Dear Mr. Wizard,

Is it possible to bottle nitrogen-charged beer? My amber has been in the keg for two weeks pressurized with 25% carbon dioxide and 75% nitrogen. I plan to bottle it next week.

Karl Pergola
via email

Mr. Wizard replies:

Anything is possible, Karl, and yes, you can bottle beer that has been "gassed" with a blend of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Just use your counter-pressure bottle filler as you normally would. However, when you pour your bottled nitrogenated beer into a glass, you will not get the rich head or the profusion of fine bubbles with that comes with beers from a nitrogen tap. In fact, your beer will probably seem flat. Producing bottled beer that duplicates commercial "draft style" beer requires equipment and techniques far from the reach of homebrewers. I do not intend to discourage homebrewers from innovation, but this technology has a lot more to do with the package than it does the beer.

So what is draft-style beer? Draft style beer is beer that pours from a can or bottle as if it came straight from a nitro tap with a super-thick, creamy head. The most well-known example of this is the cans of draft Guinness, available almost everywhere. These beers begin like their draft counterparts — they are brewed, filtered and gassed with a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. This can all be accomplished at home. The next step is packaging. To the casual observer the package is either a can or a bottle. No big deal, right? Wrong. It is a very big deal.

The package in all draft-style beers contains a device, known in the industry as a "widget," that transforms the bottle or can into a mobile dispensing system. Let’s back up and look at how nitrogenated beers behave at the bar. A nitro beer will do nothing remarkable when poured from a standard beer tap except for the fact that it usually falls into the glass with absolutely no fanfare — no foam, no cascading, nothing but beer. Taste this beer and it tastes and feels really flat. Pour the same exact keg of beer through a special faucet (usually called a Guinness tap or a stout faucet) and the whole game changes. You get foam, cascading bubbles, a super creamy head that sticks to the glass like shaving cream and a wonderfully rich mouthfeel.

The difference between the two glasses of beer has to do with nitrogen solubility. Beers containing only dissolved carbon dioxide make a huge foamy mess when carbon dioxide suddenly breaks out of solution. Draft systems designed for normal beers are specifically designed to prevent this breakout. To produce its creamy head, a nitrogenated beer is forced at a relatively high dispense pressure, usually around 30 psi (pounds per square inch), through a plate containing several small holes. Normal beer taps do not contain this orifice plate and its function is to cause gas breakout. When nitrogen breaks out of solution, millions of tiny bubbles form and these bubbles look, act and feel much different than carbon dioxide bubbles. Any brewer, whether at home or in a brewpub, can serve nitro beers on draft as long as a stout faucet is used.

Putting the same beer in a bottle or a can requires a widget to accomplish the same effect. Widgets are arguably the most revolutionary developments in beer packaging since the bottle cap. Widgets were invented in the 80’s and first came on the market in the early 90’s. There are several types of widgets and they all do the same thing — they release small bubbles of nitrogen into the packaged beer when the container is opened. These bubbles act as nucleation sites, like salt crystals sprinkled in beer. More nitrogen bubbles form around these sites and in a very short period of time the beer has erupted into a rolling sea of tiny bubbles. Essentially, the widget starts a chain-reaction of nitrogen bubbles that cascades through the nitrogen dissolved in the beer.

Commercial brewers who use this fascinating technology require several pieces of specialized equipment. The first is a widget, or a plastic bladder-type doo-dad with several very small holes and/or check valves. Most widgets these days look like little footballs and move freely in the package, as opposed to the first model found jammed in the bottom of Guinness cans. Bottled widget beers require extra-heavy glass since the headspace has a higher pressure than carbonated beers. To start the process, an empty widget is inserted into the can. Next, they fill the bottle or can with beer and a small drop of liquid nitrogen is added immediately before it is sealed. Since liquid nitrogen has a very low boiling point, it boils in the container and creates enough pressure to partially fill the widget with beer. When the beer is opened and the headspace pressure is released, the gas in the widget rapidly expands and forces the beer in the widget through the holes or check valves and then the magic happens. Nitrogen bubbles lead to more nitrogen bubbles and, after several seconds, the beer has a head you can cut with a knife.

