Ewalk02

Recipes 

What style do you think my water quality best suits?

Total Dissolved Solids - 150-230 ppm
Sulfate - 47 ppm
pH - 7.8-8.3
Conductivity - 264-394 (mu)mhos/cm
Alkalinity (as CaCO3) - 47-64 ppm
Hardness (as CaCO3) - 100 ppm
Sodium - 16-31 ppm
Ammonia (as N) - 0.04-0.46 ppm
Chloride - 22-45 ppm

Also if anyone else lives in Westminster, CO and would like to chime in that would be great!

This is all I got from my city of a water quality question I asked.

ArcaneXor

Recipes 

Sulfate is just a tad low for hop character to really "pop"; the rest looks very good for all-around brewing. What's your magnesium and calcium at?

__________________
The Fiesty(sic) Goat Brewery est. 2007 & Clusterfuggle Experimental Ales est. 2009
Planned: Fat Man Brown Porter (Pro-Am #2), WLP 351 Hefeweizen, WLP 860 Munich Helles
Primary: Centennial Falcon IPA (Pro-Am #1), sLambic I
Secondary: Flanders Red
Kegged:Himmel un Ääd Kölsch #8, Farmhouse Session Saison Pilot Batch, Chocolate Milk Stout, Pale Ale, Chili Smoked Porter, Berliner Weisse w/ Brett #3

conpewter

Recipes 

I'd say you are set up fine for pale ales -> ambers. You'll want more alkalinity (bicarbonates) for the darker beers. You'll want to add gypsum for the really hoppy beers. Look into some of the online calculators/spreadsheets. I know howtobrew.com has a great spreadsheet in the section about mashing (13.4?)

__________________
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." - V

Primary: Nothin
Secondary: Shady Lord RIS, Water to Barleywine, Pumpkin wine, burnt mead
Kegged: Crappy infected mild
Bottles: Apfelwein, 999 Barleywine, Oatmeal Stout, Robust Porter, Robust smoked porter, Simcoe Smash

Ewalk02

Recipes 

This makes me think of another problem I am having. My hoppy beers aren't quite what I expect and this may be a reason. I bought 1 lb of Cascade and 1 lb of Centennial a while back so I've been brewing up pale ales and IPA's recently but they never seem to have quite the "pop" that I want. I recently made a pale ale with 45 ibu's (from beersmith) and it REALLY lacked on anything that would resemble bittering or aroma. I figured it might have something to do with how I've been storing the hops but this might actually be the reason. BTW I've been storing my hops in a foodsaver vaccuum sealed bag in the freezer...I can't smell anything from the outside of the bag but when I open it up the aromas are very strong. These hops are '08 vintage and still very green looking.

Sorry for the novel.

Zaphod

Recipes 

Heh, I don't suppose you're in the Countryside area? If so, maybe I can just go off your water report for my own

__________________
Crooked Mouth Brewing

Fermenting:
Sour Quad (group Quad aged in a Stranahan's barrel)
Sloppy Seconds Funky/Sour Thing with Al's Bugs

Kegged:
Homebrew Club Iterative IPA
100% Brett Blonde Ale
Oztoberfest
Bruegel the Elder (16 mo old lambic aged in a Temptation barrel)
Flanders, Ned (group 2+ year old Flanders Red in a Temptation barrel)

conpewter

Recipes 

Well Burton On Trent has an intersting water profile and they make great IPAs

They have high alkalinity and high hardness, but they match almost perfectly leaving little residual alkalinity (so they are OK for lighter beers - less roasted grain) but they have something like 700 ppm sulfates and very little chlorides (those are the two whose ratio determine malty vs. bitter characteristics of a water). You'd have to do the calculations to figure out how much of which salts to add without messing up your calcium/bicarbonate balance.

__________________
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." - V

Primary: Nothin
Secondary: Shady Lord RIS, Water to Barleywine, Pumpkin wine, burnt mead
Kegged: Crappy infected mild
Bottles: Apfelwein, 999 Barleywine, Oatmeal Stout, Robust Porter, Robust smoked porter, Simcoe Smash

nealf

Recipes 

Just posted this is another thread earlier today... check out this link, it might help:

Homebrewing and water quality

conpewter

Recipes 

I've looked at that link before, some of the information is helpful. The table at the bottom is way of for carbonates -therfore bicorbonates.

For example a Porter
Porter
Calcium 60-70

magnesium 0

sodium 40

carbonate (half as alkaline as bicarbonate) 60

sulfate 50-70

chloride 60

That is not nearly enough bicarbonates to have the alkalinity you'll need to counteract the dark grains in a porter, your mash PH would be way off with that formula. Additionally you need some magnesium for the yeast.

Anyway try out Palmer's updated water calculations spreadsheet on the bottom of this page
How to Brew - By John Palmer - Residual Alkalinity and Mash pH

__________________
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." - V

Primary: Nothin
Secondary: Shady Lord RIS, Water to Barleywine, Pumpkin wine, burnt mead
Kegged: Crappy infected mild
Bottles: Apfelwein, 999 Barleywine, Oatmeal Stout, Robust Porter, Robust smoked porter, Simcoe Smash

Ewalk02

Recipes 

You got it, I live on Routt Lane. I just moved there a little while ago but found out my neighbor brews too, if you want I can give you a shout next time we fire up the rig!

Lordsoth

Recipes 

Hey thanks a lot for that link, quite helpful!