Do I have what I need from water company

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14chow

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I inquired my water company several times for a water report and I finally received a response. It appears a lot of the information is mg/L but the water calulator I looked at (EZ Water Calculator) call for ppm. It does appear that a google unit convert tool I used basically converted mg/l to ppm almost identically. Sound right? Anyways, just wondering if I have enough information from my water company to be useful and if it looks normal or all jacked up! In the meantime, I'll be reading through the stickies ect to gain some knowledge.

Ca = Not measured
Mg = Not measured
Na = 10 mg/L
S04= 31 mg/L
Cl = 0.2 mg/L - 2.5 mg/L
// Varies by location ranges between
CaC03= 32-50 mg/L
HCO3= 14-20 mg/L
alkalinity= 14 -20 mg/L
// Total Alkalinity for these waters is bicarbonate only.
pH = 7.3 - 7.5
 
It looks like the profile might be something along the lines I show below. The water is quite soft and they may not be measuring Ca or Mg directly, but they are apparently measuring the hardness as CaCO3. Plugging in the information that you do have, I estimate the following constituents. The ions do balance reasonably well.

Starting Profile ppm
Ca 15
Mg 0
Na 10
SO4 31
Cl 2
HCO3 22
 
Thanks for your response Martin. I'll start plugging some numbers into your spreadsheet and see how it all comes together.

Edit: When entering the water information in your spreadsheet and indicating a pale ale, it appears all I would need to do is add about .5gram/gal of calcium chloride. Sounds simple enough. That spreadsheet has a lot of information in there; will provide some good reading!
 
It does appear that a google unit convert tool I used basically converted mg/l to ppm almost identically. Sound right?

A liter of water weighs 1,000,000 mg. If a solution contains a few mg of solute per liter that doesn't displace much water and the amount of water is still close to a million mg. Thus, for dilute solutions, mg/L and parts per million are so close to being the same that the units can be used interchangeably.

Anyways, just wondering if I have enough information from my water company to be useful and if it looks normal or all jacked up! In the meantime, I'll be reading through the stickies ect to gain some knowledge.

Ca = Not measured
Mg = Not measured
Na = 10 mg/L
S04= 31 mg/L
Cl = 0.2 mg/L - 2.5 mg/L
// Varies by location ranges between
CaC03= 32-50 mg/L
HCO3= 14-20 mg/L
alkalinity= 14 -20 mg/L
// Total Alkalinity for these waters is bicarbonate only.
pH = 7.3 - 7.5

It's enough in the sense that you know your water is pretty soft (0.64 - 1 mEq/L) and not very alkaline. This is your real blessing. Assuming the calcium and magnesium hardnesses to be equal you could have 7 - 12 mg/L Magnesium and 12 - 20 mg/L Calcium or any combination in that range but the ratio doesn't have to be 1:1 either. The sulfate would be high for any lager which uses noble hops. Cut this water 1:1 with RO water and you are in fantastic shape for anything (meaning the beers demanding really low sulfate and alkalinity) you wish to brew though some mineral supplementation would be needed. You'd need that even if you didn't dilute 1:1 which you wouldn't need to do for most beers.

And yes, 0.5 - 1 gram /gal calcium chloride or half that amount with an equal amount of calcium sulfate or any ratio totalling less than 1 gram per gallon (or less if you prefer) is really all there is to it plus a little acid for pH control. See the Primer.
 
Now the real question is, "What style of beer are you looking to brew?" Certain styles will require some mineral additions for your soft water. But you will benefit from added Calcium for yeast health either way. However, if you are using malt extract (DME/LME) to brew, then mineral adjustments are less important since there are already a percentage of dissolved minerals in the extract from the maltster's brewing water. Good luck!
 
Typically I do pale ales with a stout and a brown ale thrown in every now and then. I do allgrain.

Never really considered my water before since I was working out the kinks in my process. Now that I have some good consitency going and have some insight into my water profile, I think I need to start tinckering more in this area.

Thanks for all the great information. It is almost overwhelming reading just about water alone!!
 
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