Water report and that Calcium

So to start here is my water analysis. (Ward) in ppm
Na: 5
K: 2
Ca: 14
Mg: 6
Total Hardness CaCO3: 60
NO3-N: 3
sulfate: 3*3=9
Cl: 2
HCO2: 74
Total alkalinity, CaCO3: 60
phosphorus: 0.44


I have been playing with all the water spreadsheets including beersmiths water profile tool, the latest is Bru'nwater.

My main goal is to create a water profile that I can use for the majority of my beers, a generic one. Google has only provided me with multiple threads saying that there is no one generic profile to use. Beersmith is somewhat easy if I wanted to use a specific local water, it will provide me with the specific additions to put in. However the spreadsheets only allow you to put in the additions and it back calculates the results allowing me to use trial and error.

From as far as I can determine with the spreadsheets it looks like calcium and pH are what stand out to me as needing adjusting? Perhaps bringing my Calcium up would be the ideal move, maybe into the 50-70 range?

Doing pH with my water I am getting 5.8 with 8lbs of mixed pale and crystal malts, which may be too high.

Before I continue, any suggestions to get me moving in the right direction as far as adjusting (if necessary).

Thanks

brewbush said:

My main goal is to create a water profile that I can use for the majority of my beers, a generic one.

Click to expand...

There is no generic profile that would work for all beers, but you can easily work with a limited set. One of the reasons for this is that changes in your grist, largely the use of dark malts, require changes in your water to make sure your mash pH is where you want it to be.

You way want to throw this tool into the mix of tools to try: http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator

It does also work based on trial and error but I found that after a while you get a feel of how much salts to add to your water.

Kai

Having been pressed to come up with a generic profile I did the best I could and came up with a baseline profile that could be modified a little for groups of styles. This can be found in the Primer in the Stickies. It won't produce optimum beer but I have yet to receive my first notification that it screwed someone up.

I agree with AJ. A modest Calcium content and possibly chloride and/or sulfate to pair with that moderate calcium content is not going to screw up a beer. The one thing the OP needs to watch is the alkalinity of that tap water. A little acid or acid malt may be in order for some beers.

Ok, so playing with that site, after putting in 1tsp (4gm) gypsum and 0.2tsp (1gram) calcium chloride, I get.....

Ca 53, mg and na the same, so4 82.7, Cl 18, and HCO3 70.9

does that seem more reasonable and am I doing it correctly?

I use the braumeister electric brewing rig, so I assume I can put these in when I am mashing?