Anyone wanna weigh in?

Ok, I'm doing a porter tomorrow and I'm haveing a few "issues" with water. Starting water is Ca=27, Mg=6, HCO3=57, Na=36, Cl=24, & SO4=26. So I need to jack up the alkalinity, 9.15 gallons of total mash water (after all additions) and 3.5 gal sparge water. If I add 14g of baking soda and 1g calc. chloride it will get me to the srm's I need (31) and end up on the "malty" side. BUT, here are my final values; Ca=35, Mg=6, CaCO3=288, Na=147, Cl=38, & SO4=26. Should I be worried about the Na being so close to a max value of 150? What is this high value doing to my brew?

This calculator works nicely:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/

Adding 9g of baking soda seems excessive. Perhaps you can add a bit of chalk/calcium chloride to increase the hardness without achieving such a high level of sodium.

yeah, if only I actually had some Chalk. It would have helped, but alas we work with what we have eh?

I say, go with 5g baking soda, and accept the results.

would you still add the 1g of Calc. Chloride to move it into the malty side or close enough not to worry with?

I don't think it would hurt.

thanks Yuri, I always brew low SRM beers, but tomorrow I thought I would do a Porter then tonight I was like holly crap, my water can't do malty...lol So, it looks like the 5g's will get me a SRM of about 104, I was looking for 275. Will it still end up dark as I want?

The color won't change at all. The flavor profile may be a bit "soft," but since you want a malty beer, I think it will be fine.

whew! thats awsome! now I can actually get some sleep... thanks again!