Hardness of Distilled Water?
Don Roxby
info concerning the PH level of distilled water and its effect on
hot-break, yeast activity etc. I've been told by a couple of people
lately that distilled water should be treated to change its hardness, but
they couldn't elaborate.
Thanks in advance.
Donnie
--
*********************************************************************
See the surface, see the rocks roxbyD...@redstone-emh2.army.mil
See my past fly swiftly by
I feel the water in my lungs
And wake up screaming for my life.........
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nancy e. renner
On Sat, 4 Mar 1995, Teddy Winstead wrote:
<snip>
> Distilled water has had all the minerals and impurities removed. Therefore,
> it SHOULD have a pH of exactly 7, and should have negligible levels of
> all ions normally present in water, including HCO3, which is what brewers
> usually refer to as "hardness".
<snip>
I don't know about you, but I refer to HCO3 as "alkalinity," and Ca (and
Mg) as hardness. This is how water chemists use them, and it is useful
for brewers as well, since it is the Ca ion that we need for mash
acidity, and the HCO3 that we need to eliminate for pale beers, but can
use to balance tha acidity of dark grains in dark beers.
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan c/o nere...@umich.edu
D. Johnson
>In article <roxbyd-cic-bm-0...@136.205.216.42>,
>Don Roxby <roxbyd...@redstone-emh2.army.mil> wrote:
>
>>I always use spring or distilled water when brewing. Does anyone have any
>>info concerning the PH level of distilled water and its effect on
>>hot-break, yeast activity etc. I've been told by a couple of people
>>lately that distilled water should be treated to change its hardness, but
>>they couldn't elaborate.
>
>That is, it should be very soft.
>
>--
Distilled water generally has some dissolved CO2 which will drive the pH
down a little. It has *no* buffer capacity so you need some "alkalinity"
to give you something resembling a normal water supply. The nice thing about
it is that you can make it exactly what you wan't.
Couple of good references for those interested. "Aquatic Chemisttry" by
Werner Stumm and J. J. Morgan and "Nalco Water Handbook" by Frank Kemmer.
Kemmer's book has a great table of salt-to-CaCO3 equivalents conversion
factors.
Luck
--
Donald A. Johnson
do...@mcs.com
Teddy Winstead
>I always use spring or distilled water when brewing. Does anyone have any
>info concerning the PH level of distilled water and its effect on
>hot-break, yeast activity etc. I've been told by a couple of people
>lately that distilled water should be treated to change its hardness, but
>they couldn't elaborate.
Distilled water has had all the minerals and impurities removed. Therefore,
it SHOULD have a pH of exactly 7, and should have negligible levels of
all ions normally present in water, including HCO3, which is what brewers
usually refer to as "hardness".
--
Nathaniel Scott "Teddy" Winstead | http://www.cs.tulane.edu/www/Winstead
wins...@cs.tulane.edu (Preferred) |
winstead%brauer...@cs.tulane.edu |
Fanatical Homebrewer & CS Student |
A. J. deLange
roxbyd...@redstone-emh2.army.mil writes:
>I always use spring or distilled water when brewing. Does anyone have any
>info concerning the PH level of distilled water and its effect on
>hot-break, yeast activity etc. I've been told by a couple of people
>lately that distilled water should be treated to change its hardness, but
>they couldn't elaborate.
The first question is an easy one. Pure water (to which distilled water
is almost as close as you can come with ion exchanged water being even
closer) has a pH of 7.00. This is because there is nothing else in it
including hardness i.e. its hardness is 0 (in any set of units) as is its
alkalinity.
Distilled water is not the best thing to use for brewing because it is
lacking in several things needed for the chemical reactions of mashing
and the biochemical reactions of yeast respiration and fermentation. In
particular, calcium is necessary for acidification of the mash,
stabilization of the amylases and precipitation of oxalate. Magnesium and
zinc (and to a lesser extent, manganese) are important cofactors for
several enzymes involved in yeast growth and fermentation. If you use
distilled water you must rely on the amounts of these substances present
in the malt and there are some. Note that the standard laboratory mashes
used in characterizing malt use distilled water.
Distilled water is clearly one of the best ways a brewer can prepare
customized liquor for the brewing of styles as diverse in this regard as
say Pilsner (7 ppm calcium, 5 ppm sulphate, 2 ppm Magnesium, 5 ppm
chloride , 15 ppm bicarbonate) and a Burtion ale (268 ppm calcium, 638
ppm sulphate, 62 ppm magnesium, 36 ppm chloride, 280 ppm bicarbonate).
