conpewter
Well-Known Member
So I emailed the water departement in my town again and asked for the specific minerals I was interested in. Last year I asked for a water report and just got the one that has all the unsafe chemicals listed (amounts of arsnic etc.) but nothing really useful.
Well this time he filled in my answers (except for two that the tests will come back in a couple weeks) and also expressed interested in brewing and said he'd been reading a few books! That was pretty cool so I wrote back a long email about how to get started and possibly meeting for a drink and then brewing together.
Well here is what I have. I have really hard water... which I knew (since the house has a water softener) and I'm not sure what all to do with it. I may need to add some magnesium, calcium looks ok. The problem is my CaCO3 levels are way high...
I guess my question is what kind of styles am I looking at here (I'm thinking stouts/porters and IPA/Bitters) and what to do to get other styles.
Thanks!
Sodium, Na- 40 mg/l (ppm)
Potassium, K- to low to measure
Calcium, Ca- 70 mg/l (ppm)
Magnesium, Mg to low - Manganese 150 ug/l (ppb)
Total Hardness, CaCO3- 424 Mg/l
Nitrate, NO3-N - 0.18 mg/l (ppm)
Sulfate, SO4-S - 43 mg/l (ppm)
Chloride, Cl - .5-1.2 Free Mg/l (ppm) to 3-3.5 Total mg/l (ppm)
Carbonate, CO3
Bicarbonate, HCO3
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 - 320 mg/l (ppm)
Well this time he filled in my answers (except for two that the tests will come back in a couple weeks) and also expressed interested in brewing and said he'd been reading a few books! That was pretty cool so I wrote back a long email about how to get started and possibly meeting for a drink and then brewing together.
Well here is what I have. I have really hard water... which I knew (since the house has a water softener) and I'm not sure what all to do with it. I may need to add some magnesium, calcium looks ok. The problem is my CaCO3 levels are way high...
I guess my question is what kind of styles am I looking at here (I'm thinking stouts/porters and IPA/Bitters) and what to do to get other styles.
Thanks!
Sodium, Na- 40 mg/l (ppm)
Potassium, K- to low to measure
Calcium, Ca- 70 mg/l (ppm)
Magnesium, Mg to low - Manganese 150 ug/l (ppb)
Total Hardness, CaCO3- 424 Mg/l
Nitrate, NO3-N - 0.18 mg/l (ppm)
Sulfate, SO4-S - 43 mg/l (ppm)
Chloride, Cl - .5-1.2 Free Mg/l (ppm) to 3-3.5 Total mg/l (ppm)
Carbonate, CO3
Bicarbonate, HCO3
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 - 320 mg/l (ppm)