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Date: 28 Jul 2006 08:01:35
From:
Subject: diluting with distilled water - menerals, etc.
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Brewers,
How bereft of minerals is distilled water? If I dilute my tap water
50/50 with distilled, do my mineral concentrations really just halve?
What about alkalinity?
Thanks,
-Nick
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Date: 28 Jul 2006 08:32:12
From:
Subject: Re: diluting with distilled water - menerals, etc.
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> Are you brewing extract or all grain?
All grain. I'm doing my first lager tomorrow (a Pilsner). Messing
with distilled water may well be overkill (my water isn't too hard),
but I just like to play with new brewing techniques and what-not.
The reason I asked about alkalinity is as follows. I have a little
script which calculates water additions based on desired beer color,
calcium, magnesium, and alkalinity values (basically that nomograph on
Palmer's web site, but in a little shell script). With my current
values, the script said to add such and such amount of calcium. But,
when I halved the numbers for Ca, Mg, and alkalinity, the amount of
calcium is said to add *decreased* significantly. This sort of
suprised me. This means either 1) I shouldn'y really halve alkalinity,
or 2) the interplay between the minerals and alkalinity to determine
final pH is somehow more sensitive to the change in alkalinity in this
case.
Or both.
I guess I could dust off my copy of Fix's book and think through it...
Thoughts?
-Nick
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Date: 29 Jul 2006 03:28:39
From: Adam Preble
Subject: Re: diluting with distilled water - menerals, etc.
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naramsey@umich.edu wrote:
> All grain. I'm doing my first lager tomorrow (a Pilsner). Messing
> with distilled water may well be overkill (my water isn't too hard),
> but I just like to play with new brewing techniques and what-not.
If you don't normally use distilled water then I wouldn't bother.
You're already changing enough stuff that throwing in distilled water
IMO adds more variables, not takes some away. If you've grown used to
your water then you know it a little already.
> or 2) the interplay between the minerals and alkalinity to determine
> final pH is somehow more sensitive to the change in alkalinity in this
> case.
I can't say for sure, but I'd buy this. You can expect a gram of
tweedledee to have the same impact as a gram of tweedledum.
If pH is really bothering you, you could also do a longer acid rest, or
drop in some lactic acid. Both of those methods don't require lugging
around a bunch of distilled water.
I've only done three lagers, two of which were all-grain. They were
both very light kinds of lagers, moreso than what I would expect of a
pilsener. I used the tap water with a campden tablet to drive off the
chloramine (so they say) and that was that. I haven't had a husky,
astringent taste in the beer that's associated with it.
If you know pH is a problem with your water, you probably would have run
into it already.
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Date: 28 Jul 2006 18:00:57
From: John Bleichert
Subject: Re: diluting with distilled water - menerals, etc.
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naramsey@umich.edu wrote:
>> Are you brewing extract or all grain?
>
> All grain. I'm doing my first lager tomorrow (a Pilsner). Messing
> with distilled water may well be overkill (my water isn't too hard),
> but I just like to play with new brewing techniques and what-not.
>
> The reason I asked about alkalinity is as follows. I have a little
> script which calculates water additions based on desired beer color,
> calcium, magnesium, and alkalinity values (basically that nomograph on
> Palmer's web site, but in a little shell script). With my current
> values, the script said to add such and such amount of calcium. But,
> when I halved the numbers for Ca, Mg, and alkalinity, the amount of
> calcium is said to add *decreased* significantly. This sort of
> suprised me. This means either 1) I shouldn'y really halve alkalinity,
> or 2) the interplay between the minerals and alkalinity to determine
> final pH is somehow more sensitive to the change in alkalinity in this
> case.
>
> Or both.
>
> I guess I could dust off my copy of Fix's book and think through it...
>
> Thoughts?
>
> -Nick
>
Could you please post that script in here?
-----------------------------------------------
John Bleichert syborg@earthlink.net
The heat from below can burn your eyes out!!
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Date: 28 Jul 2006 15:07:41
From: John 'Shaggy' Kolesar
Subject: Re: diluting with distilled water - menerals, etc.
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On 28 Jul 2006 08:01:35 -0700, <naramsey@umich.edu > wrote:
> Brewers,
>
> How bereft of minerals is distilled water?
Completely, I think.
> If I dilute my tap water
> 50/50 with distilled, do my mineral concentrations really just halve?
Probably.
> What about alkalinity?