Actually building up the water you want is a bit tricky as you can't buy
magnesium ion, for example, by itself. You can, on the other hand, buy
"Burtonizing Salts" which, presumably, give the ion ratios typical of
Burton water.
Some guidance on what to add to water to tailor it to your needs can be
found in some of the brewing books such as Noonan's and Miller's but not
to the extent you'd like. If you paid attention in freshman chemistry and
remember how to do those horrid ionic equilibrium problems you should be
able to get where you want to go.
Prosit, AJ
Philip Gravel
>I always use spring or distilled water when brewing. Does anyone have any
>info concerning the PH level of distilled water and its effect on
>hot-break, yeast activity etc. I've been told by a couple of people
>lately that distilled water should be treated to change its hardness, but
>they couldn't elaborate.
Distilled water should have a pH of 7 and little if any salts or carbonates.
That is, it should be very soft.
--
Phil
_____________________________________________________________
Philip Gravel pgr...@mcs.com
Allan Rubinoff
roxbyd...@redstone-emh2.army.mil (Don Roxby) wrote:
> I always use spring or distilled water when brewing. Does anyone have any
> info concerning the PH level of distilled water and its effect on
> hot-break, yeast activity etc. I've been told by a couple of people
> lately that distilled water should be treated to change its hardness, but
> they couldn't elaborate.
All the replies I've seen to this post discuss distilled water. I just
thought it would be worth pointing out that the original poster says he
uses "spring or distilled water." Spring water isn't distilled water and
in fact can actually be rather high in hardness and minerals.
--
Allan Rubinoff <rubi...@bbn.com>
Greg Fry
> I always use spring or distilled water when brewing. Does anyone have any
> info concerning the PH level of distilled water and its effect on
> hot-break, yeast activity etc. I've been told by a couple of people
> lately that distilled water should be treated to change its hardness, but
> they couldn't elaborate.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Donnie
>
> --
>
___________________________________________________________________________
Donnie,
The water used in brewing effects the final product profoundly. In fact,
the quality of many of the beers produced in famous brewing locations is
influenced greatly by the composition of the waters available. For
example Burton on Trent, Dortmund, Pilsen, etc.
The main differences are water salt (mineral) composition. The
composition of the mineral salts influences mostly the acidity of the
final product. For example, the addition of CaSO4 will acidify wort.
The mineral composition also influences the color of the final product
and the precipitation of hot break.
In short, if you use deionized water, add some minerals. I generally add
100 ppm of CaSO4 and this helps acidify the wort as well as precipitate
the hot break proteins.
I hope this answers at least some of your question.
Greg Fry
UC Davis Brewing STUDent
> > >
Tracy Aquilla
If it's actually distilled water, it shouldn't have any hardness, and the pH
should be near neutral (pH=7).
tracy
Graves Peter
>I always use spring or distilled water when brewing. Does anyone have any
>info concerning the PH level of distilled water and its effect on
>hot-break, yeast activity etc. I've been told by a couple of people
>lately that distilled water should be treated to change its hardness, but
>they couldn't elaborate.
>
The only place to ask is the bottler, they will gladly give any and all
info on their water. As to the second part of your post, there is very little
experience by anyone using distilled water. Folks just don't use distilled water
for that reason, it lacks most all mineral content. Why start with distilled
only to add minerals taken out by the distilling process?
If you use bottle water, like I do, use the spring water, which has a good
balance of minerals. YMMV.
Many bottlers have 1-800 numbers you can call and get the info you want,
and usually over the phone or FAX. The pH is usually still high.
Cheers Pete
Larry Barras
>
>In article 03039511...@136.205.216.42, roxbyd...@redstone-emh2.army.mil (Don Roxby) writes:
>>I always use spring or distilled water when brewing. Does anyone have any
>>info concerning the PH level of distilled water and its effect on
Distilled water has no mineral content at all, thus it has no
hardness either. Distilled water also has ph 7.0 by definition.
If you use DI water for brewing, especially mashing, you will want to add
some mineral content to the water. What salts to add are completely
dependant on the style of beer you are brewing.
You can start with DI water to reproduce any style of brewing water in the
world. You just have to add minerals to match the original water source.