Bismarck Water Profile

permo wrote:

Does anybody have a report that details the water profile for Bismarck? The information on the GOVT website is too vague to be usefull to a brewer.

We're lucky to have Todd Ussatis as our "inside guy" for all things city water. I believe he may have access to an updated report or be able to point you in the right direction. If I see him, I'll be sure to point him toward this thread. You could always shoot him a private message.

Based on what I've heard him say, our water profile is fairly neutral (though not Czech degree of neutral) with some calcium (?) and the biggest change now being the transition from chlorine to chloramines. After my brew on Friday, I'm satisifed so far, at how the campden tablets perform in helping neutralize the effects of chloramine. The wort tasted normal, the pH seemed fine and the yeast seem as happy as I've ever seen them. But, for the love of God, don't taste a campden tablet to see what flavor they may impart. They taste terrible, like a salty vitamin pill. : /

I think most of the folks are brewing as usual or are adding campden tablets. More recent post on Chloramines here: https://muddyrivermashers.forumotion.com/t717-chloramines-article

I know that this is an old thread, but has anyone changed what they do since the city started using chloromine instead of chlorine?

mike frohlich wrote:

I cold crash it for 24 hours and then rack it. I get very good results using this method with my fermenter. I use a racking arm (1/2 stainless ball valve that rotates with a weldless bulkhead with a stainless steel dip tube) to pull the beer off so that I don't disturb the yeast cake. If I want it super clean, I have a plate filter, but haven't used it in some time. Filter pads aren't cheap, you have the waste of a pint or two, and then it's just the hassle of doing the whole process.

We won't be filtering at the pub, so I wanted to develop the beers with that in mind as well. At the previous brewpub I worked at, we did use a plate filter (I believe it was 32 plates/use). Worked very well. The filters of this type can be upwards of $5K and the pads are over a $100/batch if I remember correctly. Added cost that doesn't seem necessary for us at this time.

Well you are certainly on the right track as far as I am concerned. Surly does no filtering or pastuerizing of their beers and they are TASTY, however their strain is WLP007 and that stuff drops like a rock.

I cold crash it for 24 hours and then rack it. I get very good results using this method with my fermenter. I use a racking arm (1/2 stainless ball valve that rotates with a weldless bulkhead with a stainless steel dip tube) to pull the beer off so that I don't disturb the yeast cake. If I want it super clean, I have a plate filter, but haven't used it in some time. Filter pads aren't cheap, you have the waste of a pint or two, and then it's just the hassle of doing the whole process.

We won't be filtering at the pub, so I wanted to develop the beers with that in mind as well. At the previous brewpub I worked at, we did use a plate filter (I believe it was 32 plates/use). Worked very well. The filters of this type can be upwards of $5K and the pads are over a $100/batch if I remember correctly. Added cost that doesn't seem necessary for us at this time.

mike frohlich wrote:

I harvest yeast, but I am not concerned about propagating a house strain at this time. Most of my beers use Wyeast 1056 with great results.

1056 is a classic, I apologize for so many questions, but what method do you use to drop this yeast out of suspension? I have found 1056/wlp001 to be a bugger to clear withought a lot of cold crash time and or/gelatin. I suppose a filter would be optimal for this.

I harvest yeast, but I am not concerned about propagating a house strain at this time. Most of my beers use Wyeast 1056 with great results.

mike frohlich wrote:

Never had a problem with the near 50 batches I've made here in the last 2 years. We won't be doing any water filtering at the pub either.

Free Range Missouri River Water! Sounds tasty


Have you considered possibly altering the characterics of a yeast strain to come up with your own proprietary strain for the pub/brewery? Like starting with WLP001 and pushing it colder and colder with every subsequent batch until you have a flocculant hybrid strain like pacman

Never had a problem with the near 50 batches I've made here in the last 2 years. We won't be doing any water filtering at the pub either.

mike frohlich wrote:

Bismarck water is excellent for brewing. It averages about a 100ppm of calcium on any given day. I haven't worried about the PH here.

I add gypsum to my IPA, but other than that, rarely. No filtration.

Awesome!! The only difference is that I run mine through an inline charcoal filter as opposed to using campden tabs or anything of that nature. However, there is much discussion on how necassary this is. Supposedly cholorine and such just boils away.

Bismarck water is excellent for brewing. It averages about a 100ppm of calcium on any given day. I haven't worried about the PH here.

I add gypsum to my IPA, but other than that, rarely. No filtration.

randi philleo wrote:

The city of Bismarck has the 2009 quality reports on their site: http://www.bismarck.org/index.aspx?NID=225

Not sure if that's the information you're looking for though.

Thank you, I did see that and that at least gives harness and PH, I will have to measure the PH of my next mash to see where it settles at.

The city of Bismarck has the 2009 quality reports on their site: http://www.bismarck.org/index.aspx?NID=225

Not sure if that's the information you're looking for though.

permo wrote:

Mike Philleo wrote:

I know Randi and I have a copy of the city water profile somewhere. Unfortunately, it's written in a language best deciphered by chemists (which I am not, admittedly). That said, there's a gentleman who previously ran a now-defunct brewclub in town here and he worked for the water department. We might have his contact info since he attended our Oktoberfest.

Was there a final veridict regarding the water? Do most brewers simply filter the water and brew, or do we need to adjust the mineral content with various brewing salts? I am in the habbit of always adding a little gypsum to my pale ales and IPA's, but I would really rather know the facts.

I will contact the water dept and post my findings if you dont find your findings first!

The only meaningful info I can recall off the top of my head involved higher calcium carbonate levels if I'm not mistaken. Other than that, everything is fairly balance. For what it's worth, I don't really do anything to treat my liquor, except the use of 5.2 pH mash salts. On a suggestion, I used to use potassium metabisulfite, but found it really didn't improve anything and may have actually thinned the body of my beers.

Mike Philleo wrote:

I know Randi and I have a copy of the city water profile somewhere. Unfortunately, it's written in a language best deciphered by chemists (which I am not, admittedly). That said, there's a gentleman who previously ran a now-defunct brewclub in town here and he worked for the water department. We might have his contact info since he attended our Oktoberfest.

Was there a final veridict regarding the water? Do most brewers simply filter the water and brew, or do we need to adjust the mineral content with various brewing salts? I am in the habbit of always adding a little gypsum to my pale ales and IPA's, but I would really rather know the facts.

I will contact the water dept and post my findings if you dont find your findings first!

I know Randi and I have a copy of the city water profile somewhere. Unfortunately, it's written in a language best deciphered by chemists (which I am not, admittedly). That said, there's a gentleman who previously ran a now-defunct brewclub in town here and he worked for the water department. We might have his contact info since he attended our Oktoberfest.

Does anybody have a report that details the water profile for Bismarck? The information on the GOVT website is too vague to be usefull to a brewer.