Siebels Course: Water the universal Solvent

I have completed modules 1 - 9 which span from brewing history, biochemistry, brewing water, all the ingredients to making beer, mashing, lautering and evening malting. This course is awesome so far and the tutors are very quick to respond to any question you might have. Some of the best things I have learned but not yet applied to my homebrew:

I will start with water for now and then try and update a with other lesson overviews

Testing my water for its pH and salt levels. The pH is a measure of the concentration of calcium and magnesium salts in your water. With this being said you can alter the pH of your water by adding different salts like gypsum into water brewing water before mash in order to give the enzymes proper acidity to do their job. The target pH range for your mash is going to be 5.2-5.6. Any higher you are risking a stuck fermentation, lose of malt enzyme activity, hard taste and a lower extract from your malt.

I would also love to be able to filter out the chlorine once again but our sink will not fit a PUR filter or any other adaptor and I'm not about to go buy a charcoal filter. Another alternative is to just let your water sit out over night and the chlorine should evaporate out. I checked with the city water and our water is hard but not hard enough for most breweries in town. Other than adding a little gypsum, baring weather or not I was trying to replicate a certain style (like pilsner from pilsen, or burton on trent) the water in Bend is pretty awesome. As a partial grain homebrewer, like most I have not really given much thought towards my water. When In Boone I used purified spring water in the kettle and I did not do a mash because I did not and still don't have the equipment for all-grain. Cory if you are reading this, did you do any kind of water adjustment while in Boone for your mash?

In Portland, I bought a PUR filter and used that for the kettle, and since I moved to Bend, I have just used the tap water without any adjustment. As soon as I get the equipment I will pay more attention to my brewing water. But for now I think I should be fine. So far I have learned a lot of good techniques on how to remove carbonates from your water, how to reduce water consumption (there is about 6 hl of water used per hl of beer sold in a brewery), and how water reacts with other molecules. Water is a universal solvent meaning that it has a negatively charged O atom and two positively charge H atoms. This is helpful in the brew house when it comes to adding your brewing salts for example.

Cheers