Boiled Water Profiles in Bru’n Water

I had a user ask why 'boiled' profiles are included along with some historic brewing city profiles. Boiling was the first form of water treatment that substantially altered water for brewing. It is simple and can be conducted by anyone. It removes calcium and bicarbonate from the water in the form of chalk, which drops to the bottom of the kettle after boiling ends.

However, not all waters respond effectively to that treatment. The ones that do can really use that form of treatment since they often have a lot of alkalinity. Alkalinity is the killer of beer.

So, the effect of boiling treatment on the water profile has been applied to those historic profiles so you can see what this basic level of water treatment might have been for those brewers. As apparent in those boiled profiles, not all of the calcium or bicarbonate is removed. The solubility of those ions prevent further reduction of their concentrations.

With the reduced calcium and bicarbonate levels in the boiled brewing water, those old brewers would likely still have needed to create some other form of acidification to make great beer. That acidification may have come from using an acid rest, adding more acidic grains such as crystal or roast malts, adding calcium salts such as gypsum, or using an external acid such as soured wort (saurgut). Therefore if starting with very low alkalinity water, it is not always desirable to add bicarbonate to match that elevated bicarbonate level and then have to acidify the mashing and sparging water to produce a desirable mash and wort pH.

My advice is to take any of those historic profiles with a grain of salt...literally. Consider targeting the levels of sodium, sulfate, and chloride in those profiles and let your calcium, magnesium, and bicarbonate levels fall where they will as you target a desirable mash pH.

Enjoy!