Water For Homebrew Beer

Mixing shaking or aerating your beer or wort can help dissolved sulfur gases to escape the wort but also runs the risk of oxidizing your beer.

Water for homebrew beer. This is a question we get asked quite often. The small coal mining town s golden pale lager. Water is a big part of the homebrewing process so you want to make sure you are using the right water to get the best beer. Plus different types of beer require different kinds of water.

Hops malts yeast and water. Many homebrewers and homebrew shops advocate adding mineral additions to extract brewing water. The water of west germany s dortmund is very hard and rich in calcium sulfates and chlorides. If you are brewing a lager style beer consider diluting your tap water with distilled water to reduce the concentrations of sulfate.

The idea is to get the input water for the batch to match the same conditions as the target profile eg as if you were using water from the river trent. Conventional wisdom says you should focus on water chemistry last in your brewing career but we recommend starting much sooner because brewing water chemistry significantly impacts your beer s flavor and mouthfeel. The types of water i am going to discuss are tap water distilled water ro water filtered water well water and rain water. Add brewing salts as needed so the difference on line 8 reports all green values within.

Water chemistry is complicated but we don t need to understand the chemistry to get what we want out of our brewing water. Bad water can really wreck your beer but most water isn t bad. Find and enter your source water s mineral levels on line 4 tune target levels as desired line 5. You may assume water is just water but the quality of water used in brewing beer will make a big difference in the final product.

The don ts of extract water treatment don t add salts and minerals. From water profiles to brewing salts mastering this most basic ingredient in brewing can take your beer to the next level. My point is that for most brewers the water they re using is probably fine or could be with one or two small and consistent adjustments. If you cut your brewing water with 50 bottled water this will still improve the quality of your beer.

Let s take a look at the four key aspects of water that relate to homebrewing and how they affect the beer making and drinking process. All of these can impact the taste of your beer. Brewing water profiles water is a deceptively understated and underrated force in the making of any beer. Hugely variable throughout the world it is abundant with minerals and organic compounds that have the ability to elevate an ordinary recipe to the status of a world classic or drown it in the shallows of mediocrity.

Ph is the measurement of acidity in water. The idea is to replicate water from parts of the world famous for. Beer is made with a few simple ingredients. Historically bewers used the water locally available to brew their beer leading to distinct regional flavor profiles emerging around the globe.