The makers of Coors beer boast of using water from the snowcapped Rocky Mountains. Now there's Baxter's Best, an ale formulated to take advantage of a more urban chemistry: tap water from Philadelphia. No joke. Beer experts say the stuff from Philly's water mains is ideal for brewing an English-style ale such as Baxter's, made by Saint Benjamin Brewing Company in Kensington.
The exact chemistry is fairly complex, having to do with the interplay of calcium, magnesium, and alkalinity, but those thirsty for knowledge can get a taste Tuesday night at a pop-up beer garden run by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society at 15th and South Streets. Brewery owner Tim Patton, who is speaking at p. Municipal water is commonly used to make beer, and historically, the mineral profile of each city's water system dictated the kinds of beer made there, he said.
Brewmakers learned early on that the hard waters of Dublin were ideal for stouts, said Kaminski, the brewmaster at Downtown Joe's in Napa, Calif. The softer waters of the Pilsen region, in the Czech Republic, became known for golden pilsners. Philadelphia's profile makes it ideal for mid-range beers, such as pale ales, without any modification, Kaminski said after looking at the city's water profile.
I'm using the carbon without minerals. I checked the published numbers in my recent water report and they were very close. I haven't called the water dept since my original inquiry a few years ago to try to get the unpublished numbers.
I have been modifying the original numbers with great success up to today. Coff Well-Known Member. How do you know what plant you draw from, is it on your bill? I think they have a map on their website if I recall correctly. Nierika said:. Recently moved to Fairmount and I was wondering if anybody had an updated one for Baxter. I also run my water through a whole-house filter.
What aspects of the profile would this change? Skiffy Well-Known Member. Skiffy said:. Are you sure Fairmount is the Baxter plant?
That area seems to be coming from the Queen Lane plant. Anybody else have trouble with unfiltered tap water treated with campden creating off flavors in the bottle? I just switched back to tap water and I'm having issues, bottled water gave me no trouble. I actually just started a thread here so I could explain the details better. Probably best to continue the conversation there if you have any input, but I'll state my issues below too in case somebody else gets the same quirky issue as me.
I can't describe it well, and the few people that have tasted it gave different descriptions. The beers are not over-carbed though. Sorry to drudge up an old thread, but I'm in Philly on the Baxter plant as well. For those of you brewing hoppy beer, what do you do to the water? I've been using part of a crushed campden tablet, but my hoppy beers have been lacking significant hop flavor. Once I tried adding some gypsum but I didn't notice a difference.
I don't think it's the recipes. I don't really know what it could be other than the water. I do BIAB. So my questions are is campden enough or do I really need to filter? If so, is there such a thing as too much campden?
Should I use a whole tab even for gallons of water? And do you typically add gypsum or anything else to the Baxter water? How much per gallon for a hoppy beer?
Did you used to make better hoppy beers with a different water source or a different method? You seem to be paying enough attention to the water quality, but have you considered mash ph or oxidation. I get the feeling that hoppy beers are much more sensitive to these factors. Do you keg? Many people mention that their hoppy beers suddenly became much better when switching from bottling to kegging. I've only done 3 all grain batches and I've used the same water for all of them Philly water from the Baxter plant treated with campden.
I haven't filtered it because I only have a Brita and it would take forever to filter that much water. I don't have PH testing equipment so it could be that. I thought that was more for the mash efficiency, which hasn't been giving me problems? Other minerals are not welcome in your brewing water. But too much salt will make your beer taste, well, salty. Iron and manganese are both detrimental to the flavor, clarity and yeast health of your beer. The worst of the additions to your water is free chlorine or chloramine.
Remove chlorine by boiling or carbon filtering and remove both chlorine and chloramine with a campden tablet. Finally, two minerals which are beneficial are zinc and copper, as long as they are present in trace amounts. The yeast use these minerals as nutrients. Too much of these minerals can cause problems with off flavors and yeast fermentation.
Water high in sulfate , which causes permanent hardness, gives beer a dry fuller flavor although it can be too sharp. Above ppm sulfates in water can be strongly bitter.
The entire book is directed to those that like the technical aspects of brewing. It is a very good source of information and is indispensable for those that want to adjust their brewing water. Some brewing software have water adjustment tools. Utilize these tools if your water needs adjustment, or if you just want to experiment. As an example, here is the analysis done by Ward Laboratories, Inc.
The pH of the water is not too important yet. The water must combine with the grain bill in your recipe before the pH should be taken. If the pH is then out of range, it can be adjusted. The calcium level is below the recommended brewing range of ppm as is the magnesium level which should be ppm magnesium is an important yeast nutrient , but as mentioned above, the yeast will get plenty of magnesium from the wort which derived its magnesium from the grains.
The biggest problem is the bicarbonate level of ppm. The proper levels of bicarbonate are ppm for pale, base malt-only beers, ppm for amber toasted malt beers and ppm for dark, roasted malt beers. My water is above even the highest recommended level of ppm. The carbonates can be lowered to the ppm level by two methods, boiling or dilution. The problem with boiling is that it can only remove the temporary hardness which is the lesser of the total alkalinity as CaCO ppm or the total hardness as CaCO ppm.
In my case the lesser is the total hardness as CaCO3 at 80 ppm. If the total hardness would have exceeded my total alkalinity, then most of the alkalinity could be removed down to the 50 ppm range which has to do with the solubility constant of Calcium. In my water, only part of the alkalinity and almost all of the calcium which is low already will be precipitated when boiled this is definitely not a good situation.
I would need to add back more calcium to equalize the alkalinity. If I wanted to lower my carbonate levels, there are a couple of methods I could use.
One way of lowering carbonates is by adding slaked lime for a calcium source to precipitate the carbonates as calcium carbonate, and the other method is dilution. Adding slaked lime is complicated and must be done with care and precision.
Dilution is much simpler and just as effective. I vote on dilution. Click here to learn about using slaked lime or dilution for carbonate reduction. Brewing water adjustments can be complex. But, if you are having problems with your beers brewed with only pale malts, or just want to take your brewing to the next level, it is a worthwhile endeavor to learn.
If you only adjust one thing, work on that first. Getting the correct RA for your brewing water will insure that you get the proper pH in the mash.
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