Has anyone here used Brewtan B in mead (or a wine kit, or any other fermentation aside from beer)? I’ve only used BTB in beer - either pretreating my mash water, or toward the end of the boil. As far as I’m aware, there’s nothing needing heat in the chelation process, right? If I treat my water with BTB, let it sit for 20-30 minutesb before adding my honey/nutrient/yeast, I’m thinking that should be sufficient to remove any iron or manganese in my water. Anyone have any experience or thoughts?
Hi Eric. I can’t help you as far as experience goes but as someone who makes a lot of mead I am curious what you are correcting for or improving.
I have enough iron and manganese in my water that you can taste it. Chelating them with BTB improved my beer significantly. I’m looking to see if that will hold true with my meads as well.
I see. My well water has incredibly high iron but our softening system takes care of that. I haven’t seen him post for awhile but if Matt Chrispen might have experience here, and of course Martin.
It’s generally not recommended to use softener water.
Why? There is no problem with the water report when tested.
Generally, you end up with high sodium levels. Do you know your sodium ppm?
Softener then RO, perhaps? That is how my water system is set up in my house - RO is collected in a separate tank and is used almost exclusively for my brewing. The ion softened water is dispensed at the showers, laundry and tubs and a couple of the regular faucets; hard water goes to the outdoor spigots and at the kitchen sink for drinking and washing dishes…
65 ppm. I add a gallon of distilled water to a 5 gallon batch when I use baking soda in dark beers.
Oh, that’s actually not bad. I use salt to get up to ~50ppm in my beers, and I’d be surprised if you could taste anything lower than 70 or 80 ppm if your other ions are low as well.
I’m a fan of using bottled spring water with a neutral analysis and appealing taste. I don’t know what the cost would be by comparison with treating with BTB, but it is minimal given the cost of other ingredients for me.
Good to see you, Ken.
The cost of BTB is probably pennies per gallon of water. My well is pretty soft, and my water tastes good in general. It doesn’t have a metaliic/rusty/bloody taste out of the tap. However, whether it’s from oxidation or some interaction with the yeast, when I started treating my brewing water with BTB for beer I noticed a significant improvement.
I decided to just use my tap water as-is for this batch. I’m just getting back to mead after a long time off, so I’m going to use this batch as a baseline. I’ll use BTB in my next batch to compare the results.