Water report

Just got my water report back. Now I can really get into it and figure what in the sam hell to do. I'm not sure, but I think I'm going to be using a fair amount of bottled water

pH 7.6
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est 678
Sodium, Na 74
Potassium, K 6
Calcium, Ca 86
Magnesium, Mg 62
Total Hardness, CaCO3 473
Nitrate, NO3-N 1.0 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 60
Chloride, Cl 7
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 499
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 409
Fluoride, F 0.63
Total Iron, Fe < 0.01

Wow that's some high bicarbonates. You'll definitely want to dilute with distilled for any lighter colored beers. I recommend playing with Palmer's spreadsheet found on his HowToBrew site.

Bottom of this page
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html

Edit: For most you'll probably dilute with distilled then add back some calcium. For an IPA you'd use a good bit of Gypsum like I have to.

I spent some time playing with Palmers Spread sheet and RA graph with my new water report. I'm enjoying this so much, maybe my wife is right about me. I'm wondering about additions to the water. If I need 9 gallons for the whole batch (absortion, boil off, etc.), can I just treat the whole 9 gallons or should I just prep the mash water? Looking at the prices for gypsum and calcium chloride, I can't see a reason why not to prep the whole bunch.

It's suggested by palmer that you add the minerals in the mash, and then in the boil. A lot of these salts are not soluble in water at neutral PH, instead they dissolve in the mash where the PH is lower. I've put salts in the HLT before I knew this, and ended up cleaning them all out of the bottom of the HLT when I was done brewing.