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How do you treat your water?

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  • How do you treat your water?

    I'm still in the start-up phase of my brewery - so no commercial equipment yet. However, when I had a 10 gallon, and now that I have a 1BBL homebrew setup, I have always treated all of my process water per the beer style I am going for. For me, it has always been rather easy, as I will take a sample of strike water, do my calculations, add the salts/acid to the sample, and mix the sample into the HLT / MT / BK.

    On commercial systems - is there any particular equipment or methods that you use that are effective? I am thinking mostly for the HLT - considering that the MT is pretty easy to treat - the sparge water is less convenient in a commercial setup. I know a lot of operating breweries, A LOT, that do not treat their water. Although I will never understand why this corner is cut, I admit I am sure it takes more time and effort to do it in a commercial setting.

    Ok - go!
    Ryan
    Viridian Brewing Company
    [Brewery-In-Planning]

  • #2
    The first rule of water treatment is to know what's in the water. The specifics of the treatment depend on what's in it; there's no such thing as a standard way to do it. Certain things have special removal requirements.

    The other thing to keep in mind is the matter of scale. Treating water for 1bbl is fairly easy. Treating water for 120bbl is much harder, and the system is much more expensive because of the flow rate. It's the same thing with RIMS/HERMS. As the volume goes up, step mashing this way becomes impractical, and the percentage of heat loss becomes insignificant. So you see RIMS/HERMS on small home-brew scale systems, but not so much on non-German commercial systems.

    I wouldn't say that a brewery that doesn't purify, then add back salts is cutting corners. They may be saving money though. How much or how little treatment is needed depends on what's in the water, and what their goals are, as well as the cost of treatment (capital cost included).

    Regards,
    Mike Sharp

    Comment


    • #3
      I already treat my water and change it based on the beer style - I am familiar with the first rule man haha.

      I was hoping to find out what extra equipment or equipment modifications, or processes, that people are using to do this on a larger scale. My projected scale will be 7BBL with a 21BBL HLT and CLT.
      Ryan
      Viridian Brewing Company
      [Brewery-In-Planning]

      Comment


      • #4
        Let me be specific:

        What equipment or process method do you guys use to get the salts and/or acid in the process water? That's what I'm after.

        Thanks in advance!
        Ryan
        Viridian Brewing Company
        [Brewery-In-Planning]

        Comment


        • #5
          Just treat in the Mash Tun for total volume of water used. HLT is usually a closed tank and not easy to dose. That being said, you absolutely need to test your water often and take pH measurements throughout the brew day.

          Chris
          Founder, Head Brewer
          Pikes Peak Brewing Co.
          Monument, CO

          Comment


          • #6
            That is my main concern - the HLT treatments. Salts aside, if the HLT water being used for sparge is not acidified, it will likely result in tannin and polyphenol extraction from the grain. There must be equipment around that allows for easy HLT dosing.
            Ryan
            Viridian Brewing Company
            [Brewery-In-Planning]

            Comment


            • #7
              I'm on a 5BBL system and use a corny keg that holds my sparge additions and dilute them to the top with water. I then inject the sparge treatment into the water stream as I'm sparging. Works like a charm and is dead easy to implement.

              Cheers,
              --
              Don

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by idylldon View Post
                I'm on a 5BBL system and use a corny keg that holds my sparge additions and dilute them to the top with water. I then inject the sparge treatment into the water stream as I'm sparging. Works like a charm and is dead easy to implement.

                Cheers,
                --
                Don
                Don,

                That is a really solid idea - thank you for replying and providing your method. How do you manage the injection amount, as to evenly distribute it into the stream. Another words, as you're sparging for the length of the 5BBL lauter, how do you ensure that the keg containing salts/acids is slowly pushed into stream as to "last" for the entire sparge volume pushed through stream?
                Ryan
                Viridian Brewing Company
                [Brewery-In-Planning]

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Viridian View Post
                  Let me be specific:

                  What equipment or process method do you guys use to get the salts and/or acid in the process water? That's what I'm after.

                  Thanks in advance!
                  Peristaltic pump with an NPT to tri-clamp tee'd into the Mash water supply and/or Sparge supply lines. Adjust the speed of the peristaltic to feed the amount of lactic (or drug of your choice) into the line.

