One tricky thing is the pH doesn’t matter as much as alkalinity. Alkalinity is the buffering capacity. So it’s like the difference between a dump truck and a VW beetle. They can both go 50mph but one is going to have to push a lot harder to get there.
In the same way water with high alkalinity will tend to push your mash to a higher pH than water with a lower alkalinity, regardless of the initial water pH. When I was in Missouri I had a well with off the charts alkalinity but the pH was normal.
I love my little KH titration kit, takes most of the guesswork out of it.
Dave - 100% agree! It was because it was the fantabulous and fabled Kveik yeast that I tried it. In fact that was a first and I have been brewing for over 20 years.
The off flavor has disappeared much more than I would expect in the last few day. Very happy about that. Still need to dive into my water more too mitigate further issues.
My current batch is ready to be kegged and it appears the campden took care of the problem. The kolsch did not improve but hasn’t worsened. It’s just a place filler for now. Thanks for all of the help. I will probably move to RO water soon.
I’ve been looking at the DIY RO setups at the big box stores. Some seem to be competitively priced. I just can’t get over wasting 2-3 gal water to get 1 gal RO.
Yeah for the time being at least, this would be extremely hard to justify in the Sacramento area, where I live, or anywhere in CA, or the western US for that matter.
I’ve used RO in the past but don’t think it’s worth futzing with on balance. Denver tap water is pretty good once you take care of the chlorine. It’s pretty much perfect for pale ale. It’s a bit hard and alkaline but fine for most styles.
It’s a lot of wasted water, but in the grand scheme of things maybe not terrible. My understanding is that commercial breweries run around 10 gallons per gallon of beer produced (give or take quite a bit). Home brewers probably use more. So an extra 2 - 3 times the actual “beer water” pretty small in comparison to the total water used. (I know the math here is a little funky, but you get the idea.)
I’ve only ever heard of a 3-1 waste in commercial breweries. That said, I only know of a couple who use RO and they used the waste water to clean. wouldn’t be surprised if some have much higher waste.
FYI, neuse: I accidentally hit “modify” instead of quote on your post. Sorry 'bout that. I didn’t change anything.
