Beer Forum

just wanted to see how you guys formulate your water. I've been using this program BreWater and it's been working pretty well for me. anybody have any other good programs or does everybody pretty much do it by hand?

I use Brewater off and on depending on what I'm brewing...I think it's awesome for what it is...

Are you building your water based on recipe instructions?? or do you just know what each beer is gonna need?

No, i'm just starting with distilled water and going with what I think would suit the beer best.

I use a rather elaborate spreadsheet which I developed more for academic purposes (for a course I did for my homebrew club) than for practical use. You are welcome to it but brace yourself. It's at www.wetnewf.org. There is a User's Manual that goes with it that is currently at 64 pages and growing.

The only time I use it for actual brewing is if, as in the example of the course I mentioned above, I want to brew 2 ales - 1 with "authentic" Burton water and the other with unmodified well water so the class can see that the water does really make a difference. For my regualar brewing I know how my well water performs. For Pils I use RO water with about 20% well water. For most other beers I just use the well water. I watch pH in the mashtun and tweak with HCl but more recently I've started using sauermalz - much more Rheinheitsgebotish. My philosopy is: get the mash pH right then add the other salts to taste.