OVHA Chat

I keep getting a metallic taste in my beers. At first I decribed it as a twang, but now have someone else who agreed with the metallic part. I use a stainless brewpot.
I don't use a filter for my water, but am considering that as right now, I don't think I can say I have brewed any extremely good beers.
Have any of you had experience with Newburgh water and/or give advice?

Thanks,

Bob Dale

I believe your water is part well water and part river water, so it's possible it has some iron in it.

You can use drinking water from the grocery store -- it's been demineralized so any undesirable metals have been removed (along with the sulfate and chloride).

See if you can get an analysis from the city -- I'm sure they have information on iron, hardness, and alkalinity.

Pete

In-line carbon filter is always a good addition to your cold water line to save you money on bottled water day to day. Good brewing water will just be a bonus!

I've been brewing in Newburgh for @ 10 years now (notice I didn't say using
Newburgh water)
I have had several long discussions with the manger of Indiana Cities Water, Newburgh office, I think is name is Darrel Heisler. They do not get any of their water from the river (directly).
They have wells @ 1/4 mile from the river where they pump most of there water, and they are also tied into evansville water and will get it from there when needed.
It will depend on where you live, and time of year, and level of the river and what color your underwear is to know exactly what your water chemistry is in Newburgh, and did I mention that some of Newburgh gets their water from Chandler. That water comes from Scale Lake (I think) and what I remember from Chandler water is its veryyy hard.

I used to email the main office (Indiana Cities) and received a water report for the last several years. I have found out that it isn't a lot of help only because when i send in my own sample to Ward Labs it was quite a bit different.
Here is last years report:
pH 7.6
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est 357
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.60
Cations / Anions, me/L 6.3 / 6.4
ppm
Sodium, Na 24
Potassium, K 3
Calcium, Ca 77
Magnesium, Mg 19
Total Hardness, CaCO3 262
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.2 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 42
Chloride, Cl 29
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 189
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 145
3/26/2011
http://www.wardlab.com
I haven't had the time to do this years but will very soon.

Now to Bob's question:

I filter with an In-line carbon filter, but almost NEVER ever will I use 100% Newburgh water any longer. I am close to the wells and don't think I get any Evansville water where I live.

I go to Wallyworld and get 10 gals of RO water for $3.70 and use 25 to 100% of this in my beers. If I'm making a Stout, BarleyWine type I need the Bicarbonates from Newburgh's water for pale ales, lagers IPA's I will use almost all RO water, then you get into adding some salts which aren't that hard to figure out, when you are using 100% RO water. (but that's another story and one of my secrets they are looking for in another post).

Try doing what I did, in the mash for a light beer, use @25% Newburgh and 75% RO, go ahead and sparge with 100% Newburgh water and see if this helps. If it is better then you know where to look, if not we'll have to look somewhere else.

Do you have a water softener? If so put it in by-pass when drawing your brewing water.
I have one but my outside hydrants are hooked up before the softener.

One last thing, If you use a garden hose to get your water, spend the extra $$ and get a RV hose.

We (Microbac Labs) can do the analysis as well, let me know.

Unless there is significant iron in there, perhaps from accumulated crud in old pipes, you should be fine for Munich lagers -- it's all bicarb, temporary hardenss. Check for galvanized pipe, too -- it's possible you have some from a repair or something, and the zinc tastes nasty too.

For Burton ales, you need a tsp of gypsum (at least) per batch to get the calcium and sulfate up to proper levels, otherwise that's excellent brewing water! Better than Evansville water, which has too much sulfate most of the time, although not recently due to the high river levels.

A typical water filter will not remove iron -- if you think you have a metallic "wang" see me next meeting and we can see about getting your water (or beer, for that matter) tested.

Peter

Thanks as always for the tips. It gives me a good starting point.

At the last meeting I didn't quite know the reason for the off flavor beer being up front. I thought it was a test for the experts in the group to guess what the off-flavor was. Being a non-expert, I thought it best to skip that! I didn't realize it was advertised ahead of time and that I could easily have used it to begin narrowing the description of what I'm tasting in my beers. I'll be sampling the rest of those!