Does my water (N. Saint Paul) have too much alkalinity to work with?

I am a 6 or 7 batches in all grain brewing here and have just started researching water chemistry. Below is the water report I have for North Saint Paul, MN. I was wondering if there is too much alkalinity in this water from bicarbonate to even attempt to brew paler beers. I am most interested in brewing pale ales and IPAs. I don't have much interest in brewing pilsners and beers along that style.

North Saint Paul Water Contenets

Bicarbonate 200 ppm
Calcium 58 ppm
Magnesium 21 ppm
Total Hardness (as CaCO3) 232 ppm
Total Alkalinity (as CaCO3) 204 ppm
Sulfate 10 ppm
Chloride 12 ppm
Sodium 5 ppm


Thanks in adevance for all of the help.

That is a lot of alkalinity but you have commensurate hardness and should be able to reduce the alkalinity (and hardness) appreciably simply by boiling the water or the somewhat more elaborate lime treatment. Even easier is just diluting 3:1 or so with RO or DI water.

Very high temporary hardness! Easily amended as AJ points out above.

Another option is acidification, but I'm concerned with the amount of acid needed to bring the alkalinity down to workable levels for paler colored beers. Lactic acid use might leave you with a 'twang' in the flavor. This water appears to demand the use of a low flavor acid...phosphoric. That is an easy adjustment too. With AJ's information, Bru'n Water includes a very capable acidification calculator. Try it out.

Thanks for the response. If I were to boil the water would I assume that all of the temporary hardness would be removed? Also how long should the water be boiled to achieve this?

No, you can't assume it will all be removed. As a general rule you can get it down to about 1 mEq/L (50 ppm alkalinity) in both hardness and alkalinity provided that the hardness is at least as great as the alkalinity or greater. You can achieve a bit better reduction (i.e. to less than 50 ppm) if you increase calcium first and as you will probably want to supplement calcium (with the chloride and/or sulfate) anyway you might as well do it before boiling and get the benefit of extra alkalinity reduction.

You don't really even have to boil the water if you sparge with air which can be done by pumping the near boiling temperature water through a nozzle or bubbling air through a 'stone'. The reaction is

Ca++ + 2HCO3- ---> CaCO3 + CO2 + H2O

The sparge is necessary to let the CO2 off and thus drive the reaction to the right (Le Chatelier's principal). The steam of the boil is a convenient source of gas to sweep out the CO2 and as that's usually simpler than rigging a spray head or sparging stone that's what people usually do. You will see the water turn milky as boiling temperature is reached. Let it boil for a minute or so. That should be sufficient.

I brew in SW Anoka county nearby, and also have alkaline water. We have more hardness too, so I sub in a lot of Reverse Osmosis water. I typically use 25% hard water from the tap and 75% RO from Cub Foods ($0.39/gal for refills).

On my last batch, a Kolsch, I added 2 mL of lactic acid to drop the mash pH to the middle of the range. The light pilsner malt could not get a low enough pH on it's own, even with the dilution. Hopefully at that level it will not be detectable in 5 gallons (fingers crossed).

Besides the high bicarbonates (and not SUPER high), you have pretty good water. Cheers!