So, this is why most brewers are technologically challenged when it comes to bottling or canning their favorite nitrogenated tipple!

Dear Mr. Wizard,

Would you please enlighten me on brewing with softened water? Also, how much salt does a softener add to 5 gallons of liquor? Should I still add some amount of salt when called for in a recipe? I have well water and brew all-grain. I have brewed with a variety of waters and am left unclear by any material I have ever read regarding use of water softeners.

Robert R. Heinlein
via email

Mr. Wizard replies:

Water is said to possess "hardness" when it contains ions of calcium and/or magnesium. I have never really understood the origins of this term, since hard water feels as soft as, well, soft water. Hardness is divided into two categories; permanent and temporary hardness. The latter type can be removed when water containing calcium or magnesium ions and carbonate ions is boiled. When heated the calcium and magnesium ions react with carbonate ions to form calcium or magnesium carbonate, also called scale. This scale is frequently seen on tea pots and water faucets in homes with hard water. Permanent hardness is the amount of calcium and magnesium that remains in water after boiling. It is possible for a water sample to contain both temporary and permanent hardness.

Water softeners work by replacing calcium and magnesium ions in water with sodium. Two atoms of sodium are added for every atom of calcium or magnesium removed from the water. This means that if your well water has 100 ppm (mg/L) of calcium and 20 ppm of magnesium that the softened water will contain a whopping 240 ppm of sodium. As far as brewing water is concerned, sodium adds palate fullness and sweetness up to about 100 ppm. At higher concentrations, sodium gives beer a salty flavor.

The real problem with using softened water for brewing is that most homes equipped with water softeners have harder than average water. Thus, the water produced by the softener is in turn very high in sodium. For this reason softened water is often only used for utility water (water for showers, toilets, washing machines and the like). Water piped to sink faucets bypasses the softener. The above example of 100 ppm calcium and 20 ppm magnesium would most likely not warrant a home water softener.

Let’s assume that you do not have abnormally hard water, but simply have a softener. As long as the sodium does not lend a salty flavor to your water or beer you can use it for brewing. The "salts" listed in most recipes are calcium sulfate and/or calcium chloride. You certainly would want to add these since calcium is required for pH adjustment in the mash, is a co-factor for alpha-amylase, aids in trub formation and also helps yeast cells flocculate at the end of fermentation.

If you actually did use softened water for brewing as described above this is what happens. 1) You remove calcium and magnesium and replace it with sodium. 2) You add calcium back to the water because calcium is important for brewing.

In my opinion, this seems like a round-about way to add sodium! Most breweries were historically located near good wells and it might be your signature touch to simply use your well water as is and not to worry much about water softeners.

The more likely case is that you have a water softener because you have hard water. I would not recommend using softened water from well water that is indeed hard. Homes with hard water are easy to spot because of white mineral deposits near water taps. Unfortunately, most hard waters in North America come from limestone aquifers and limestone is calcium carbonate. The only beer really well-suited to these waters are dark ales and lagers, for example porter, stout and dunkel. The preferred hard water type for brewing lighter colored beers, like pale ale, is hard water from a gypseous aquifer — gypsum is calcium sulfate.

Water may appear to be clear and pure but it contains a lot of confusing cloudy, details when examined at the atomic level. I am a strong advocate of the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) approach when it comes to water. I either prefer using the local water supply as is, with chlorine removed with a charcoal filter when applicable. Alternately, you can use de-ionized water or distilled water from the supermaket and add various salts to mold the water into the type needed for the particular task. If it is possible, get an analysis of your well water and determine what type of water you have. Based on this information you can make a more calculated approach to water treatment. Steve Parkes and Don Million offer more detailed information on adjusting brewing water in the January 2002 issue of BYO.

For more of the Wizard's wit and wisdom, pick up the latest issue of Brew Your Own magazine, now available at better homebrew shops and bookstores.