What if anything should i add to my water?

Ph 7.8
alkalinity 130
sodium 40
pottasium 1.8
magnesium 6.8
calcium 47
chloride 29
sulfide 61
flouride .88

I brew mainly pale beers pilsners lagers
But have been thinking about a couple slightly darker beers.... bock, red ales.
So what would the consensus be for additions to this water profile? And I'm really high in zinc.
Thanks in advance Ed

I'm sure others will chime in, but for pilsner lagers, you want soft, soft, soft and the way to go is 100% RO and just enough CaCl to get to 15-20 mg/L of calcium. Then acid to get the pH into the right range.

For other styles, you probably want to dilute this water with RO to get the sodium down.

Its from my well, unfiltered would it help the sodium levels if I filtered it?

Filter like using a home RO/DI system?

I'm no expert, but that water looks pretty 'average' to me.
Mix 50/50 with RO for pils/pale lager (or just keep as it is and use some acid malt to lower pH), keep as is for pale ales/bitters/ambers. Add a little carbonate for really dark beers.

Was just thinking carbon filter or the like.

Look at it this way - the alkalinity is 130 mg/L. That's 2.6 mEq, not a small number.

For comparison, the DARKEST, most acidic-grist stout I ever brew uses water with alkalinity of 120 mg/L. (Let that sink in if you think the water is 'average'.) It may be common, but certainly not desirable for brewing. You can deal with the alkalinity, but you're left with a lot more anion of your acid, lactate/sulfate/chloride etc.

At a 50/50 dilution with RO, you still have 65 mg/L (1.3 mEq) to overcome.

Let's say you add enough acid to get the alkalinity to 0. (Well 2.5). Now a base malt only mash will have a pH of about 5.7-5.8! Need more acid...


For your lightest beers, you can see why starting with 100% RO water is so desirable. You STILL need acid at 0 alkalinity.

Its not that terrible of a water source. Most ions are at moderate levels, however the alkalinity is a bit high. If brewing paler beers, the acid dose may be tasted if using lactic acid. So phosphoric acid may be a safer choice. In the case of darker beers, the acid demand will be reduced. I'd still plan on using phosphoric. Dilution could be desirable when brewing more delicate styles, but most brewing could be successful with that acidified tap water. Do be careful with mineral additions since there are some flavor ions that are at modest levels that could be boosted too high for some styles.

GotPushrods said:

Look at it this way - the alkalinity is 130 mg/L. That's 2.6 mEq, not a small number.

Click to expand...

Delighted to see someone else thinking in mEq/L. I started thinking that way quite a while ago and as the time since I stopped thinking in ppm as CaCO3 extends I more and more appreciate the benefits of the mEq based measurements. Sort of like inches/feet and meters/cm. It takes a bit of investment to get over the hump to the point where you appreciate that the metric system is far easier to use but once you do you never look back (unless forced to).