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Reddit mentions of Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers (Brewing Elements)

Sentiment score: 22
Reddit mentions: 37

We found 37 Reddit mentions of Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers (Brewing Elements). Here are the top ones.

Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers (Brewing Elements)
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Found 37 comments on Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers (Brewing Elements):

u/left_lane_camper · 8 pointsr/beer

Water has a huge effect on how beer tastes/smells/feels/etc. However, a company like Diageo can absolutely purify and treat the water at one location to be just like another.

In addition, all Guinness draught in the the UK and the US is made at the St. James Gate brewery in Ireland, though some other Guinness products may be made elsewhere.

A couple years ago, I was at the St. James Gate brewery the day before I flew home to the US. I bought a can of draught at both the brewery and then another at my local grocery store, and the day after I got home myself and about 20 other big nerds double-blind tasted them. The consensus was that they were different, though only just. Had I not had them side by side, I don't think I could have distinguished them. There was a slight preference among us for the one from Ireland, but it was not universal, as the beers were extremely similar.

We also all felt that what differences we could detect could be easily explained by the slightly different ages and markedly different shipping conditions experienced by the two cans.

I pretty firmly believe the differences between how we experience Guinness in the US vs. in Ireland are almost entirely due to psychological factors. We're excited to try it in Ireland, and we're relaxed and on vacation, priming us to enjoy the experience far more than we would having it at our local faux-Irish bar here in the states.

Whenever I think back to when I first discovered something I now love, I find that it was a time I was happy, relaxed and open to new experiences. Usually out with friends or family and having a good time well before I tried whatever thing I now love. I think drinking Guinness in Ireland has the same effect. It's not that the beer is different in Ireland, it's that we are different in Ireland!

Freshness, presentation, clean lines, correct gas pressures/mixtures, etc. certainly all play some role, but a good bar should have those pretty well dialed in in either country, minimizing the effect.

u/Kegstarter · 7 pointsr/Homebrewing

I've read Designing Great Beers and it's a great resource as a style guide, but it leans much more towards the empirical side when it comes to explaining things. If you're looking for something a little more scientific and data-driven there are some other really good options.

Suggestions:

  • The Brewing Elements series: Water
    / Yeast
    / Malt
    / Hops - Very specific and science driven focus on each element.
  • American Sour Beers - Mostly focused on sour beers, but gets really deep into the scientific aspects of it all (bonus: written by /u/oldsock).
  • Vintage Beer - Data-driven resource on the science behind long-term aging.
u/rdcpro · 7 pointsr/TheBrewery

Most breweries would want to know at least:

  • Calcium (Ca+2),
  • Magnesium (Mg+2)
  • Sulfates (SO4-2)
  • Sodium (Na+)
  • Chloride (Cl-)
  • Bicarbonate / Alkalinity

    Brewers sometimes add minerals to our water to control things like perceived bitterness, mash pH, etc. Certain beer styles "require" water with certain mineral profiles. For example, Pilseners are often brewed with very soft water, similar to the water in Pilsen, Cech Republic. Certain British styles might use hard water with a lot of sulfates. I'm being somewhat ambiguous, because lots of people will say they brew pilseners with hard water, and ESB with soft water.

    There is a great book on it written by John Palmer, a legend in the brewing world. If you're interested in water as it relates to brewing, I'd highly recommend it.
u/ab_bound · 6 pointsr/Homebrewing

Well, you found a great spot here already! Also Brulosophy, John Palmer, American Homebrewers Association, Homebrew Talk Forums are all good starting points for websites.

For books, definitely How to Brew is recommended (there may be a newer edition out if I recall), followed by Brewing Classic Styles, Water, Yeast, and, of course, American Sour Beers written by a user on this form by the name of u/oldsock who also has a great site.

For now, work on the process of making beer. Take a look a little later on into something called Beer Smith as it will really help you with dialing recipes in.

u/Cthulhumensch · 5 pointsr/Homebrewing

Throw hops at it.

Like absurd amounts.

Think of ludicrous amounts and triple that. Then every single addition but a small bit of clean bitterness FWA, is made at the flame out or later. Your fermenation hop schedule is three times what your flame out schedule was, and you dry hop it twice.

