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Master your water chemistry June 10 2016, 0 Comments
Don't fret water chemistry, master it. Below is one simple way to dive head-first (with floaties, of course) into a topic that can seem overwhelming at times.
The first step is to find out WHAT is in your water. Here's the steps for tracking down what's in your Madison Municipal Well Water:
1) Plug your address in here: http://www.cityofmadison.com/water/waterquality/mywells.cfm
2) When you know your wells, access the PDF of each well from this site: https://www.cityofmadison.com/…/water-quality-reports-for-m…
3) On that well report, under the section "Hardness and Other Minerals," click on the hyperlinked "Inorganics Table." That'll have all the good / relevant stuff for brewing.
If you want, John Palmer's spreadsheet is really helpful and fairly intuitive to use. You can download it from his online book's site at the link all the way at the bottom of the page (for the Residual Alkalinity spreadsheet): http://howtobrew.com/…/unde…/residual-alkalinity-and-mash-ph
And, as always, let us at The Shop know if you have any questions!
Removing Chlorine/Chloramine from Brewing Water November 04 2014, 0 Comments
Looking for another easy way to improve your beer? Most municipalities use chlorine or chloramine to sanitize their water. While it works well to make sure we don't get sick from drinking our tap water, it can impart off-flavors in beer. Here are a few easy ways to remove chlorine and chloramine from your water:
- Add campden tablets (our favorite way). Add 1 campden tablet per 20 gallons of water, let sit for 20 minutes (works for both chlorine and chloramine)
- Boil your water before you brew (works only for chlorine)
- Fill your kettle the night before and let sit over night (only works for chlorine)
