How often do you have your water tested?

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cmoon

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I was talking with some of the expert brewing gurus at my club meeting (Maltose Falcons), and was told that you should probably consider testing your house water (if you use it for brewing) upwards of 3 times a year. The rationale being that (at least here in southern CA) the source used for water changes throughout the year.

I'm just now sending out to have my second test done, and if this and the next all come out similar or at least give me some averages to work with, I'll probably call it good, but I was curious if any of you were doing multiple tests a year?

Is water paranoia a healthy part of a homebrewer's obsession? :confused:
 
Well I'm luckily enough that the water company has their microbiologist's number on their website. I just call every few months and ask him to email my regions secondary standards.

And yes, once you're at a certain level of precision and you want to control every aspect of your product, water becomes a big part of homebrew obsession.
 
Since your water source changes seasonally I would think just summer and winter. Do you taste a difference in it? My water source is always the same, so I just filter it and call it good 99% of the time.
 
Since your water source changes seasonally I would think just summer and winter. Do you taste a difference in it?

I have only been brewing with my own tap water for about two months, and only all grain for half a year. I'm just trying to get a picture of constant my water supply is. I sent off for a report in the spring, I'm sending one off now, and I'll probably send off for a third near the end of the year. Hoping it doesn't fluctuate too much.
 
The ultimate answer is "before every brew" and this implies, of course, that you must do your own testing. The important parameters are calcium hardness, magnesium hardness and alkalinity and, fortunately, good kits for those are readily available. Chloride kits are a bit more expensive and, unfortunately, there really isn't an affordable test for sulfate (that I know of) so you might send out a couple of times a year to get that check and to check on your "lab" work.
 
ajdelange> Thanks for chiming in. I've learned quite a bit from your other posts on brewing water.
 

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