I'm being sarcastic. But hop usage these days are insane on certain styles.

This series:

Water

Hops

Malt

Yeast

Oh, remember to enjoy it.

u/ThisIsCuylerLand · 4 pointsr/Homebrewing

Like most water reports, that one lacks most of the brewing-specific pertinent info. Call or email your provider and they'll give you the complete report.

Taste is FAR more important than content, IMO. Make sure you enjoy drinking the water out of the tap before you brew with it. I personally HATE my local water, so I get the filtered dispenser water at my grocery store. For hoppy beers, I add 2-4g of gypsum(/5gal), for non-hoppy beers I add the same amount of CaCl. Either way, the yeast need Calcium. I like to keep it simple, unless I know I want a specific mineral profile for a beer style.

Generally on water:

Palmer does a great job setting the foundation. http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter4.html
If you really have not read anything yet, this is an excellent place to start (you will likely be told a lot of conflicting info on this topic, which would be confusing even IF most people used a common vocabulary, which is of course not the case).

The "Water" addition to the Brewing Elements series is pretty new, so the stuff discussed in there won't be common knowledge most likely. http://www.amazon.com/Water-Comprehensive-Brewers-Brewing-Elements/dp/0937381993/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383162459&sr=8-1&keywords=water+book
That one is next on my list, "Yeast" was the best brewing book I've read since "Brewing Better Beer."

Cheers!

u/iBrew4u · 3 pointsr/Homebrewing

This is correct. The calcium in your water and the added calcium from calcium sulfate (gypsum) reacts with phosphate in the malt to precipitate calcium phosphate, which releases protons that react with dissolved carbonates to create water and CO2, which reduces the alkalinity and lowers the pH. Not to mention this is all a function of malt color (darker malts are more effective at lowering pH, ceteris parabus)

Blindly adding gypsum while testing pH will get you nowhere if you don't know where you are starting from. Go here or anywhere else that will test your water and learn what you've got coming out of the faucet.

Then go here and learn what it's all about. There a useful excel sheet, instructions on how to use it, and the science behind it. You get your head around this and your next move is this book Get through all that, and not only will you understand what is happening, but you'll improve your efficiency and flavor profile by default. Knowledge is power brother.

u/zVulture · 3 pointsr/TheBrewery

This is my full list of books from /r/homebrewing but it includes pro level books:

New Brewers:

u/Feruz424 · 3 pointsr/Homebrewing

This book is a good read for everything water.

u/SxthGear · 3 pointsr/beer

Yes, it actually will. Brewing relies heavily on the salt and mineral content of the water. Salt and mineral content changes significantly if they change a water source like that. Water content is also the reason why breweries are located in certain areas in certain states/countries around the world.

The other ingredients that you mentioned really don't have a huge impact, even with seasonal variations. Yeast is the only other factor that can seriously change flavor, and the yeast used in these beers is highly controlled and not subjected to conditions that will cause mutations.

For someone with the username 'Eddie_The_Brewer' you seem to not know a lot about brewing science.

Edit: And if you really don't believe me, there's a freaking book dedicated to water science: http://www.amazon.com/Water-A-Comprehensive-Guide-Brewers/dp/0937381993/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371673133&sr=8-1&keywords=water+brewing

u/beeps-n-boops · 2 pointsr/Homebrewing

> Roasted malts will lower the pH of the mash more than pale malts

The gold star answer right there! ::cheers::

You have to tailor the water to the specific grain bill of each recipe, so that you end up with both the correct mash pH as well as an appropriate mineral balance for the desired flavor.

(As an aside, this is a key factor in how different regions adopted certain beer styles way back when... they didn't understand the chemistry going on in the mash, but they learned through experience that certain types of beers came out better or worse than others, because of the water available to them.)

I cannot recommend Bru'n Water highly enough... I've been using it for years, and the quality of my beers -- which were pretty good to begin with -- skyrocketed. Some beers were substantially improved, others had an "intangible cohesiveness" that they never had before.

I also went for the paid version, more to give Martin some compensation for all of his hard work than the added features (although the added features are nice).

I will also mention that once I got a pH meter, the measured results were nearly spot-on to the calculated results in Bru'n Water.

