Do I Need a Water Treatment or Not In My Brewery?

Do I Need a Water Treatment or Not?

As we all know, grain, water, hops are three basic factors for beer brewing process.

And water plays an important role in beer quality, its PH, salt content, iron affect the beer favor. 

So how do I know if I need a water treatment or not?

Normally we need to test if the city water is good enough for beer brewing as below steps:

First, the brewing water should be basically meet the standard of drinking.

The beer brewing water should be colorless and transparent. 

The brewing water taste should be refreshing, and smell is neutral, 

odorless when heating the water reach 20-50℃. 

The brewing water will not be adopted if it is salty, bitterness, astringency.

Basically The total quantity of bacterial need meet the standard of drinking water.

Second, the salt content of brewing water should be in the level of 150-200mg/L. 

Higher salt content will result in rough taste and bitter of beer.

Meanwhile, the content of iron ion should lower the level of 0.3mg/L.

Ammonium salt should not be existed in the water. 

Normally 0.5mg/l ammonium will cause brewing water unclean.

And the silicate content should be lower than the level of 30mg/L. 

Higher silicate content will cause wort turbid and shape into micelles, 

it even influences the process of yeast fermentation and beer filtration.

Third, brewing water PH value should be between 6.8-7.2, 

slightly alkaline or slightly acid will make mashing more difficult and poor beer taste.

Forth, the organics oxygen consumption in the brewing water should be lower than 3mg/L, 

the water has been seriously contaminated if higher than 10mgL.

Fifth, the hardness in brewing water should be lower than 5.706mmol/L if brewer produce light color beer. 

The level of hardness can be increased if we produce more concentrate color beer.

Lastly, The chorlide content should be in the level of 20-60mg/L.

Brewman suggest you a water treatment if your city water can not reach above requirements.