Home brewers take great care when constructing a recipe for aroma, appearance, flavor, and mouthfeel. Almost always, water chemistry is an after-thought mainly because it is confusing. I hope to shed some light on how breweries basically have similar thoughts on addressing water chemistry. There are some fairly well established rules of thumb you can apply as well.
Some Basic Concepts of Beer Water Profiles
Water chemistry is an advanced topic. The explanations provided on water chemistry are greatly simplified so that the information on the water profiles of beers are in context. pH – The measurement of pH is easy to perform – See my article on Selecting, Care and Use of a pH meter. But wait…there is more to water profiles than just pH.
Ions – the thing that impacts pH directly are the ions in the water. In your tap water, the most common ions or dissolved salts that impact brewing are: Ca +2 , Mg +2 , Cl – , OH – , CO3 -2 /HCO 2 – , SO 4 2 (for simplicity, in
this article, I have left off the superscripts, the valence charge, on the ions) Positively charged and negatively charged ions are called cations and anions, respectively. The ions present can give water temporary hardness or permanent hardness. Temporary hardness is mainly due to the presence of calcium bicarbonate Ca(HCO 3 ) 2 and magnesium bicarbonate Mg(HCO 3 ) 2 . You can easily tell if you have temporary or permanent hardness by boiling water. When you boil water the HCO 3 will come apart and CO 2 will be released as a gas. The Ca and/or Mg will form either CaCO 3 (calcium carbonate) or MgCO 3 (magnesium carbonate). Both carbonate compounds are insoluble in water and will form a white precipitate – that is the white stuff that kills water heaters and at the bottom of pots when water is boiled. The well-known reaction for Ca is (similar to Mg(HCO 3 ) 2 ):
Ca +2 + 2HCO3 CaCO3 (ppt) + H2O + CO2 (gas)
Permanent hardness is a measure of the cations that remain soluble in water after boiling. The water must gently racked off the formed precipitate (calcium carbonate and/or magnesium carbonate) so that the precipitated salts do not redissolve back into the water. Water containing calcium chloride (CaCl 2 ), calcium sulfate (CaSO 4 ), magnesium chloride (MgCl 2 ) or magnesium sulfate (MgSO 4 ) will not form a precipitate and such water is said to have permanent hardness.
The most important cations in brewing are Ca, and to a lesser extent, Mg. The most important anion in brewing is CO 3 /HCO 3 (carbonate\bicarbonate). I won’t go into much detail why here but a lot of information on this can be found on the American Homebrewer’s Association website and well-respected authors who have written about homebrewing.
New Belgium, for instance, gets half of their water from Poudre River and half from Horsetooth Reservoir. Geosmin, resulting from algae blooms in the reservoir, can be a problem. They routinely conduct a taste test of their water on their testing panel for off flavors. Geosmin can luckily be removed by activated charcoal filtration.
Chlorine/Chloramine Removal
All breweries surveyed consider chlorine/chloramine removal as the most important aspect. No matter how well you balance the other ions, hit the pH and alkalinity spot on, any chlorinated compound that is not removed will result in chlorophenols. Chlorophenols impart a vinyl, plastic, medicinal, mouthwash, antiseptic-like flavor. The water source for many breweries is municipal water which is treated with chlorine or chloramine. The incoming water at New Belgium contains 0.35 ppm chlorine. New Belgium can heat the water because chlorine is used rather than chloramine. Chloramine does not dissipate by boiling. Some common methods to remove chloramine include treatment with sodium/potassium metabisulfite, activated charcoal filtration, and reverse osmosis (RO). 3 Daughters Brewing must use activated carbon filtration to remove chloramine. Firestone Walker uses municipal water but because the water is hard they use reverse osmosis (RO). RO will remove most all ions and contaminants from the water creating a blank canvas to which ions may be added.
Alkalinity and pH
Alkalinity is not the same as pH. Alkalinity is a measure of a solution (water in this case) to resist a change in pH. Solutions that have the ability to resist a change in pH have higher “buffering” capacity. Think of waters with high carbonate/bicarbonate [(CO 3 )/(HCO 3 )] content. There are water testing companies that now cater to homebrewers. You can send the water you use for brewing to be tested for alkalinity most commonly stated as ”measured as CaCO 3 .”
New Belgium is fortunate at both of their brewing locations – Fort Collins, CO and Asheville, NC – to have low alkalinity in their water at 38.5 ppm (measured as CaCO3). This means that New Belgium is able adjust their water alkalinity with ease to match the style of beer being brewed. The water at Firestone Walker in Paso Robles, CA is hard. They run their water through an RO system. The water then is close to pure water (contains almost no ions) and so has little buffering capacity – changes in pH are quick. With almost no alkalinity, the water is a blank canvas and can be easily tailored to match the style of beer being brewed. The buffering of the brewing liquor using almost pure water (at Firestone Walker) comes from the constituents in malt (starch, proteins, and naturally occurring ions) and added salts.
