Moving to town.....water...help.

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Gareth68

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Ok,

I am new to brewing. I have two extract brews under my belt, and am making teh switch to all grain on my next batches.

My landlord threw a wrench in teh spokes by deciding to sell teh property I have leased for the last 3.5 years.

Long story short, I am leasing a house in town = new water.

I am slowly wrapping my head around teh chemistry aspects of brewing, but want to see if anyone spots anything of concern in my local water report.

Here is a link to the easy to read PDF...I have tried to copy and paste everything pertinent below, however.

http://fultonmo.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/2013-Annual-Water-Quality-Report.pdf

BARIUM 1/17/2012 0.00574 - 0.00806 ppm

FLUORIDE 1/17/2012 0.81 - 1.02 ppm

NITRATE-NITRITE 2/25/2013 0.01 - 0.02 ppm

TTHM 2013 6.98 ppb

COPPER 2010 - 2012 0.0159 - 0.143 ppm

LEAD 2010 - 2012 1.23 - 7.7 ppb

COMBINED RADIUM ( -226 & -228) 3/12/2013 1.6 - 3.7 pCi/l

GROSS ALPHA PARTICLE ACTIVITY 3/12/2013 8.4 - 10.2 pCi/l

RADIUM-226 3/12/2013 1.6 - 3.7 pCi/l

CHROMIUM, HEX 5/16/2013 0 - 0.034

STRONTIUM 5/10/2013 2.72 - 894

ALKALINITY, CACO3 STABILITY 1/17/2012 322 - 333MG/L

CALCIUM 1/17/2012 66.4 - 71.5 MG/L

CHLORIDE 1/17/2012 15.2 - 21.5 MG/L

HARDNESS, CARBONATE 1/17/2012 289 - 311 MG/L

IRON 1/17/2012 0.0106 - 0.0259 MG/L

MAGNESIUM 1/17/2012 29.8 - 32.2 MG/L

MANGANESE 1/17/2012 0.00212 - 0.00282 MG/L 0

PH 1/17/2012 7.45 - 7.71 PH

POTASSIUM 1/17/2012 6.48 - 8.16 MG/L

SODIUM 1/17/2012 34.3 - 42.3 MG/L

SULFATE 1/17/2012 37.9 - 65.4 MG/L

TDS 1/17/2012 370 - 415 MG/L

ZINC 1/17/2012 0.00345 - 0.0142 MG/L 5

I see no Chlorine or Chloramine?

I do see TTHM?

Do I need campden or not?

I have an RV hose and RV charcoal filter which I used with my well water, I will use the same with the city water.

I have much to learn, and want to move forward with getting down teh grain process before loading myself too heavily with perfecting the water science.

But I also know I need to make sure I am at least acceptable to move forward or do whatever basic precautions to have a reasonable outcome.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

ANd thanks in advance for any tips or suggestions.

:mug:
 
I have been using my city water for 3 years. I do believe it has some chlorine. I used a Britta filter in the beginning and now have a charcoal filter in line. I haven't gotten around to getting a water report or doing adjustments. (my town water report doesn't go into enough detail) I have had no issues.

The water tastes great most of the year, but gets what I describe as a potting soil odor/taste at the end of the summer. This has not seemed to have any effect on my beer.

So, I guess what I am saying is it might be OK just to rely on the filter to handle the chlorine/chloramine. YMMV

Have you used the water yet without any adjustments?
 
TTHM is a by-product of using chlorine so you know it was used even if the level is not given. I would use campden.

You also have very hard, high alkaline water. When you go to all grain and want to make a lighter beer you will need to look at ways to lower the alkalinity using acid malt or an acid addition. You should be OK with darker beers. But if you really want to start working with water chemistry you will probably need to start with RO water rather than your tap. RO gives a much cleaner slate to start with.

Brun water seems to have a good following in this forum. It is helpful to be able to plug in different recipes and see how the water changes as more or less dark malts are added and such.
 
I will order the campden.

Thoughts on 5.2 stabilizer?

Would these two additions with my little filter get me somewhat safe?

On the brew list next are caribou slobber and a cream ale.
 
I have never used the 5.2 stabilizer so can't comment.

You filter will not do anything for hardness or alkalinity. It will remove chlorine and organics.

Are you next brews extract or all grain? I assume extract from the ones you are looking at. Extract you should be fine. It is when you start mashing grain that I see problems with the alkaline.
 
I would suggest you download brun water spreadsheet and put in your numbers. I suspect the Caribou slobber will be OK for mash but iffy on sparge water. The cream ale could be iffy on mash.

That said if you do nothing you will still make good beer. Your efficiency might be a bit lower.

Playing with the water just brings in a new level. You go from good to "damn this is good".
 
Don't. Doesn't work. Period.

Perfect.

Thanks.

I'm trying to wrap my head around brun....might need to sit down late night with no distractions.

So, I definitely need campden. Don;t need the 5.2, and seemingly need some sort of acid.

I have a week or two until I move, but would like to make an order soon so it doesn't get lost between addresses.

I'm downloading beersmith as well..

Hopefully, I get a handle on this enough to crank out something reasonable.....then I'll get my fermentation chamber up and start really studying.

For now I want lo learn the process and make decent and drinkable..

As soon as I have that down comes cleaning up things and going for damn good to great.


:drunk:
 
As mentioned above, very hard and alkaline water. It is usable, but there are going to be styles where that water is not going to produce ideal results. Dilution with RO or distilled water may be needed in that case.

That water is suited for either preboiling or lime softening as methods for hardness and alkalinity reduction. That could be an option, if you are willing to take the extra time to perform the pretreatment.

The other consideration is that the water is usable in brewing styles that tolerate hard water. Then, acidification is an option. With the high alkalinity, phosphoric may be the most feasible. Hydrochloric and sulfuric acids are also options, but they require much more care in their use.
 
HMM...ok.

I ordered narrow range PH strips, campden tablets and lactic acid.

It sounds like the lactic won;t be strong enough.

And lime, I can get that.

Eventually I will figure this out.

I will keep studying your page.

Looks like I will need two days to brew.

Day one, add ???? (lime? acid?) to water to treat.

Day 2 boil, sparge, and brew.

Once I figure out how much of what and when I need to add, I can develop a system.
 
The problem here is that we don't have an alkalinity number and that's a bit of a problem but we can tell from the other numbers that the alkalinity is going to be pretty steep, probably to the extent that you don't want to tackle it with lactic acid because of potential flavor effects. Phosphoric would be a better choice from this POV.

You are apparently thinking of trying lime treatment on this water. If you haven't done it before now is not the time to try to learn it unless you have the ability to test for alkalinity and hardness which, if you did, would give an alkalinity number we could use (note that this report has an alkalinity stability number, not an alkalinity number). Hold on, there is a 'hardness, carbonate' field. That could be the alkalinity but this report is wierd. I'd send a sample off to Ward labs.

I would strongly recommend that you take the approach of the Primer (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/) which is, in essence, that you use RO water or this water diluted way down with RO water until you get on more solid ground with what is actually in this water and learn more how to deal with this new water source and its apparent problems.

As to whether you need Campden tablets or not - that depends in large measure on whether the utility chloraminates or chlorinates. You can tell which by letting a glass of water stand over night and then sniffing it while pouring back and forth into another glass. If you can't smell chlorine the next day and/or if pouring back and forth causes the odor to diminish appreciably then you don't have chloramine and an overnight stand will do (though a portion of a Campden tablet won't hurt).

5.2 does not do what it purports to do.
 
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