IMO Bru'n Water is far far far far far better than the water chemistry module in any of the major brewing software.

I also recommend the Water book, although it's not for the timid. I have no chemistry background (I'm a designer and audio engineer/musician, much more right-brain than left-brain!) and it's taken me a while and multiple re-reads to wrap my head around some of it... but IMO it was well-worth the effort.

u/JamesAGreen · 2 pointsr/mead

I would always recommend people start with 'The Compleat Meadmaker, by Ken Schramm'. This has been the meadmaking bible for a very long time. You can find supplementary information about staggered nutrient additions, pH buffering compounds, new sanitizers, etc online in various articles and forum sites. Of course, understanding your ingredients can also be very good for any brewer, and water is a huge ingredient. So besides the other element series book 'Yeast' by Christ White and Jamil Zainasheff I highly recommend 'Water' by John Palmer and Colin Kaminski. For those of us making mead in Ferndale, our water is a very key ingredient which comes to us from an underground aquifer treated by the city of Ferndale, and is of very high quality (even compared with the high quality water from the City of Detroit). Understanding honey is a huge area of study. There are many classic textbooks on honey and honey-hunting by Eva Crane that are considered primary sources (but these can be prohibitively expensive for most mazers, and honestly, Ken's book does an awesome job of summarizing her contributions, as well as other historical information about meadmaking, honey, etc). I feel a basic understanding of beekeeping can be highly instructive for meadmakers, and so I recommend that you get your hands on some beginner beekeeping books, e.g. 'Beesentials' by L.J. Connor and Robert Muir and/or the 'Beekeeper's Handbook'. A solid background in wine or beer-making doesn't hurt, either, and there are multitudes of books I can recommend to you on the subject of beer specifically (this is my homebrewing background). My two absolute must-haves for beer brewing are 'Designing Great Beers' by Ray Daniels and 'Brewing Classic Styles' by John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff. Learning to brew beer can help you if you decide you want to try your hand at braggots.

u/GhostSheets · 2 pointsr/TheBrewery

I think water (specifically YOUR water) and recipes will play the biggest part. Read this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Water-Comprehensive-Brewers-Brewing-Elements/dp/0937381993

A stout may call for a 5.6 or 5.7 pH where as an IPA will typically be around 5.1 to 5.3 depending on the style. There are general recommendations on how much your pH should fluctuate post mash but there are many many considerations. The pH of a stout will fluctuate differently post boil and after fermentation differently than an IPA would. So many factors. Base, adjuncts, sugars, yeast selection, etc.

It's a question that doesn't have a quick answer.

For an IPA we (WE) shoot for a mash pH range of 5.1 to 5.3.
On avg, post boil we expect it to be .3 lower. This is dependent on gear and boil off rate.
Final beer between 4.0 and 4.3.

Depending on dry hop and hop variety that number may go up or down .2

Those are my numbers.

u/DeathMonkey6969 · 2 pointsr/Homebrewing

The Basic Brewing podcast for Aug. 21, 2014 "Homebrewer Alex Baker shares his experiment brewing the same recipe with water from different springs across Michigan."

Then there is of course Palmer and Kaminski's book on Water. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0937381993

u/Boss_McAwesome · 2 pointsr/Homebrewing

Bru'n water is the best IMO.

Just to give a quick overview of things to consider with water, there are different reasons you need certain ions. Things like sodium, chloride, and sulfate, you can taste the impact (sodium is obviously salty, chloride makes a beer "softer", sulfate makes hops sorta stand out more).

Other ions are there for balance and/or yeast health (calcium, potassium, magnesium, etc.)

Carbonates/bicarbonates (as you can probably imagine) help with buffering the mash pH. Mash pH is probably the most important factor in adjusting water for brewing. The ideal spot depends on the beer style and grain bill.

Calcium (and I suspect other divalent positive ions, not sure) is needed for getting a good hot break (proteins breaking down and flocculating in the boil). I'm not sure on the exact mechanism, but I suspect it just forms cross links on certain amino acids.

The book Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers is something I would probably get if I were you.

u/admiralwaffles · 2 pointsr/Homebrewing

This is great advice. A bit of gypsum will really work well, so I'd say use your water and add a bit of gypsum.

