My City water report: does it say much?

Been reading up a lot about water quality lately. Up until nowI have used only bottled spring water but since my tap water tastes pretty good I'd like to start using it.

My water company uses Chloramine and I would plan to treat my brewing water with Campden prior to brewing.

Does this report from them say much about my water? Am I better off sending a sample off to be tested and reporting back?

pH: 8.82 pH units
Alkalinity (total) as CaCO3: 108 ppm
Aluminum: 0.05 ppm
Calcium: 48 ppm
Sodium: 78 ppm
Chloride: 27 ppm
Dissolved Solids: 430 ppm
Hardness (total) as CaCO3: 10 grains per gallon
Iron: 0.04 ppm
Magnesium: 13 ppm
Sulfate: 110 ppm
Manganese: <0.02 ppm
Phosphate: 0.13 ppm
Silica: 21.8 ppm
Zinc <0.02 ppm

That water looks OK. The sodium is a little high, as is the sulfate. Those constituents may make the finished beer a little drier and rougher than desired if you are shooting for a malt focused style. The alkalinity would require reduction or the mash pH would probably not fall into range with lighter colored styles. It might be OK for darker beers.

The iron is a little higher than desirable. But if you can't taste it, it may be OK for your beers. I'd say this is a good candidate for a blending water for your beers. Using RO water will cut those undesirable ion concentrations down to reasonable values. Bru'n Water has the tools to let you figure what you can do with this water.

Enjoy!

Thanks for all of the info! This whole water science thing is new to me.

What exactly do you mean by the alkalinity would require reduction? Should I blend my water with half RO water after treating it with Campden? What is the correct process for this regarding sparge water, etc?

JSGT09 said:

What exactly do you mean by the alkalinity would require reduction? Should I blend my water with half RO water after treating it with Campden? What is the correct process for this regarding sparge water, etc?

Click to expand...

That means that either a water treatment approach like lime softening or boiling to reduce the hardness and alkalinity or an acid treatment via a direct acid addition or acid malt addition will be required to reduce the water alkalinity.

Blending with RO or DI is also a valid treatment alternative and it too will reduce alkalinity.

The approach for sparge water is to reduce its alkalinity to well under 50 ppm. I suggest that 25 ppm alkalinity is a good target. If you are using RO or distilled water (or a large percentage of those waters), then the alkalinity is probably already low enough and there is nothing to do. If the brewing water does have alkalinity over 50 ppm, then adding acid to the water is one way to reduce the sparge water alkalinity. Bru'n Water includes an acidification calculator for figuring out the acid addition needed for your water.

Enjoy!