Should I use this tap water or bottled spring water?

So I'm doing my third AG batch tomorrow. The last couple times I brewed I used generic spring water. Should I go ahead with this water profile or buy more spring water? I don't have the proper tools to adjust my water profile unless its something I can get at the store. No LHBS




pH 8.8
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est 196
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.33
Cations / Anions, me/L 3.3 / 3.5

Sodium, Na- 75 ppm
Potassium K-<1 ppm
Calcium Ca- 1 ppm
Magnesium Mg- <1 ppm
Total Hardness, CaCO3- 3 ppm
Nitrate, NO3&#8208;N- .1 ppm
Sulfate, SO4&#8208;S- 3 ppm
Chloride, Cl- 6 ppm
Carbonate, CO3- 21ppm
Bicarbonate, HCO3- 145ppm
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 154

Thanks

thood6 said:

So I'm doing my third AG batch tomorrow. The last couple times I brewed I used generic spring water. Should I go ahead with this water profile or buy more spring water? I don't have the proper tools to adjust my water profile unless its something I can get at the store. No LHBS

pH 8.8
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est 196
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.33
Cations / Anions, me/L 3.3 / 3.5

Sodium, Na- 75 ppm
Potassium K-<1 ppm
Calcium Ca- 1 ppm
Magnesium Mg- <1 ppm
Total Hardness, CaCO3- 3 ppm
Nitrate, NO3&#8208;N- .1 ppm
Sulfate, SO4&#8208;S- 3 ppm
Chloride, Cl- 6 ppm
Carbonate, CO3- 21ppm
Bicarbonate, HCO3- 145ppm
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 154

Thanks

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Have you read through the first post in this thread yet?
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

It's a good place to start if you're interested in water but aren't really sure how to begin. If I were more knowledgeable about water chemistry, I'd have more to offer, but until someone else chimes in, that might be worth a read.

Actually, that water doesn't look half bad, at least compared to mine. The sodium and alkalinity is a bit high, but everything else is quite low. If I had this water, I'd probably dilute it with RO or distilled to drop the sodium and alkalinity and then add back gypsum and calcium chloride to get your calcium and sulfate/chloride numbers up... depending on what you are brewing.

To get a better idea of what you have to work with, download Bru'n Water and plug in your water profile.

As for now, I'd be hesitant to brew with this water given the high alk and low calcium. You might be better off diluting half and half with spring water, in the hope that it brings up your Ca and drops the alkalinity. Regardless, you'll want to pick up some gypsum and calcium chloride at some point if you plan to adjust your tap water.

I also like to use the How-to-Brew chapter as a reference as well. It kinda depends on what kind of beer you're brewing. I'm by no means an expert, but the place I'd start first is the hardness. You're a little high, which means that you're probably fine for a darker beer, but if you're trying to brew lighter beers, you may have to either dilute with RO water or lower the pH with something (lactic acid, acid malt, etc). As for your other salts, your sodium is higher than some, but I don't think that you'd run into trouble with it as it is. I've always read that you need around 50ppm Ca for proper yeast fermentation and flocculation. Since both your chloride and sulfate levels are low as well, you can use either CaCl2 or CaSO4. If you're brewing a hoppy beer, go with more CaSO4, and for malty beers go with more CaCl2. Good luck!

I've always used bottled spring water. The water in my area is perfectly safe from drinking but it's not really that good tasting. The usual rule of thumb is that good tasting water makes good tasting beer.

Huh - that was post #1500. I've been away for a couple of years, seldom posting or reading. Just stopped by today for no particular reason.

You could use that water for mashing, if you dilute at least 4:1 or so. Don't sparge with it. And you want to use reverse osmosis or distilled water rather than spring water.

tgmartin000 said:

You could use that water for mashing, if you dilute at least 4:1 or so. Don't sparge with it. And you want to use reverse osmosis or distilled water rather than spring water.

Click to expand...

Why is spring water not ok? That's what I ended up using.

Bump

Well, what's in "spring water"? That's the thing to know.

With RO or distilled water- you know where you're starting. You're starting with a blank slate, as all the numbers are effectively "0".

so you can dilute your tap water with good results, or use RO water only (and add a teaspoon of calcium chloride to it), with good results also.

Spring water is simply water that came out of the earth- it could be high in bicarbonates or it could be high in minerals. We'd have no way of really knowing what's in it. I know that in our area, a company bottles city tap water and calls it "Crystal Spring Water".

Spring water is fine, as long as you know the water profile. If not it's a crap shoot.

I've used spring water for all of my batches and they've turned out just fine. It may be a crap shoot and I may just be lucky but I go with what works.

Thanks guys, I guess I'm just going to bite the bullet and start building from distilled to get my profile. Gotta go do some reading!