Beer Forum

I need some help here guys. I just moved to a new town and my first 4 batches have developed some sort of astringent off-favors. The towns water is lousy with sediment, chlorine, and overall hardness. I installed GE water filter equivalent to about 5-10 microns. I have done malt conditioning and kept fermentation temps within the acceptable ranges. I brewed hoppy beers but do you get any hoppy flavors or aroma's out of them. They just smell and taste astringent. Is it possible my water could still be the problem? I plan on installing a 1 micron filter to maybe help with the water but I'm curious if there is anything else I can change.

Micron filters will take care of particulate stuff, but if the issue with your water is chemical... While I'm sure having good water for your use in general is desirable, an easy way to test if it is your water would be to brew a batch using another water source (bottled, etc).

Where are you? That might allow somebody near you to chime in.

I think you should get a sample out to Ward Labs asap, and get the exact report to see what's in it.

In the meantime, I'd use bottled water, or mix 1/2 and 1/2 with bottled and go through a charcoal filter that will remove the chlorine.

If you are getting astringency but no hops, it sounds like high alkanity. Cutting with store bought will help in that regard.

Perhaps Martin, Colin, or John Palmer will chime in once you provide a bit more info.

Thanks BDawg. I'm in Bartonville, IL which is along the Illinois river in central Illinois. Below is a link to the water report.

http://www.amwater.com/twq/peoria_twq.pdf

Also, Here is a link of the filter I am currently using.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-Carbon-Re ... ivd0rzgLoA

I could try the cutting method next. Would recommend mashing with the house water then sparging with RO/distilled?

No, I meant mix them together and use the mix for both.
Let me see if I can make any heads or tails out of the water report. (It's not my strength and there are a lot of guys that know a hell of a lot more about water chemistry than I do on here.)

[edit]
It seems to be pretty high in calcium and carbonate. I'll let the experts chime in, but
I think mixing it with RO will help.

The other thing that jumps out at me is they use chloramine. That shit doesn't come out in the boil. You have to use campden tablets, potassium metabisulfite, or sodium metabisulfite. (one of these 2 is the primary ingredient in campden tablets). 1/2 of a campden tab (which is about the size of an aspirin) will treat 10 gallons of water. Smoosh it up and add it to your HLT and you are good to go on that front. -- the off flavor you'll get from chloramine is chlorophenolics, which taste medicinal or like band-aids.

If you pre-boil your water is will help get rid of some of the chlorine

EDIT: Looked a the water profile. WTF is "Grains/gallon"? Overall that's a pretty crappy water profile they provide you with there.

Your water looks like shit. Super hard, and they use chloramine. It looks to me like all the filtering in the universe won't help you to get better brewing water.

You are probably tasting chlorophenol in your beer, which tastes like Band-Aids or hospital disinfectant -- yuck. Some would say astringent. It is nasty. In high concentrations, it makes your eyes water, it is so bad. It does not fade with age and there's nothing you can do if it's already in your beer. To prevent it in future batches, you need to crush 1/4 Campden tablet per 5 gallons in your brewing water before any grains touch the water. This will immediately (magically!) eliminate all the chlorine, including chloramine. Heat will not get rid of the chloramine at all, but you will probably want to heat your water ahead of brewing anyway, as this will knock out some of the hardness in the water. Then you can brew as normal. Or.... just ditch your local water, start with distilled, and build your own water from that. If I were you, I might take the second route, although water can get a little pricy if you brew often.

Better luck next time. I'm pretty sure you're experiencing chlorophenol, which is really super nasty, but very easy to prevent with Campden.

dmtaylor wrote:Or.... just ditch your local water, start with distilled, and build your own water from that. If I were you, I might take the second route, although water can get a little pricy if you brew often.

Not if you just buy a distiller or R.O. unit. Then it goes the other way around - brew more often to make the unit 'cheaper'.

+1 to all above. I'd definitely go with distilled/RO & build it.

Edit:

After a little double-checking, I'd definitely go R.O. since distilling won't remove the chloramine & if you're going to invest in a system I wouldn't want to still have to dick around with Campden