My city water quality report - Culver City

Hey everyone. Sorry for the basic question, but I am just looking for someone to help me interpret the water quality in my city as I start to learn more about water as a brewing ingredient.

Here is the link to my report: http://www.gswater.com/csa_homepages/documents/CulverCity061611.pdf

And here are the values that I pulled from it:

Calcium 53
Alkalinity 106
Magnesium 22
Sodium 85
Chloride 88
Sulfate 168
Ph 8.0

My first question is, did I pull the right numbers? Did I miss any? Is there anything in the report that is in any way alarming?

I typically brew pale ales, ambers, ipa's and iipa's. How would you interpret these numbers if you were brewing one of those styles? I'm trying to figure this out myself by reading this forum but the chemistry level is a bit beyond me currently, but seeing how others would modify my water will help me learn.

Thanks in advance-

I spent a couple of summers in the LA area and everyone drank Sparklets and did it for a reason. The tap water tasted pretty lousy. Now that was a while, quite a while, ago and things may have changed but I bring it up because while the numbers you have listed look OK if the water tastes the way it did back when I was there I wouldn't want to brew with it.

The numbers you extracted are averages and that's a reasonable way to get an overall picture so, based on my recollections, I also looked at some of the range numbers. Sulfate, with an average level of 168, can range from 55 to 250 which is the MCL (albeit a secondary MCL - an explanation of what these means is in the report). Thus sulfate is definitely high and limits what you can brew to the kinds of beers you do brew i.e. British style ales but you are pretty much precluded from brewing any thing which uses noble hops. Further to that, while some guys brew ales with that much sulfate or more, many do not like that much sulfate even in their British ales. IOW, sulfate sticks out in your report and is something you will need to be thinking about in your beers.

The alkalinity of 106 is higher than we like to see but then anything over 20 is higher than we like to see unless you specialize in dark beers. For all but the darkest 106 and certainly anything approaching the maximum observed (in 2010) level of 130 would require acid in some form to establish proper mash pH.

The sodium is also a bit high but not, by itself, troublesome and the same could be said for the magnesium. But, and this is colored by my recollections, when I look at the whole report I see a lot of mineral content (avg TDS 497) and so the question becomes "How does this water taste?". If it tastes OK you should be able to brew with it but you need to be conscious of the variability.

All the potential problems with this water can be ameliorated by diluting it with low ion water (RO, DI, distilled...) and that is what I would do with it but that reflects the styles of beer I brew (lagers) and my personal preference (for beer made with soft water). There are other ways to treat this water but dilution is certainly the simplest (though not the least expensive).

Typical Colorado River water quality. No surprises here.

With the sodium, chloride, and sulfate levels higher than desirable, its a pretty rough water to brew with. It can be done. It's just not going to produce a great beer in most situations. Dilution with RO or distilled water can correct most of the problems. Be aware that additional calcium will likely be needed for the diluted water. I'd suggest calcium chloride under most conditions, but gypsum might be a good source if hoppy beers are brewed.

Sorry for my delayed response, both of you offered very helpful responses. This stuff is all a bit new to me so I wanted to try to wrap my head a bit more around the concept before I responded.

AJ, I have been brewing with this water for a few years now and after reading your post I tasted the water after passing it through my water filter to see how it tasted and it's honestly not that bad (especially compared to some other LA water that I have tasted). Even though it doesn't taste that bad I do think that adjustments need to be made to it and based off of what I took from the water basics thread I am better off diluting the water with distilled water and adding my adjustments from there. I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea of having to buy large amounts of distilled water each time I brew, it's going to drive up the price considerably. I think my plan for now is to brew a batch of our pale ale following a water calculator (below) and compare it to the batch I just finished on Sunday that was done with untreated water and see what kind of difference it makes. Thanks for your insight, I appreciate the time you took to respond to my entry keble question.

Martin, I downloaded your spreadsheet and started to fill it out this weekend. From the looks of it I am going to need to dilute my water to around 75% before I can start to make any additions. From what I was able to decipher I will be adding gypsum, Epsom salts, calcium chloride and lactic acid to the liquor prior to mashing and sparging. Thanks again for your response as well. When I get home from work tonight I will post my additions to see if anyone on here thinks they are crazy.

Holter via iPad

Hey guys-

For those of you out there who are good with water I wanted to my water by you all to see if I have used the EZ Water Calculator spreadsheet appropriately. First off here is the recipe i am brewing which is an American Pale Ale:

12 gallons post boil
OG = 1.054
TG = 1.011
Color = 6.4 SRM
ABV = 5.64%
IBU = 37

Fermentables
16.8lbs Maris Otter
2.1lbs Munich Malt
1.05lbs Crystal 10L
1.05lbs Carapils

Cascade 9.1%AA - 60min - .65oz
Cascade 9.1%AA - 35min - 1.2oz
Cascade 9.1%AA - 15min - 1.2oz
Cascade 9.1%AA - 10min - .80oz
Cascade 9.1%AA - 05min - .70oz

I've brewed this beer many times with my cities water profile mentioned above. Here it is again for good measure (although tomorrow when i get over to my buddies place where i brew I am going to get a sample to send to Ward labs).

