Light beers and St.Louis water

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

BaylessBrewer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2015
Messages
808
Reaction score
137
Location
Affton
Last week I emailed my water company looking for a report that could be used for homebrewing. This is what they sent me.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1430916800.764978.jpg
No ph is givin on it but on the main report on their website it puts the ph @ 9.4 as of last test.
What kind of additions will be needed for light colored beers?
I put all the info into Brewers Friend and it says I need to add 4g gypsum and 4g calcium chloride along with just under 4.5ml 10% phosphoric acid to my mash. I have 75% phosphoric acid so I only need .38ml of that if that's what I use.
Does this sound right? Anyone with experience with St.Louis water?
 
Chesterfield MO here. Ballwin MO before that.

According to American Water both of these addresses were serviced by the Central plant, which gets its water from the Missouri River. However, they indicated it is possible based on demand for the water to come from either the South Plant or Meremec plant (both use Meremec River).

I made a few really good pale to amber beers here just by adding acid and calcium chloride.

In the end I just bought a $100 R/O filter so I don't have to guess. Resulting beers have a much cleaner flavor than anything i ever made with filtered tap water.
 
Finally a local guy with some input!! Thank you
I'm in Affton so I assume our water sources are the same.
How much calcium chloride did you add? And where did you get your R/O filter?
The dark beers I have made are damn good but I want to move on to lighter colored beers now. I did a few extract batches before but didn't care for them so that's when I went all grain and now I want to make sure he end result is the best I can make whit my equipment.
 
Water source is potentially the same, but also potentially different. Hard to say exactly and the water company says as much.

About of additions depend upon the beer style. Your water report is within the ballpark of what I came up with for mine though.

I bought my RO rig from purewaterclub.com. It was a RQ-6B-100 6-stage for $100. Quality sucks but it works. If you search around this site (and forum) there are a few other comparable systems for a little more money but quality might be better.
 
No ph is givin on it but on the main report on their website it puts the ph @ 9.4 as of last test.

No, but the information potentially is. Carbonate = 40; bicarb = 25
r = 40/25 = 1.6; pH -pK = log r = .204. pH = pK + log r = 10.38 + .204 = 10.58. As a pH that high is rather unlikely it is probable the carbonate number is wrong as many people calculate it incorrectly (and these guys even give the old, incorrect formulae at the bottom of the report). For pH 9.4 we have r = 10^(9.4 - 10.38) = .1047 so that carbonate would be 25*.1047 = 2.68 which, as calcium carbonate is only soluble to the extent of 8 mg carbonate/liter seems a much more reasonable result.
 
Back
Top