Water profile from WaterCo -- tips?

United Water Toms River posted their quality report recently --
Chlorine ppm 0.47
Alkalinity ppm 53
Aluminum ppb 76
Chloride ppm 12
Corrosivity 0.7
Color CU 1
Hardness (as CaCO3) ppm 54
Iron ppb 75
Manganese ppb 30
Odor TON 0.05
pH 7.7
Sodium ppm 12
Sulfate ppm 8
TDS ppm 82

Two questions, is this useful without Ca and Mg totals? And if so, how? It seems to be pretty soft (haven't lived here long enough to agree or not). Should I add some hardness for stouts etc.?

The gurus will probably be around to answer more in depth shortly, but I believe hardness as CaCO3 is related to the Ca2+ and Mg2+ concentrations as:

Hardness as [CaCO3] = 2.5*[Ca2+] + 4.11*[Mg2+]

So even though you don't know the exact ratio between the calcium and magnesium concentrations, the maximum these could be would be 13.1 ppm Mg2+ (with 0 ppm Ca2+) or 21.6 ppm Ca2+ (with 0 ppm Mg2+). In either case, you have soft water.

It looks almost like lime softened water. It's definitely appears to be decent brewing water. You'll obviously want to get rid of the chlorine. I don't know how high of a level 75ppb for iron is though. You'll need to add more calcium and some acid for many paler beers.

bdh said:

The gurus will probably be around to answer more in depth shortly,....

Click to expand...

No need for a guru here. Looks spot on to me.

Great, thanks for the advice!
So, would you recommend adjusting Ca by assuming Mg is 0, if necessary for a certain brew? I don't want to get too picky (yet), just get into the ballpark.