Calcium - 26 to 71 - AVG 53
Magnesium - 11 to 28 - AVG 22
Sodium - 58 to 98 - AVG 85
Chloride - 67 to 94 - AVG 88
Sulfate - 55 to 250 - AVG 168
Alkalinity - 63 to 130 - AVG 106
or as Bicarbonate - 129
Hardness (CaCO3) - 84 to 300 - AVG 217
PH - 7.5 to 8.6 - AVG 8

And here i have added this information into EZ Water Calculator to adjust to style:



How do i know if I have done the additions correctly? Palmer mentions Residual Alkalinity a LOT on the Waterganza shows and my residual alkalinity is -249 according to this spreadsheet, which seems weird. Obviously this is something i need to look into understanding more at this point.

I should mention that i am aware I did not dilute the water at all. I am not going to add anything to my water until i get reports back from Ward labs about the actual chemistry of my water. At that point I will make an educated decision about how to adjust the water so that i can brew lighter styles. Thanks for any input.

Holter said:

How do i know if I have done the additions correctly?

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The beer comes out the way you like it. That probably seems like a pretty useless answer but it is really the only one I can give. There are several philosophies for treating water and the one you should follow is the one that works best for you. There are trends here as there are in so many other things and the current trend seems to be towards water with lower mineral content. The commercial operators seem to have been moving in this direction for some time and home brewers seem to be following now that RO equipment is available to them at affordable prices.
I believe the reason for this trend, certainly in the commercial realm, is consumer preference for beers without high mineral content i.e. with soft water the breweries can sell more beer and so justify the cost of the water treatment plant required to demineralize their source water. But another advantage to doing things with demineralized water is that it is uniform thus granting the commercial brewer more control. This aspect of it definitely would benefit you as your water is so variable.

Along with desire for softer water comes the recognition that calcium may not be the best way to control mash pH because it takes a lot of it to get an appreciable pH shift. Thus there is a trend towards the use of acid for pH control (but note that the Germans have been doing this for a long time).

I have definitely adopted the soft water approach and you must recognize that my comments on your approach here are colored by that. You are clearly targeting mash pH by the addition of calcium salts to what is already a pretty highly mineralized water. The resultant sulfate level is over the MCL for sulfate but others here report brewing beers they really like with levels of sulfate higher than that. You will need to be very careful with the hops though. The high sulfate levels may render the bitterness harsh/coarse. That would be my prediction with the other high ion levels rendering the beer quite minerally in taste. Whether that's good or bad is entirely up to you.

I don't see anything here that is going to cause a problem with the fermentation. I'm guessing that your mash pH will probably come in at 5.55 - 5.65. While that's not great it isn't bad (and it's a guess). So I'd say go ahead with what you are planning. But I'd also strongly suggest redoing the same beer with water such as suggested in the Primer (philosophy antipodal to the one you are using here) and doing it soon enough that you can drink the two brews side by side or at least while the memory of the first (take notes) is fresh in your mine. You will probably like one better than the other and that preference can be your guide for the future.

I strongly recommend that the OP not add any more chloride to that water if the goal is a Pale Ale. Since its OK to increase the sulfate level for PA's to accentuate hoppiness, the proposed sulfate level will be OK if the chloride level is kept moderate. The raw water chloride level is already above moderate and boosting it is not wise. Chloride and sulfate have antagonistic flavor effect when both of their concentrations exceed about 100 ppm in my experience.

If the predicted mash pH is not going to fall into a desirable range, you can always add acid malt or acid to bring it into line. Don't try to muscle the mash pH into line by adding a bunch of calcium salts to the mash water. Once the mash concentrations are above 50 ppm, there is no reason to add more calcium salts unless you are looking for the anions that accompany the calcium for flavor effects.

I just received my report from Ward labs, its pretty different from the original report.

Original:
Calcium 53
Alkalinity 106
Magnesium 22
Sodium 85
Chloride 88
Sulfate 168
Ph 8.0

Ward
Calcium 25
Alkalinity 59
Magnesium 11
Sodium 46
Chloride 45
Sulfate 16
Ph 7.8

Also:
Potassium 2
Nitrate 1.3
Carbonate 0

The one that sticks out the most to me is the Sulfate count dropped considerably. Other than that, everything is basically half of what it was reported to be (by taking the averages).

I hate it what that happens. Who do you believe?? Personally I would believe Ward labs just because it's a known system but . . . . .

