Help interpreting Central Jersey water profile

I received my municipal water report (see the picture below for the full details) and I have some questions. Here is the profile as I see it:

Ca - 27.1
Mg - 2.6
Na - 4.9
Fe - 0.0521
Sulfate - 24.9
Chloride - 23.6
PH is 8.75.

Now the tricky part is that the report is showing:
'Calcium hardness - 67.7',
'Magnesium hardness - 10.7'
and the sum of those as the 'Total Hardness - 78.4'

Question: I dont know how to interpret this for Ez Water Calculator which requests Bicarbonate or Alkalinity. How do I tranlsate the 'hardness' info to the required information?

As background, I've brewed around 30 all grain batches with this water. For most of that I have been useing 5.2 buffer. Even still, I know that this water will not brew anything traditionally darker than around 20 SRM without a very very harsh taste to it. Low SRM (below 12) are ok. I now see that calcium and magnesium and sulfate are all very low and I need to start working on water additions.

Any hint or suggestions are welcome. The next beer is supposed to be lightly colored, mid strength American IPA.

I now see that the report has 'Alkalinity' as well. What does that mean? Is that the same as Alkalinity CaCO3?

The calcium and magnesium hardness numbers convey the same information as the calcium and magnesium numbers but in different units "as calcium carbonate". This is really done so that they can be compared to alkalinity which is also in units of "as calcium carbonate". Thus there is no need to convert as you already have the calcium and magnesium numbers. "as calcium carbonate" is the equivalence multiplied by 50 because the molecular weight of calcium carbonate is 100 and both the anion and the cation are doubly charged. Confusing I'm sure but there is a basis for doing things this way even if it may not be the best. The conversion is, thus, simple. Divide by 50 to get the equivalence and multiply by the equivalent weight. For calcium hardness: 20*67.7/50 = 27.08; and for magnesium: 12.15*10.7/50 = 2.6001. These are the same numbers as you see for the metals in the report. Sometimes the as the metal numbers are not the same as the ones obtained by converting the hardness numbers. This would be the case if the metal concentrations were measured with atomic absorption spectroscopy while the hardnesses were measured by titration with a chelating agent. It depends on the lab.

Alkalinity is 50 times the amount of acid, in milliequivalents, required to lower the pH of 1L of a sample to some value near 4.3. Thus it's in 'as calcium carbonate' units. It is the certainly one of the most important, if not the most important, water parameters from the brewers perspective. Most home brewers seem to prefer to convert it to bicarbonate ion content by dividing by 50 and multiplying by the equivalent weight of bicarbonate ion thus alkalinity of 100 ppm as CaCO3 translates to 61*100/50 = 122 mg/L bicarbonate but this is approximate with the more exact value being dependent on the pH of the sample and the pH which is used in the definition of alkalinity (not always 4.3).

Don't waste money on 5.2. It won't control your mash pH and it adds lots of sodium

You can brew beer of any color you like with this water.

Thank you for the swift response. I now understand why those values are shown that way.

I'm still mulling over this issue of my darker beers tasting harsh and acidic. I'm going to add a few grams of gypsum and a bit less of epsom salts next time to see if I can't get a smoother tasting beer. I wonder if the lack of calcium and sulfate can lend a harsh character to a beer.

There are lots of ways to get harsh, acidic dark beers and some of them are related to water. Adding sulfate tends to dry and coarsen hops bitterness. This depends on hops variety. An excess of black malts can certainly do this. Magnesium (from epsom salts) lends a sour bitterness. OTOH a higher chloride level can lend a sweet, smooth character to beer.

I suspect recipe formulation in your case. I brew stouts which usually come in at 60 - 80 SRM with water very similar to yours and they are not harsh, bitter, or acidic.

Thank you for your thoughts on taste. I input the information (I hope correctly) into EZ water calculated and played with the salt additions. Do you see a problem with what I've proposed for a basic pale ale (Pale malt, munich, C40 and Victory in the proportions noted).

Does this look right? Or am I mucking about with the salts too much?




EDIT: I removed the pics because I was doing it all wrong and I should have just read the sticky!

So now I've read the sticky. I'm going back to a known good recipe (Ed's Pale Ale) to test this new process.

I've calculated that I'll have the requisite 'soft' water profile for the total 8.5 gallons by replacing 3 gallons with distilled water.

I am figuring 5 grams is a teaspoon, so that is 1 gram per gallon of water used.

Then, if I add 8 grams of Calcium Chloride and 8 grams of gypsum to 8.5 gallons, I should be within range of the sticky's suggestions.

Question: Should I treat all the water at once? or save the additions until right before each step where I use water (e.g., dough-in, and 2 batch sparge additions)?

Thank you for providing info as I muddle through this process. Its a learning curve, but I'm working on it.

It's easiest (IMO) to treat it all at once and if you don't have excessively alkaline water (which you don't, especially after dilution) there is no need to.

In the case of this water and any low alkalinity water, treating all the water the same makes sense. If a brewer is dealing with a more alkaline tap water, then its unlikely that the water would or should be treated the same. Then it would be important to bring the alkalinity of the sparge water down to avoid problems during sparging. Of course, the more alkaline water would probably not be ideal for a light colored beer and that would also need some alkalinity reduction in that case.

Me again. Based on the malts, the calculators suggest that I'll be ok without adding acid to the mash. The room temp ph is estimated to be around 5.5. Is it vital to add 1ml of lactic acid to the mash, or will I be ok. The mash is 8 lb pale, 2 lb Vienna, 1 lb C10. I could add the lactic, but it seems like such an insignificant amount to add. I can't get saurmalt this month. Thoughts?

I'd add it. You have about 0.88 mEq/L alkalinity in your water and 1 mL of 88% lactic would neutralize about 0.56 mEq/L (5 gal treated) meaning that your mash pH would be reasonably close to the DI water mash pH which would probably be around 5.6 depending on the base malt used. That's low enough.