Mixing R/O Water & Extract

[Cleay]

I know you can't use strait R/O water to brew all grain with out adding certain minnerials back into it. What I have heard was that using R/O water in an extract recipe was ok because all the stuff you need in in the extract. If that is true; What is the minimum amount of extract needed to make R/O water usable & when would you add it? Thanks for any help

[bub]

Not entirely true about the extract thing... certain minerals modify the Hop flavors, so you may need to still use minerals.
BUB

[BadRock]

Use tap water! If your tap water sucks that bad then cut it with 50% RO. Your tap water probably has some of these wanted compounds.

[eric_lord]

is your local water that bad?

eric

[Cleay]

The water is just well water and too full of minerals. When I add San Star it instantly turns cloudy. I normally just use bottled water but the bottled R/O in front of the grocery store is $.25 a gallon when spring water is $.90 a gallon. just trying to shave some cost off. I'll try doing the 50/50 mix and see how it goes. Thanks

[Tom-O]

You heard right... The people who make the extract mash their grains to make wort. The wort is evaporated down to a syrup.

Similiar to the water that dries on your car, the minerals get left behind, while the water evaporates..

Thus when you mix the syrup into RO water, the minerals are the 'right' amount. But if you mixed with the same water that the original brewer used, then you'd really have 2X as much minerals as normal.....

Long story short, using 100% RO won't hurt anything and might even be a small improvement.

[Lufah]

I think Tom-O is right. I would give a batch a shot with strait RO and let us know how it turns out.


Travis

PS I'm moving this over to the extract forum.

[MF Tyler]

I've been doing some extract w/steeping grain brews recently for a talk I'm giving at our brew club at the end of this month. I've been using RO water and the only negative effect has been a low steeping pH (roughly 4.6 on an American Stout ) which results in a lower efficiency (roughly 60% when I get 70+ on typical all grain beers). Going into my next extract experiment (an American pale ale) I intend to add 2-4 grams of gypsum to the boil (because the pH would be too high pre-malt additions to take up any minerals) to punch up the hop profile.

The really economical solution to your problem was mentioned earlier, buy a carbon block filter. Since you are not concerned with hitting a particular mash pH minerals should be less of a concern. Unless your water is really high in carbonates or sulfates (extremely high in sulfates--like 350ppm) I'd stick with the carbon block filter for economic extract brewing. Or, if it's easier for you, use RO water; I haven't had any problems.
more info:http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter4-2.html
http://brewery.org/library/wchmprimer.html

*edit: I just read that you use well water. If you have a water softener (which I know my family's well water does) that is going to strip out much of the needed calcium and magnesium from your water and replace it with sodium. If you're on well water with a water softener, best to just stick with RO.