know what to look for. All I know about my towns water is that it tastes horrible, smells funny sometimes, and comes out light brown at least once a month.........I'd use spring water, but would probably need more treatments as there's nothing in there.....
Any advice?.......
Wow, that's funky. I've never used anything but the water out of my faucet at home, fortunately it tastes good, and I've never had a problem with water being to hard either. In your situation I would definately get some bottled water. Just don't get distilled, alot of bottled waters are bottled right from municipal water supplies, or springs, and would be fine. Might want to write your mayor about the smelly water though. Let me guess, you live in Boston.
If your water smells bad, then I definitely wouldn't use it for brewing. Just out of curosity, what are your SO4 levels listed in the water report? It maybe listed as sulfate instead.
Bruguru has a good point about using water. If you decide not to use your tap water, go the route of spring water. That will likely have plenty of minerals necessary for brewing without needing treat the water.
HA! here's an interesting report about Billerica water... EPA water report Looks like Billerica is responsible for it's own water treatment and doesn't do a good job at that.
They don't do a good job at much............I used spring water before, but it started to get too expensive. I was brewing in the town next door, whose source is the same as Billerica.....they do a slightly better job at it, good enough to brew with at least.......
I think that report was more about them dumping junk from the waste water treatment plant...then again, they were dumping it into their own source, just down stream a bit. I think it may linger a bit....it's not exactly a rapidly rushing river.....
I guess I'll have to pick up a bunch of spring water for this weekend....
You can also boil all your water first to drive off any contaminants, then let it cool to your strike temp or sparge temp, and add any conditioners to meet a profile: ie- hard for stouts, or soft for pale ales. Although this method is free, it is also time consuming and may use more fuel to boil than the cost of bottled water- not sure never checked nut just another option.
Then there is the serious alternative- RO water. Reverse osmosis is a filtering process that strips the chloromine and chlorine out, then filters again to remove all the minerals, leaving a plain ole water behind. Then you can again condition to profile.
From what I have read in my research, this topic is sometimes overlooked and one of the next steps to taking your beer to a whole new level. Once your process is down, ferm temps are under control, and recipes can be replicated to produce the same flavor, water chemistry is the next place to go to for quality and flavor adjustments. The old rule of thumb is if it tastes good to drink, it will taste good to brew with may be true- however good enough to drink may not mean good enough to match a profile. They sell treatment packages to add back the minerals to stripped water that will match famous profiles like Burton on Trent or Dortmunder. Or you can do it yourself adding Burton salts or Calium bicarbonate Something I plan on foolin with soon, I need to set up my filters first though.
So if I go with spring water, would I need to add anything to it? I'm not sure what kind of water would be used for a Special Bitter. I usually add that pH 5.2 stuff, not sure if it does anything though.....
This is just a quickly made up recipe. I wanted to do something new, and it sounded good.....next year, I'll work on being more consistent. I usuallt get some stuff right, so I'll try to re-do a few recipes and see if they come out the same to better gauge my consistency.
I wouldn't worry about adding anything to spring water, unless you had that water report and saw something seriously lacking. But its likely not a problem.
If you are doing something English with spring water, then maybe a little gypsum. Again, not really important.
You also don't really know until you brew with it, regardless of town or spring water.
I grew up in Billerica and I started brewing while still living there. I never brew all-grain with Billerica water though.
However I know at your end of town the water isn't as good as it was at my end of town (North Billerica).
I say don't worry about water chemistry. Water chemistry is way down on the list of things to worry about.
Yeah, that's where I was leaning anyway....I brewed with spring water many times before, and it always came out okay......I don't even know when I'll brew it up......just some thoughts....
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