Efficiency and Attenuation Issues

[nebuck]

I recently moved, and every beer I've brewed in the new house has turned out badly as a result of low efficiency and low attenuation. I assume it's a water problem since that's the only thing that has changed since we moved. I'm not really interested in doing a lot of water calculations and brewing salt additions and whatnot. Are there any simpler ways to deal with water problems? Some people recommend pre-boiling, and I know that some things like chlorine will evaporate while others will settle out.

Does anyone have experience with these issues or advice about how to deal with them?

 

[DoctorM1]

You should contact your local water treatment facility and see if they can provide you with a water profile. Or use www.wardlab.com to test your water.

Why do you not want to treat your water? Temp control and water chemistry are two things you should absolutely be doing. I can knock out a water profile using Brunwater in about 15- 20 minutes.

 

[deckardjk]

I know you said you don't want to do water calculations... but the basics aren't really that hard. Diving in to correcting your own water can be difficult though. The easiest way, in my opinion, is to start building your water from the fill-your-own RO water available at a lot of grocery stores. I bought 8 gallons of RO yesterday for like $3 which is nothing in the grand scheme of things. RO strips most everything out of the water and will also take care of any Chlorine problem.

If I want to short cut figuring my own water recipe out, I've used Tasty McDole's water recipe. Works well in IPAs but would serve you just fine if you want something tried and true to test your water/efficiency theory. Again, this is all added to RO water. The measurements are in grams per gallon. You'd add to both your mash and sparge water.

Gypsum - 1.6 g/gal
Epsom Salt - .7 g/gal
Table Salt (avoid iodized) - .2 g/gal
Calcium Chloride - .1 g/gal

From: http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/fo...&sid=e2656c4620696d0b1739e81814824b51&start=8

 

[reverseapachemaster1]

Your mash ph is off and you may have a related or separate problem with low calcium. If there's an easy fix like boiling that gets you into the right ph range it will be by shear luck because it doesn't sound like you have any idea whether the ph is too high or too low. The easy option is to buy bottled drinking water and hope it gets you in range and just accept that all your beers will be middling in quality for it. Or step down to extract brewing.

Water chemistry is really not that difficult at the level of knowledge homebrewers need to produce great beer and Bru'n Water makes it really easy. You just plug in the grain bill, water and wort volumes, then pick the color range and malty/balanced/bitter. Then plug in mineral/acid additions to get into the right range. It does not take long to set up nor are the brewing salts expensive. Doing this process will get you 90% of the way to the perfect water profile.

 

[quirkzoo1]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=roanoke+va+water+report

This should be your first hit:

https://www.westernvawater.org/drinking-water/water-sources-and-treatment/water-quality-reports

They even have a link that says:

Are you a Home Brewer? The Water Authority has compiled the specific water quality information you need for your water source.

There is quite a bit of variation depending on where exactly you live (assuming your location on your profile is accurate) but as others have said if you adjust your mash pH down a bit that should likely help your efficiency.

I found this overview to be very helpful and easy to follow in terms of how to use the tools that are available:

http://brulosophy.com/2014/09/29/brewing-water-primer-using-beersmith-and-brun-water/

tl;dr - add 3% acid malt to your next brew and if your efficiency goes back to normal than use Bru'n water figure out how much acid you should be adding for future batches.

 

[Vogt52]

If you Google your towns water report you may find it online. I got mine online and it matched up with the report a local brewery gave me. Water chemistry isn't as difficult as it seems. A few minor tweaks can make a huge difference in your beer

 

[quirkzoo1]

If you Google your towns water report you may find it online. I got mine online and it matched up with the report a local brewery gave me. Water chemistry isn't as difficult as it seems. A few minor tweaks can make a huge difference in your beer

 

[Vogt52]

Hahaha obviously I did not.