Worth worrying about water chemistry for first AG?

Hi Guys-

I'm getting ready to brew my first AG, a BIAB pale ale, and haven been trying my darndest to figure out the water. Our municipal report is pretty detailed, so that's good, but I'm not experienced to tell if my water is just hard, or really really hard. It's also pretty alkaline, so I'm still trying to figure out if I should try and acidify the mash with some acid malt.

Anyway, my question is: apart from chloramines, should I even bother with water chemistry on my first AG batch?

Obviously, you guys don't need to critique my water, the calculator at Brewing Water Chemistry Calculator | Brewer's Friend seems to think it's fine. Is that a decent one to use in the future?
Also- there's about 2.2 ppm chloramine- is 1 campden tablet good enough to get rid of that in 8 gallons?

Thanks in advance- really trying to get a handle on this stuff, it's tricky.


Water, for your perusal:
Ca- 60.5
Mg- 22.9
Sulfate- 192
Na- 87.2
Cl- 94.9
Bicarb- 130
Alkalinity- 107
hardness- 247
K+- 4.27
TDS- 563

Looks fine and I'd just use a whole campden tablet. You'll need more than 6 gallons to make an AG batch, due to the grain's absorption.

david_42 said:

Looks fine and I'd just use a whole campden tablet. You'll need more than 6 gallons to make an AG batch, due to the grain's absorption.

Click to expand...

Yup- that was just a typo. Must have been thinking of the boil volume. Edited.

Thanks!

One Campden tablet is sufficient to treat 20 gal. at 3 ppm chloramine. Thus you could try 1/2 or 1/4 tablet. It's easy enough to tell if you have dosed sufficiently. If you can't smell chlorine any more, you have. Note that you may smell sulfur dioxide but that's OK.

Cool, apart from that the water looks pretty good to me. Suggestions are always welcome, though. Green flash is just down the street from me (walking distance- I ride by there on my bike on the way to work) and they say they do make some adjustments, but won't tell me what. Anyway, AG here I come!