Meijer Spring Water Profile
 

I just received the water profile for Meijer spring water and thought I'd share it.

Bicarbonate 260
Calcium 79
Chloride 15
Magnesium 26
Sodium 8
Sulfate 24
Alkalinity 260
pH 7.92

This makes sense to me because before I knew what these values were, I made a pale ale that had a really low efficiency and kind of sucked, and an oatmeal stout that had great efficiency and turned out great.

I have used spring water from more or less local sources, just to avoid the chloramines in our water, and just assumed it was similar to my own tap water. Looks like it is.

I agree, its hard and alkaline. Great for stout, but could still work for a pale with a little acid in the mash. Good work.

We used Meijer spring water last week to brew a Pliny the Elder clone, but added some 5.2 pH Mash Stabilizer to the mash to get our pH correct. Does that affect any of the mineral content levels? Does the water profile look like it will be good for a Pliny clone? Or does it seem like the sodium or chloride levels are low and we would have benefited from adding a little Gypsum as well?

How did you check the mash pH after adding the 5.2?

Note that he didn't say he did get the pH correct but rather that he added the 5.2 in order to get it correct. I'm still waiting for someone to reliably document a case where this product does live up to its claims or for the manufacturer to come forward and explain under what conditions it might work. As we have noted many times before the theory says it shouldn't work and lab checks confirm that.

The first time we used the ph test strips to check and although the shade of the colors were subjective, I did feel like the color was close to the range we were looking for. I am not a scientist, so I cannot confirm that it actually works, but I k ow our beers have been coming out well, so it hasn't hurt the process. I am trying to learn more about using salts and other additives to get the right ph and balance of salts. Just discovered that Beersmith has an awesome water profile tool to help do the math on the additions needed to achieve the desired profile. I also have been getting to know the local water profile (Chicago, Lake Michigan water). Now I just have to learn more about the desirable profiles for different types of beers and breweries.

I have over the years observed that it seems to work quite well for people who do not use pH meters but not at all well for those who do.

Best advice is to read everything you can under "brew science", learn which salts affect the mash in what way per particular style of brew, use a PH tester, and brew often.