3 Daughters Brewing keeps the alkalinity low for light beers – think of the extremely soft water that is so well-suited in Bohemia (now Czechia) for Czech Pils – and higher for dark beers. They suggested to try alkalinity ranges (measured as CaCO 3 ) of 0-50 for pale beers, 50-100 for amber beers and 150-400 for dark beers. These ranges are generally in keeping what you find in literature. Salts/ions in Brewing that may or may not impart taste Calcium (Ca) has little effect on the flavor of beer. However, it is not possible to just add calcium. Calcium is added as calcium chloride (CaCl), calcium sulfate (CaSO 4 ) or pickling lime (Ca(OH) 2 ). Calcium is more of a requirement for the precipitation of proteins (hot break and cold break), precipitate oxalate in the mash while keeping oxalate salts in solution in beer preventing one cause of gushering, reduces the extraction of tannins, and yeast health/flocculation. It is generally agreed that the concentration of calcium should be between 50-150 ppm.
Magnesium has little effect on the flavor of beer. It is a minor mineral in brewing and required in trace amounts, usually between 10 to 30 ppm. Mg concentrations >50 ppm tends to give a sour-bitter taste to beer and >125 ppm can have a laxative effect. Magnesium salts (MgCl 2 and MgSO 4 ) can be used to avoid adding too much calcium when needed.
Chloride at low concentrations enhances the sweetness/roundness of malt. The chloride concentration is usually kept between 0-250 ppm. Higher concentrations can result in mediciney flavors due to the formation of chlorophenol-like compounds. Sodium rounds out beer flavor and accentuates the sweetness of malt – much like adding a pinch of salt when baking cookies or cakes. Sodium is usually added between 70-150 ppm. Over 200 ppm will cause beer to taste salty – think Gose.
Sulfate accentuates hop bitterness – bitterness seems drier and crisper. Generally the sulfate concentration is 50-150 ppm for standard bittered beers and up to 350 ppm for very bitter beers. When both sulfate and sodium are used together at their commended concentrations they will give beer a harsh bitterness. It is best to keep one or the other low.
filters can be used to treat water for ideal brewing water profiles.
Firestone Walker targets at least 80 ppm Ca in their beers and goes higher in beers with more calcium sulfate (CaSO 4 ) in their hop-forward beers such as (Union Jack) where sulfate helps the hop profile. In their malt-forward beers where they aim for more balanced malt-bitterness (Merlin and their other big beers), they add more calcium chloride (CaCl 2 ).
New Belgium adds different calcium salts based on the type of beer to achieve flavor profiles imparted by the chloride and sulfate. They try to try to keep CL 2 <150 ppm to prevent metallic flavors and damage to their kegs and equipment, and SO 4 <250 ppm to avoid sulfur aromas.
3 Daughters Brewing keeps the target range of the ions: Ca – 50-150 ppm; Mg – 0-30 ppm; sulfate – 50- 150 ppm for normal beers/150-350 for highly bitter beers; Na – 0-150 ppm; Cl – 0-250 ppm. The sulfate:chloride (SO4:Cl) ratio is kept at 2:1 for bitter beer; 1:2 for mild ales; 1:3 for stouts and porters. The alkalinity (measured as CO3) is 0-50 for pale beers; 50-150 for amber beers; 150-400 for dark beers.
The recommendation Firestone Walker had for homebrewers was to use water as soft as possible, use acid control for pH, and don’t get aggressive with trying to correct pH with mineral additions. I would like to thank 3 Daughters Brewing, St. Petersburg, FL; New Belgium Brewing, Ft. Collins, CO; and Firestone Walker Brewing Company, Paso Robles, CA for their insights on how they address water and for their tips on water profiles.
by Udit MinochaUdit Minocha is a microbiologist, home brewer, animal lover, and loves to cook. I live in Northern Virginia and belongs to GRiST (Grains Result in Something Tasty) from Arlington, VA. I started home brewing in 1991 and regrettably gave it up for a short period. I take meticulous notes (usually, unless when I don’t ) and enjoy recording the technical aspects during the brew session like pH, water chemistry, etc. I love to find out the “how come, Wally” in scientific terms of all things beer and brewing. While I appreciate the artistic and technical complexities that go into fruited / spiced and beers with different ingredients, I tend to fall back on ingredients from the provenance of the style.
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