OP I implore you to read about Burton on Trent's water, and why your water profile for the city is most likely bullshit (if not impossible). I also implore you to read Palmer's book on Water for Brewing--it explains why any "water profile" you try to match is most likely bullshit, and that the brewers in those cities have been treating their water for centuries.

u/Justbeermeout · 2 pointsr/Homebrewing

If you want to learn a whole lot about the subject of brewing water I found this book to be really useful (if a little dry to read).

https://www.amazon.com/Water-Comprehensive-Brewers-Brewing-Elements/dp/0937381993

I think it is actually easier on some level to start with RO (for brewing purposes RO water is very close to distilled and generally way cheaper) and then just "build" your water from scratch at least for some styles. Pilsners are a good example because Plzen, Czech Republic has famously low mineral water and very few other places have such water. So the best option for an "authentic" Czech Pils is to start with water with essentially no minerals and add back tiny amounts.

Other styles of beer became what they are in order to make the best possible beer with the water the brewer historically had to deal with. So Irish stouts are obviously well suited to Dublin's water profile and English IPAs well suited to Burton water, etc. And with RO water, a good scale, and a few powdered minerals you can pretty straightforwardly replicate the water from anywhere in the world.

If you don't use RO water it gets a little bit trickier in that you have to know what you are starting with regarding minerals in your tap water. That's harder for some than others. Where I live, my municipal water is pulled from three different sources, they all have slightly different mineral profiles, and it's not as though the city tells you when they switch from one source to another. On top of that, because they are all sourced from surface water, their mineral content will change depending on time of year (winter water vs. spring runoff water for example). So unless you pretty routinely have your water tested (expensive to do often) you don't necessarily know what your starting mineral levels are... which makes getting your mineral additions right tricky. Luckily I have pretty good water for brewing IPAs and that's what I brew most often. But when I brew a pils I start with RO (and add very little), when I brew a stout I try to get a little closer to Dublin water by using filtered tap, baking soda, and chalk, and like I mentioned when I do American IPAs I only have to add a little gypsum. I don't try to replicate water from around the world exactly, but I do try to get my water closer to the recommended ranges.

You can get as deep into water profiles as you like, from trying to completely replicate the water where a style originated to just adding a couple of minerals to get somewhat closer to those "ideal" ranges. It's one of those subjects we can nerd out on as much as we like.

u/Wanderer89 · 1 pointr/Homebrewing

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0937381993

The 'water book' in question for those wondering. (I assume)

The yeast book was great.

u/jaapz · 1 pointr/Homebrewing

Nobody measures the actual amounts of any brewing ion in solution in your water.

You either:

  • send a sample of your tap water to a lab and have them measure the amounts of several brewing ions in your water
  • are lucky (like me) and your water supplier periodically measures and reports those things and makes that available to the public
  • start from distilled water (which is pure water, with no (actually very little) ions in it)

    Using one of the above you determine the base amounts of brewing ions in your water. Then you use something like bru'n water, brewersfriend, any of the other tools out there to determine a water profile and which salts to add to achieve that profile.

    After adding the salts, you just assume the desired amounts will be achieved, no need (or possibility, really) to actually measure those as a homebrewer.

    The tools I mentioned above also calculate mash pH and other important brewing water measures.

    Water is a very interesting topic to dive into, and if you really want to research this thoroughly I highly recommend Palmers "Water" book. Only part of that book is applicable to homebrewers, but it very clearly explains what water chemistry entails and what is important. It was only after reading this book that I fully understood how "residual alkalinity" works in brewing water, for example.

    Also, in my experience, getting the mash and boil pH right is way more important to the final product than the amounts of ions in your wort (as long as they are not exceedingly low, or high). When I brew with tap water without adjustments, my mash pH will be too high (especially for pale beers) which in turn means my boil pH will be to high. Invariably, those beers will take way longer to become clear, and the bitterness will be "weird". When I adjust my water to a (calculated) mash pH of ~5.4, the beer is already clear when I move it from the fermenter into bottles, and the bitterness is way more pleasant.
u/kevroy314 · 1 pointr/Coffee

Yeah I could definitely be remembering incorrectly. I'll have to check in a week when I'm home unless any other owners of Water can chime in with the part on preboiling water.

u/wartornhero · 1 pointr/Homebrewing

Yes, 1 year and spots fill up for the taste test fast. We are fortunate enough to have a big enough group and couple of high ranking judges to allow us to get our own exam for our study group. They recommend you sign up for a taste test before taking the entrance exam.

