Water Treatment for Brewing 4: Lessons Learned

[Miniseries Part One, Two, Three, Three-point-Five, Three-point-Six, Four]

In previous parts of this miniseries, I have covered pretty much everything you need to get started on water treatment for brewing.  Here, I’ll cover a few miscellaneous things I have learned over the course of treating additional batches.  I’ll try to add on any additional lessons-learned as I go.

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Brew Tips: Cloudy StarSan

This will be a very quick post to clear up a common misconception: cloudy StarSan does not mean ineffective StarSan.  StarSan, made by Five Star Chemicals, is my favorite sanitizer.  Its cheap, easy to use, and doesn’t need to be rinsed off before use.  It even makes a yeast nutrient when diluted, like when wort is added to the fermentor (don’t fear the foam!).  It also has a tendency to get cloudy when its left for a while after mixing with water.

Water Treatment for Brewing 3: Adjusting the Water

[Miniseries Part One, Two, Three, Three-point-Five, Three-point-Six, Four]

Water Treatment for Brewing 2: Water Report

[Miniseries Part One, Two, Three, Three-point-Five, Three-point-Six, Four]

In part one of this mini-series, I went into why you might be interested in making water adjustments, what various important ions do to your brew, and what sort of water is good for what beers.  That’s all fine and dandy, but completely academic unless you can actually treat the water.  So, the first thing you’ll want to get is a water report to find your water’s baseline.  Otherwise, you’ll be adding some well measured and well controlled amount of brewing salts to god-knows-what.  And that adds up to god-knows-what.