[mmitchem]

Doesnt a water filter simply remove the solid material from water?

[DW]

you guys know where you buy epsom salts and chalk?  Is there food grade chalk? 

[theDarkSide]

you guys know where you buy epsom salts and chalk?  Is there food grade chalk?

Epsom salts at the grocery store or pharmacy.  The chalk ( Calcium Carbonate ), I get from the LHBS or online.

[theDarkSide]

  Are there other ways to remove the chlorine?

If it is chlorine, you can fill you kettles the day before you brew and it will evaporate off.  If you local water supply has Chloramine, then campden tablets ( 1 tablet is good for 20 gallons ) work well.  I cut mine in half ( doing 5 gallon batches ) and I still have the original bottle I bought.

[hoser]

you guys know where you buy epsom salts and chalk?  Is there food grade chalk?

Chalk needs to be added to a acidic solution, otherwise it will just sink to the bottom.  There is some absorprion when added to the mash, but it is still a very inefficient process.  Personally, when using R/O or DI water I never add chalk.  If I want a "little" bit of carbonate in my water, I blend with dechlorinated tap water (treated with a camden tablet) from 10-50% depending on the style of beer I am making.  I can't remember the last time I ever used chalk in a beer.  My tap water is moderately hard. Potassium carbonate, if you can find it at your LHBS, is a little more absorbent if you are really wanting to add carbonate to your water.  It is generally with the wine stuff.  As for epsom salt, a little goes a long way.  I generally shoot for roughly 20ppm of Mg in my brewing water (Martin or Kai's spreadsheets can help with this).  Generally, I use epsom salt to supplement the gypsum for the sulfate ion when I am pushing the upper limits of how much calcium I want in my beer.  Too much epsom salt and you'll get the dirty squirties

Kai and Martin's websites are both good resources for water adjustments.  Making water adjustments is good if you are understand what your doing and why you are doing it.   It is a tool, just like anything else in brewing.  Less, is sometimes more.  Especially with brewing salts.

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Building_brewing_water_with_dissolved_chalk

[DW]

When weighing the brew salts, do you need a scale?  Or can you, say, convert grams into ounces, and then ounces into teaspoons?  I guess each salt has a different weight, but I wonder if being that precise would matter?

[weithman5]

i would generally use a scale for small amounts, but if you have consistent use of teaspoons may work.  i use volume for conditioning sugar but i have checked my volumes on a scale for weight and i am consistently in a gram or two out of say 160 grams.  so i quit using the scale.  however on small salt additions i would use a scale if available.

[hoser]

When weighing the brew salts, do you need a scale?  Or can you, say, convert grams into ounces, and then ounces into teaspoons?  I guess each salt has a different weight, but I wonder if being that precise would matter?

I like to use a gram scale, measuring to the nearest 10th of a gram, 100th if possible.

[ukolowiczd]

When weighing the brew salts, do you need a scale?  Or can you, say, convert grams into ounces, and then ounces into teaspoons?  I guess each salt has a different weight, but I wonder if being that precise would matter?

Someone just blogged me this website: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-4.html. It's John Palmer's "How to Brew" site and it gives grams to teaspoon conversions for all the salts but table salt (NaCl). For that one, i'd just mass up 10 grams, measure it with teaspoons and divide.

[nateo]

I got a scale that measures to the nearest 1/2 of a 100/th of a gram for like $10 on Amazon. Measuring such small amounts by volume can't be as accurate as by weight. It's probably close enough to not make a huge difference.

FWIW I've been messing with my water for years, but recently I've been using the lowest possible mineralization (while still providing enough calcium, and occasionally alkalinity) and my beers have never been better. It's a correlation, I know, but I suspect people tend to "futz" too much with water, since I did.

[DW]

I appreciate everyones' help.  I brewed the beer today, which is supposed to be a Bell's Two Hearted Ale Clone, as from the 2011 summer Zymurgy.  I ended up using my Fort Worth water, adding campden tablet, and putting a teaspon of Epsom salt and a half teaspoon of Gypsum to get the sulfate up.  Not sure what the pH was, as my pH test strips are difficult to interpret.  Overall, the brew day was one of the better days I've had.  Seemed to hit all the right numbers, which is strange for me.  I learned a lot with this batch and dealing a little with water chemistry.  Everyone who posted on this subject was very helpful, so THANKS!

[mabrungard]

I ended up using my Fort Worth water, adding campden tablet, and putting a teaspon of Epsom salt and a half teaspoon of Gypsum to get the sulfate up. 

That seems to be a large dose of Epsom Salt.  Hopefully the beer doesn't turn out too bitter and astringent.  Since there is a definite upper limit for magnesium that is relatively low, dosing with Epsom Salt may not be the best way to increase the sulfate content.  Since there is less taste penalty from excessive calcium, it would be preferable to use the Gypsum and reduce the Epsom additions to very moderate levels.  I don't use volumetric measures for mineral additions, so I don't know what that teaspoon amount of Epsom amounts to.  But I'm pretty sure its well above what I like in my Ales.   For best control and certainty in your mineral additions, using a scale with 0.1g sensitivity is a good way to go.

[hopfenundmalz]

Martin has good advice on the Epsom salts. I am not adding much in the way of Mg, just letting the mash supply what the yeast need for health.

[morticaixavier]

I don't know if it's right but lately I have really simplfied my water chemistry stuff. I add some calcium chloride to get the calcium I need and as much pickling lime as needed to get the pH where I want. This works for pretty much all my beers except really light colored ones. I add a little acid to lighter colored beers and skip the lime. I still need to work on lighter colored beers because I don't brew them all that often. last couple times I just added lemon juice to the water and it has worked out okay but I would like to get some acid to use. it makes me nervous to use phosphoric or other 'hardcore' acids so I am thinking of experimenting with citric acid powder going forward.

I use 100% RO water and have been doing no sparge mostly. so I just treat the whole volumeof water at the begining.

[jmcamerlengo]

Mort, phosphoric is tasteless and odorless, and is only a 10% solution. Not much hardcore about that! 88% lactic acid is also pretty easy to work with.