Holter said:

I just received my report from Ward labs, its pretty different from the original report.

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Your supplier's report shows wide variability based on previous (2010) data. The averages are no more than that. The Ward labs analysis is a snapshot i.e. the characteristics of the particular sample you sent them collected by you at one instant of time. The fact that the snapshot is appreciably different from the average is no stranger than the fact that while the average temperature where I live is probably 60 this morning it was 20. Having said that I did note that several of the parameters in the Ward Labs test were at the low end or below the low end of the range reported in the 2010 report but this is 2012.

Holter said:

The one that sticks out the most to me is the Sulfate count dropped considerably. Other than that, everything is basically half of what it was reported to be (by taking the averages).

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This one is easily explained. If you look carefully at the Ward Labs report you will notice that it says Sulfate -S 16. This means they are reporting the amount of sulfur in the sulfate. The sulfate level is 3 times this or 48.

As you have seen there will be times when the mineral content is at the low end of the range (when it rains a lot in the watershed) and there will be times when it is at the high end (when it doesn't). You have to live with those variations. But as you don't want to send a sample off to Ward Labs every time you brew you either have to do testing yourself (there is no simple sulfate test) or swamp out the variations by heavy dilution with RO or other low ion content water.

Grinder12000 said:

I hate it what that happens. Who do you believe?? Personally I would believe Ward labs just because it's a known system but . . . . .

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Im going with Ward labs. I am just going to get a couple of tests done this year to see how it varies and go with what Ward gives us.

ajdelange said:

This one is easily explained. If you look carefully at the Ward Labs report you will notice that it says Sulfate -S 16. This means they are reporting the amount of sulfur in the sulfate. The sulfate level is 3 times this or 48.

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I didnt realize that when i posted the results this afternoon, but when I got home I read through Martin's spreadsheet and found a reference to this reporting difference. It is still pretty darned low compared though, and your original interpretation of my water profile said that Sulfate stuck out for my water.

As you have seen there will be times when the mineral content is at the low end of the range (when it rains a lot in the watershed) and there will be times when it is at the high end (when it doesn't). You have to live with those variations. But as you don't want to send a sample off to Ward Labs every time you brew you either have to do testing yourself (there is no simple sulfate test) or swamp out the variations by heavy dilution with RO or other low ion content water.

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I understand that. I actually called my water department/supplier and asked if they could provide me with any data about the profile's fluctuations or an idea of when i can expect the numbers to be on the high end of the reports and they said they basically dont share that data but i should look at precipitation reports, basically exactly what you just said. I think for the first year I am going to just get a couple of samples tested throughout the year to see if I can pick up on the trends. Im not sure how much i will follow them, but it at least has me curious at this point.

I plugged in the numbers to Martin's spreadsheet and i think ive got a good setup here for the pale ale recipe.



That is with the water diluted with 75% distilled water. The only reason I diluted was because of the sodium levels in my water, but from what I have read it seems like I might not actually need to concern myself with that number if I don't add anything to the water that increases the sodium levels any. Im definitely considering not diluting the water at all to save myself all the hassle.

I have definitely learned a lot about water so far. I know i don't understand it really yet, but at least its not a complete mystery anymore.

If you don't dilute you will have water which ranges in sulfate content from 48 to 250 and you will have no idea where you are in that range other than by looking at weather reports. Your proposed 3:1 dilution reduces that range to 12 - 62. That's still quite a range but much better. A 9:1 dilution would lower it further to 4.8 - 25. There are other advantages to soft, low alkalinity (3:1 --> 16 - 33; 9:1 --> 6.3 - 13) water for brewing but for people in your position damping of these wild fluctuations is definitely a big one. And it takes care of the sodium too.

I just added a section to the enhanced Water Knowledge section for Bru'n Water about issues with variable water quality. A good way to assess the primary things we brewers are concerned with is to test with home hardness and alkalinity test kits. But a quicker and easier way would be to get one of those total dissolved solids (TDS) handheld testers and check your water prior to brewing. The next version of Bru'n Water will include a TDS calculation so that a brewer will get to know what their raw water reading should be.

If the brewer quantifies the range of variation in the ionic content and correlates that with TDS, then they can get a quick idea of where their current water quality is and what they might do to make it fit their current brew.

Those TDS meters are pretty cheap and they are fairly accurate and modestly resistant to drift in their readings. For those of you using RO water, a TDS meter is indispensible for assessing if the RO system is still producing high quality water. That is especially true for those of you that buy their RO water from a vending machine. I've seen many brewers complain about the inconsistency of their mash pH predictions and then they check on the quality of their RO water and that was the source of their problem.

For the most part, a TDS reading under 20 ppm is an indicator that the RO unit is working well. A reading of over 50 ppm is a strong indicator that the RO membrane needs to be replaced or another vending machine sought.