grain bed depth

[brewsters millionths]

i think you're right. i've had nothing but compliments on the beer i'm making and we don't have any home brew competitions over here, so what the hey. tastes great and gets you there.

[Lufah]

Well my efficienciy is sucking. Are you guys adding water to your first runnings in the MLT?
I was surprised by my last brew when the grain drank up 1.5 gallons. My first runnings only got me 1 gallon. I then sparged all at once with about 5 gallons. My grain still comes out sweet and my eff. sucks, that brew was 51%

I just switched to RO water and added some five star 5.2. I think my tap water was sucking. What am I doing wrong? I know the crush kinda sucked on that brew. But even with the best crushed grain I still been hanging around 50%. I will soon have a mill so I can eliminate this variable.
Using standard Denny MLT setup.

There are a few problems here. First off you aren't adding enough water to your mash if you are only getting a gallon for your first runnings. You have to take into account the amount of water that the grain is going to soak up into your figures for mash water. I usually figure .1gal/lb of grain. That means that if you have 10 pounds of grain it will soak up 1 gallon of water. You should be trying to get equal amounts of wort out of you mash and sparge. Basically without enough water in your mash you don't have enough enzymes floating around to convert your starchs to sugar.

Next is the RO water. I would avoid using RO water unless you are very good at building your water. The 5.2 is not going to fix RO water to proper brewing water. If your tap water sucks, I would either get a carbon filter for it or buy bottled spring water.

Travis

[kace069]

Will a carbon filter eliminate the chlorine or chlormines in my water? I have a municipal water supply?

The only other homebrewer I know uses RO and thinks he is under treating it and gets 70%

[Lufah]

Will a carbon filter eliminate the chlorine or chlormines in my water? I have a municipal water supply?

Yes the carbon filter will take care of the chlorine. I don't know if you have a municipal water supply.

The only other homebrewer I know uses RO and thinks he is under treating it and gets 70%

You are lacking a lot of trace minerals and such with RO water that your yeast really need to be healthy. I don't know how much the RO affects your mash eff. but it will affect your overall beer and yeast health. No one knows for sure the makeup of the 5.2 so you have no way of knowing what water your ending up with. Starting with RO and building your water is something pretty tricky. You really need to know what your doing to get it right. They have done a couple of water shows if you really want to figure it out. Personally I just filter my tap water.

Travis

[kace069]

Will a carbon filter work for all the other crap in my water? I plan on getting a new water report. But I think I have a ton of calcium in my water and who knows what else. Is the carbon filter going to clean this all up and make it fit for brewing.
For example, when I was brewing with tap water my HLT would be coated witha white film after I drained the water.
Am I doomed to always buy my brewing water? Or can I fix it without spending 3k on a home water system?

[Lufah]

Get a good water report and then figure out where you need to go from there.

http://www.wardlab.com/

Ward is a good place to get your water checked out. I did mine before and after the filter.

http://thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/vie ... ight=water

That should let you know where you are. You can always cut your tap water with RO water if you need to. If your water is really fucked you might have to use RO and build from scratch.

Travis

[hophead]

The typical under-sink water filter works great. I just get carbon cartridges for them. This will take out a LOT of the crud from your water including most of the chlorine, particulate, etc. Filtering the water before brewing makes a huge difference in the finished product.

Follow the previous instructions about getting a report on your local water supply. After you know what you're dealing with, a few adjustments with some basic brewing salts (gypsum, epsom salt and calcium carbonate) will help to come close to emulation of most major brewing city's water.

-Kev

[terdsbrew53]

I do brew with only ro with no adjustments most times and I have never had a problem with fermentation,I've done about 20 beers this way with great success.I don't know the details of water chemistry but this method is proven for me and all the technical jargon never matches up to how good the beer turns out.I'll send anyone who doubts this a sample and they can tell me where it has damaged the beer in any way.