It’s safe to say that about 85 to 95% of beer is made up of water… therefore, water can have a great influence on the taste of your beer…. however, the best water for home brewing varies greatly depending on whether you are brewing using extract, all grain, or on the the style of beer that you are brewing….
If you are brewing using extract, then water minerals are not nearly as important as they are with all grain brewing… if anything, you want to make sure that the water has good taste by itself and that it’s free from contaminants like chlorine, chloramine, etc…
When it comes to all grain brewing, water is in fact a major factor in the final flavor of the beer… you can brew two beers with the same grain bill, hop schedule and yeast, but change the water profile and you will get two distinct beers…
If you want to get good at brewing all grain beer, then finding the best water to use is a must…
If you don’t learn what would be the best water to brew your all grain beers, then you’ll only be able to brew certain styles and miss out on others…
The best water for all grain brewing depends mostly on the style of beer you are brewing. If you are brewing pale or light colored beers, then you’ll need to use soft water. However, some soft water can lack important minerals like calcium, which is an important nutrient for yeast to ferment the beer…
Pale beers use grains that don’t have much acidity and therefore salt additions may be needed to bring the pH down of the mash… gypsum and calcium chloride can do this for you…
If you are brewing darker beers like porters and stouts, then soft water is not the best water for brewing… in this case you need water with some alkalinity… the reason for this is because dark malts can have too much acidity and bring the pH down too low…. the alkalinity in water will bring that pH back up in the mash…
You can also add sodium bicarbonate or chalk to bring the pH up if you need to make adjustments…
Every beer style in between will vary in what kind of water you need, but a good rule of thumb is that the lighter the beer, the softer or less alkaline water you should use, and the darker the beer the more alkaline… in both cases you must have at least 50 ppm of calcium… so moderate hardness is essential regardless…
Last there are other minerals that will give your beer different flavors… chloride and sulfate will bring out the maltyness and hoppiness of the beer…
When you are brewing with extract, you don’t need to do mineral additions since the extract will have all the minerals you need for fermentation… if you are using other unrefined sugars however, that is not the case…
Cheers!