I assume you have already visited this page but it will give you everything you need to pass the entrance exam. http://www.bjcp.org/examcenter.php Also if you like reading, Yeast by Chris White and Jamil Zannishef, Hops by Stan Hirronamous and soon Water by John Palmer are great advanced books that will be great resources for brewing, judging and making recipes. That said to pass the exam all you will need is the study guide, the procedure manual, and the BJCP style guidelines is all you need.

u/Ron_Sayson · 1 pointr/ncbeer

I think our water is fine to brew with if you do a couple of simple things. Water is a complex topic, so before you go too far down the rabbit hole, understand that. When I was a homebrewer, the things that had the most positive impact on my beer from a water perspective were:

  1. Camden tablets to drop out the chloromines
  2. I bought a white, drinking quality, hose for my brewing water, rather than using that old nasty green one. This is like $20 at Home Depot. I think these first 2 changes are all you really need to do at a minimum.
  3. I tried using the brewing water calculators that are out there, but they never seemed to make much of a difference and I lost interest.

    Here's an old thread I started on beerinator. GCBrewingCo who adds the final word is one of the most experienced beer judges in the area.

    If you want to really focus on water, you sure can. John Palmer's How to Brew covers the topic at a high level and Palmer & Colin Kaminski wrote a whole book on water for brewers.

    One more point: annually in March, Raleigh stops adding ammonia to the water and just relies on straight chlorine for the month. This makes the water smell & taste different. Unlike chloromines, chlorine can be taken out with just a charcoal filter. Water customers affected by this change include those who pay water bills to the City of Raleigh and to the towns of Rolesville, Garner, Knightdale, Holly Springs, Wendell, Wake Forest, Zebulon and Fuquay-Varina.
u/mhelgy · 1 pointr/Homebrewing

I use the Bru'N Water Sheet and it has yet to fail me yet for it's estimates. I sent in my tap water to Ward Laboratories for analysis, plugged those numbers in, then adjust my desired water for each beer. it took a tad bit of practice to learn to use, but now I can do it in my sleep and understand why I am doing these certain adjustments.

Also, I recommend the Book Water (https://www.amazon.com/Water-Comprehensive-Brewers-Brewing-Elements/dp/0937381993/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493317229&sr=8-1&keywords=water+book) I read this first before getting into water chemistry stuff and it was great.

u/JusticeToad · 1 pointr/Homebrewing

Thanks I'll give that a read when I finish John Palmer and Colin Kaminski's Water book. Is the article what you personally do each time?

Mostly curious of what everyone does personally - not necessarily what 'should' be done :D.

u/Amf08d · 1 pointr/Homebrewing

If you havent already checked out the Brewing Elements series I would highly recommend doing so. They are fantastic for geeking out about brewing. I havent read Hops yet but Yeast was fascinating and Water is pretty advanced but really informative.

u/h3rbivore · 1 pointr/Homebrewing

IMO you can make pretty decent beer with bottled spring water. Depending on the chemistry of that spring water, it'll make some beers better than others, but spring water generally has a mixture of minerals that tastes pretty good and this often translates to good-tasting beer.

I'd say that the differences you get from water treatment are subtle but effective in making the difference between a pretty good beer and a very good beer.

This book is generally regarded as the classic source for water treatment in homebrewing.

You do not need a pH reader if you use a calculation like that in Bru 'n' Water. I don't have a pH reader, but I definitely want one now.

u/KidMoxie · 1 pointr/Homebrewing

A couple of water protips: don’t try to match a water profile of a particular region or city; those reports don’t take into account what the brewers of the region do to change their water for brewing (and I guarantee you they’re all doing something to prep it). Instead, make the water profile for the optimal flavor ions and calcium for the style, erring on the lower side of concentrations.

I believe there’s a table in Chapter 7 of the Water book that’s treated me very well for matching styles and ions concentration.