mtbfan101

Recipes 

So, I think I might a found a water report for where I live(Raleigh). When comparing it to other reports, however, I found that it is missing a couple of things from the list. If this is not suffice, I might call our local brew shops to get more info, and if that doesn't work then I'll just get the info directly from the plant. Anyways, this is what I found:

Parameter Plant Tap
Temperature: 12.9 Celsius
Color, units: 1.1
pH, units: 8.4
Free Carbon Dioxide: mg/l 0.28
Total Alkalinity, mg/l as CaCO 3 36.2
Total Hardness, mg/l as CaCO 3 33.2
Total Dissolved Solids, mg/l 166
Specific Conductivity, uS/cm 250
Iron: mg/l 0.02
Manganese: mg/l 0.01
Fluoride: mg/l 0.69
Chloride: mg/l 18.3
Nitrate: mg/l as N 0.21
Ammonia: mg/l as N 0.08
Silica: mg/l as SiO2 5.9
Silt Density Index (SDI) 2.46
Total Coliform Bacteria * Absent
E. Coli * Absent
Total Trihalomethanes, mg/l 0.010 0.080

Anyways, I hope this works out. I want to start having an understanding of water chemistry, but I figure it wouldn't be worth learning unless I knew our reports.

mabrungard

Recipes 

That report is interesting since it includes Silica and SDI. Those are important parameters to RO plant operators. Does Raleigh treat their water with a RO process?

The total hardness is less than the total alkalinity which is rare. But that result would make sense if the water is RO treated. The information presented is insufficient at this point since the calcium and magnesium content can only be inferred. The alkalinity and pH can be used to estimate the bicarbonate, so that's available. The chloride is reported, but the sulfate is missing.

Off hand, it appears that this water is likely to make a decent starting point for brewing water. I am under the impression that they soften the water with RO and blend the RO water with a percentage of raw water to provide a non-corrosive and still palatable finished water.

Go back and ask the plant's water lab for the missing data.

__________________
Martin Brungard, P.E. D.WRE
Carmel, IN
BJCP National
Foam Blowers of Indiana (FBI)
Brewing Water Information at:
https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/

mtbfan101

Recipes 

Thanks for the response. I did some more digging and I found some more info that might be useful. I have found a post of someone using these parameters:
This is the data I use.
• Calcium 15 ppm
• Magnesium 2.84 ppm
• Sodium 28 ppm
• Chloride 14.9 ppm
• Sulfate 40.8 ppm
Alkalinity(CaCO30 23.9 ppm

3ppm of chloramines, so i treat my tap water with campden.

This data was also posted on a different site around April last year. I'm not sure how this info was obtained, but it is also used by a beer club here in Raleigh.