                  If you want to get fancy (and spendy), use a Liquiline transmitter from Endress Hauser or the like to monitor and adjust your peristaltic in real time.

                  Or use the cheaper/easier route and do as others have suggested. (I would suggest the same for a 10BBL)

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by UnFermentable View Post
                    Peristaltic pump with an NPT to tri-clamp tee'd into the Mash water supply and/or Sparge supply lines. Adjust the speed of the peristaltic to feed the amount of lactic (or drug of your choice) into the line.

                    If you want to get fancy (and spendy), use a Liquiline transmitter from Endress Hauser or the like to monitor and adjust your peristaltic in real time.

                    Or use the cheaper/easier route and do as others have suggested. (I would suggest the same for a 10BBL)
                    Thanks for the reply man. So - I imagine that you just adjust the speed of the peristaltic pump based on testing the pH of the water entering the MT during sparge?
                    Ryan
                    Viridian Brewing Company
                    [Brewery-In-Planning]

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Viridian View Post
                      Don,

                      That is a really solid idea - thank you for replying and providing your method. How do you manage the injection amount, as to evenly distribute it into the stream. Another words, as you're sparging for the length of the 5BBL lauter, how do you ensure that the keg containing salts/acids is slowly pushed into stream as to "last" for the entire sparge volume pushed through stream?
                      I just have a small ball valve inline on the feed from the corny and adjust it for the flow I need. It's pretty easy to dial in the flow I need for any particular grain bill/sparge volume. On a 5BBL system, it really isn't that critical. Like someone else mentioned, on a bigger system I'd probably get more precise but this suits my purposes just fine. I've never had a problem with the pH of the final runnings.

                      Cheers,
                      --
                      Don

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Viridian View Post
                        Thanks for the reply man. So - I imagine that you just adjust the speed of the peristaltic pump based on testing the pH of the water entering the MT during sparge?
                        Yes Sir,

                        The fancy EH Liquiline will send an output signal (to peristaltic pump) based upon the input signal (from pH probe) it receives. This allows you to adjust your hydration rate without effecting your dosage rate - the meter is set to the pH you want. It displays in real time.

                        As others have suggested, you can simply dial a valve or set a pump speed, however these dosage rates will vary with the rate of water flow. So if you change your mash water/sparge water flow rate, you will change your dosage rate.

                        Personally I like to change my hydration ratio for different beers, but not everyone does.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by UnFermentable View Post
                          Yes Sir,

                          The fancy EH Liquiline will send an output signal (to peristaltic pump) based upon the input signal (from pH probe) it receives. This allows you to adjust your hydration rate without effecting your dosage rate - the meter is set to the pH you want. It displays in real time.

                          As others have suggested, you can simply dial a valve or set a pump speed, however these dosage rates will vary with the rate of water flow. So if you change your mash water/sparge water flow rate, you will change your dosage rate.

                          Personally I like to change my hydration ratio for different beers, but not everyone does.
                          That's pretty rad man. You have me interested enough to where I may want to quote them on that unit. Did you ever get a quote or buy it? What does it run?
                          Ryan
                          Viridian Brewing Company
                          [Brewery-In-Planning]

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Kiss

                            We rarely have to acidify sparge water on our 20bbl. We use acid malt for PH adjustment and our water source is consistently low enough PH to not make enough difference that it pushes us into the danger zone in our last runnings. Sometimes we will add 5-10MLs late in the sparge by dissolving in a 5 gallon bucket and dumping it into the mashtun if our running PH checks are high 40-50% into the run off. Theres 2-3 inches of water above the grain so it will mix in well before it hits any grain IMO. I think you're over thinking it a little for such a small system, the dissolve into a bucket of water method works pretty well.

                            The peristalic pump in-line at your strike water inlet (I have a port for this on my system) is the standard method for breweries our size and maybe slightly bigger but I haven't spent the money on it to date. If you prefer to use lactic acid or other means to acidify water (I prefer acid malts consistency) at mash in this becomes more important to get an even distribution over the entire mash but you could probably still get there with the bucket method. Stay away from adding anything to the HLT, you'll get carry over between brews and things settling out at the bottom of your tank that you'll have to clean regularly.

                            Cheers

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