Can you help me decipher my town's water report?

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hotspurdotus

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My town utility board has posted it's water quality report online, and it appears to contain a lot of useful information but I'm having a tough time deciphering what it means for brew water. These two pages contain most of the hard numbers:

http://www.mub.org/rep_consumer3.htm
http://www.mub.org/rep_consumer5.htm

I've been trying to use John Palmer's nomograph to figure out my beer my water is best suited for.

The report states my Alkalinity is 55ppm, but should I consider that the Alkalinity (2nd scale) or the Residual Alkalinity (top scale)?

It also states the water Hardness is 125ppm. Should I use that as my effective hardness? If I plug that into the graph and use the 55ppm on the second scale, I end up with a fairly low starting PH around 5.6. If I just use it as the Residual Alkalinity, it a much more average 5.8! :drunk:

If anyone could help me learn more about my reading this report I'd certainly appreciate it.
 
The water doesn't look too bad excepting that is could be from two differing sources with substantially different quality. That could be a problem.

With proper brewing water treatment, this water should be suitable for a range of styles. It does not appear to have really excessive levels of any ion, excepting that the sulfate might be a little high for some beers. Check out Bru'n Water and the Water Knowledge site to help yourself figure out what you might do to treat this water for brewing.
 
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