What does my Water Report tell me??

So I sent my tap water into Ward Labs and here is what I got back

pH 7.0
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 432
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.72
Cations / Anions, me/L 7.7 / 8.1
ppm
Sodium, Na 14
Potassium, K 3
Calcium, Ca 90
Magnesium, Mg 30
Total Hardness, CaCO3 350
Nitrate, NO3-N 2.7 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 17
Chloride, Cl 51
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 327
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 268
"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit

I am going to do my 1st all grain batch next week. I was curious how Good or bad this water is and how much treatment I will need to do to get a correct PH for my beers.

Thanks on any info that you can give or anything you can let me know to point me in the right direction to help use this knowledge about my water to make better beer.

You may be better helped in the "Brew Science" subforum. That is where most water chem discussions take place.

I suggest downloading and using the Bru'n Water calculator. It takes some learning to be familiarized with it but once you are, entering a recipe and tweaking your potential water additions becomes quite easy.

Without worrying about water chemistry additions, you can still enter in your base profile and recipe to see where the estimated PH might be.

It tells me that you have very hard water with high alkalinity. The high alkalinity may make it hard to maintain low pH during sparge. Definitely check out the Bru'n Water speadsheet.

The magnesium is getting on up there and the alkalinity is definitely going to need to be neutralized. However, this is a workable brewing water. Just be aware that you might not have great results when brewing lightly flavored beers like Pils and wheat beers. The water may impart more flavor than desired in those light styles. Then you may want to dilute a bit.

Thanks for the advice so far.

What is the best way to reduce alkalinity?

Zrab11 said:

Thanks for the advice so far.

What is the best way to reduce alkalinity?

Click to expand...

Dilute it with distilled or reverse osmosis filtered water