Many brewers worry that using softened water might ruin their beer. But how exactly does sodium interact with your brew—and what levels are considered appropriate?
How does Sodium affect your beer?
Unlike many other water parameters, sodium doesn’t typically impact the fermentation process directly. However, when used in the right proportions, sodium can enhance the flavor, fullness, and mouthfeel of your beer—much like salt in food.
That said, too much sodium can lead to a salty or even harsh, bitter flavor that’s off-putting.
Sodium Amounts in Brewing Water
Brewers typically target 0 to 150 ppm of sodium in their brewing water, but it’s important to consider how sodium interacts with other minerals—particularly sulfate. When both sodium and sulfate levels are high, the perceived bitterness can intensify to unpleasant levels.
Due to this complexity, many brewers cap sodium at 100 ppm to avoid any unwanted harshness or saltiness.
Most commercial beers include some sodium—usually around 50 ppm—to subtly enhance flavor.
Even in beers designed with elevated sodium in mind, brewers rarely exceed 250 ppm, especially when sulfate levels are low. This is generally considered the upper limit for sodium in brewing water.
What about salty styles of beer?
Some beer styles intentionally aim for a touch of saltiness. In these cases, brewers may use 50–150 ppm of sodium in their brewing water, then add additional sodium after fermentation to fine-tune the final taste. This post-fermentation addition allows for precise control without impacting the mash or fermentation process.
Testing your water’s sodium levels
To determine the sodium concentration in your water, you should use the CraftPro Master Brewer’s Test Kit.
The CraftPro In-Lab test kit will let you send in a sample to our laboratory to have it tested for sodium and 14 other parameters that are critical to brewing such as magnesium, chloride, and sulfate. As well as two brewing specific calculations that affect your water profile.
The CraftPro Master Brewer’s Test Kit makes it easy to get your results. After you order your test kit you’ll get everything you need to collect a sample and send it to our lab. Once we analyze your sample, we’ll send you an easy-to-read, electronic report with exact concentrations and calculations done for your sample.
Is softened water suitable for brewing beer?
Many brewers avoid using softened water when brewing because of the low calcium and magnesium levels and the high concentration of sodium. But this isn’t always the case.
Water Softeners will remove different levels of minerals based on several factors, so some will be more aggressive than others. Water softeners also add sodium based on the starting hardness of the water, if the starting water is already soft then it may not be too high in sodium after softening.
Testing your water is the only way to know exactly what is being removed and added by a softener to ensure it’s suitable to brew with. But a good initial test for homebrewers is if the water has any saltiness to it after softening, it won’t be able to be brewed with at the current setting.
How to remove sodium from brewing water
Reverse Osmosis Filtration has become extremely popular in the brewing community. This is because it will take your water profile to a blank slate. This is an effective way to remove everything you do not want in your water, but it will also remove everything else.
If you are using a reverse osmosis filtration system, you will need to build your own water profile by adding the minerals back in. If you do not know where to start, you can look at our brewing profiles page to see what many popular brewing cities have as their default water.
Buying Distilled Water
If you do not want to install a filter or have access to one, but your sodium levels are too high to brew with, you can always buy RO or distilled water instead of filtering it yourself. This will be the same process as building back your own water profile with an RO system.
How to add sodium to your brewing water
To add sodium to your brewing water profile, standard table salt can be used. It is important to use non-iodized salt because iodine can harm your fermentation.
A rough rule to use is that 1 gram per gallon will increase the sodium concentration by approximately 100 ppm.
Conclusion:
Sodium levels in your brewing water profile can help highlight the flavor and mouthfeel of your beer. But in high concentrations it can become overly bitter and harsh, especially when paired with higher concentrations of sulfate.