Don't know, probably 1/2 as well.
Are you brewing extract or all grain?
John.
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Date: 28 Jul 2006 13:38:20
From:
Subject: Re: diluting with distilled water - menerals, etc.
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Sorry, I was in a hurry when I wrote that last post. Here's what Fix
says. In this context (that of a listing in a water report), the
alkalinity is reported as "as CaCO3". To get this you take the ionic
concentrations of carbonate and bicarbonate ions and convert them into
equivalent quantities of CaCO3 (by multiplying by the ratio the
molecular weight of CaCO3 to that of the ion). Then the alkalinity is
equal to the value you get for bicarbonate plus twice the value you get
for carbonate.
The twice comes in because carbonate ions effectively have twice the
buffering power of bicarbonate (they can eat two free H+'s).
Upshot: If distilled water has no carbonate or bicarbonate, then the
alkalinity should indeed be 0, and using 50/50 tap water and distilled
water will indeed cut the alkalinity in half.
-Nick
Larry Bristol wrote:
> naramsey@umich.edu wrote:
>
> > I'm not concerned with the pH per se, but rather the alkalinity. This
> > is defined as a sum of the concentrations of two things (bicarbonate
> > and carbonate, I think).
>
> Well, OK. I checked the definition of "alkalinity" and "alkali" to make
> sure I was not leading you off into never-never land. It is defined (in
> this context) as "soluble mineral matter, other than common salt, contained
> in soils of natural waters."
>
> Distilled water has *no* alkalis dissolved within it. The concentration of
> alkalis (in parts per million) will be cut in half.
>
> --
> Larry Bristol --- The Double Luck
> http://www.doubleluck.com
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Date: 28 Jul 2006 11:14:52
From:
Subject: Re: diluting with distilled water - menerals, etc.
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> > What about alkalinity?
>
> It will be reduced, but pH is a logarithmic scale. It should be reduced,
> moving closer to 7.0 (neutral) depending on what it started with.
>
I'm not concerned with the pH per se, but rather the alkalinity. This
is defined as a sum of the concentrations of two things (bicarbonate
and carbonate, I think).
-Nick
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Date: 28 Jul 2006 13:35:55
From: Larry Bristol
Subject: Re: diluting with distilled water - menerals, etc.
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naramsey@umich.edu wrote:
> I'm not concerned with the pH per se, but rather the alkalinity. This
> is defined as a sum of the concentrations of two things (bicarbonate
> and carbonate, I think).
Well, OK. I checked the definition of "alkalinity" and "alkali" to make
sure I was not leading you off into never-never land. It is defined (in
this context) as "soluble mineral matter, other than common salt, contained
in soils of natural waters."
Distilled water has *no* alkalis dissolved within it. The concentration of
alkalis (in parts per million) will be cut in half.
--
Larry Bristol --- The Double Luck
http://www.doubleluck.com
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Date: 28 Jul 2006 11:12:11
From:
Subject: Re: diluting with distilled water - menerals, etc.
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>
> Could you please post that script in here?
>
I didn't write the script. I found it by googling around. I assume
that since this guy has it on his page, he wont mind that I post th
address, so here goes:
http://crca.ucsd.edu/~ben/open_source_beer.php?menu=beer
There are a few scripts on this page, inlcuding the water mods one.
You have to edit the file to change the values of Ca, Mg, and
alkalinity to relfect your water.
-Nick
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Date: 28 Jul 2006 12:45:19
From: Larry Bristol
Subject: Re: diluting with distilled water - menerals, etc.
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naramsey@umich.edu wrote:
> How bereft of minerals is distilled water?
If it is truly "distilled", it will be 100% pure water (for all intents and
purposes). If you read the label of most jugs of "distilled water" you can
buy in grocery stores, you will find that it is not actually distilled at
all. It is produced by reverse osmosis. Some mineral content is still
present; you can usually find the quantities printed on the label. From
what I have observed, it is close enough to "distilled" that it makes no
practical difference.
So the best advice is to read the label...
> If I dilute my tap water 50/50 with distilled, do my mineral
> concentrations really just halve?
That would pretty much agree with the laws of conservation of mass and
energy. <grin >
> What about alkalinity?
It will be reduced, but pH is a logarithmic scale. It should be reduced,
moving closer to 7.0 (neutral) depending on what it started with.
--
Larry Bristol --- The Double Luck
http://www.doubleluck.com
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