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Water Treatment - Severn Trent

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2020 1:08 pm
by Rob___I
Hi everyone,
Hope everyone is feeling well and not suffering from cabin fever just yet!

I think it is time I started using tap water for my brewing. Trips to the shops and bulk buying bottled water isn't really the right thing to do at the moment.

Does anybody on here have their water supplied by Severn Trent? If so, do you know if the information provided here is accurate or reliable?

I know one of the first things I should do is reduce/remove chlorine. What is the best way to do this?

My usual process is to use Tesco Ashbeck and add in minerals to match target profiles based on whatever BeerSmith tells me to add, and adjust with lactic acid if necessary (which it usually isn't). So have all the usual minerals and acid to hand.

Any tips or advice is appreciated.
Cheers,
Rob

Re: Water Treatment - Severn Trent

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2020 9:13 pm
by steve crawshaw
Hi
The water data is a snapshot in time so the concentrations and parameters will vary depending on the changing characteristics of the source water. I think the key things to focus on are:

1.Filter your water using an activated charcoal (carbon) filter. I use a 2 stage filter from osmotics
2. remove chlorine and chloramine by adding 0.5 campden tablets per 25 litres of strike water
3. adjust mash pH by measuring alkalinity of the strike water with a salifert test kit and adjusting with a known % of phosphoric acid - you can use Bru'n Water spreadsheet for this calculation
4. you can plug some of the other numbers into Bru'n water from your water data like chloride and sulphate to make adjustments, but IMO steps 1 - 3 are the key ones

hope this helps
steve

Re: Water Treatment - Severn Trent

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2020 4:30 pm
by Rob___I
Hi Steve,

Thanks for the tips. I've also posted the question in a couple of other places where filtration has also been recommended. I'll probably get a filter at some point in the future.
Severn Trent have given me some additional info on the make up of my water (the website doesn't include all the components we usually talk about eg bicarbonate etc).

As I'm planning to brew this weekend I'll brew with what I've got, add campden tablets to the hlt, check mash pH with strips and adjust as necessary with acid.

Thanks,
Rob