Chicago water and Alt

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JerD

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Jun 29, 2008
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Location
NW Indiana
I'm brewing an "Alt" tomorrow with Chicago water and was wondering if I should mix it up with some distilled water,and if so, how much. My grain bill is
4.5lbs 2row
4.5 lbs Munich
.50lbs 85crystal
.25lbs 45crystal

I'm going to get this water thing down soon, as soon as I can get the info from my water department. (I don't have Chicago(lake) water at home, just water that tastes fine, but is harder than all heck)
Thanks alot
 
We'd need to know the water profile of the area you are in. You should be able to get this from the local water municipality or send a sample to Ward Labs. It could vary greatly depending on where your water is coming from. It could be from Lake Michigan or from wells.
 
BeerSmith has a water profile for lake michigan. I'm not sure how accurate it is though.
 
For this batch I'm just bringing water from work, which is Chicago (Lake Mich.) water. I'm still trying to get info for my home water, which comes from a municipal well.
 
I'm in Hammond, IN., this is the water report I got from the Water Works Department (report dated March 2009) and Hammond water is from Lake Michigan
Calcium (CA) 34
Magnesium (Mg) 12
Chloride (C1) 18
Sulfate (S04) 32
Sodium (Na) 11
Alkalinity (CaC03) 120
Hardness (CaC03) 130
PH 7.3 -7.5

tom
 
For rough estimates I put your grainbill into beertools and got a SRM of 14

Then using Palmers Spreadsheet I put your water in and it really comes out pretty close for that beer, you could throw one or two grams of calcium chloride in the boil just to adjust the chloride/sulfate balance to more malty if you want, but the residual alkalinity based off the profile given by millstone shows that you are just about on target already.
 
Thanks for all the quick replies. Now if I can just track down the water guy from town and figure out my local water. Until then I have all the Chicago water I can get my hands on.
Maybe if I started thinking about the water a bit sooner, my Wheat beer wouldn't have tasted like a oddly flavored perrier (it looked nice though)
 
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