Help interpreting water profile...

Hi,

I just found a waterprofile from my local water plant, see below.

Is it really bad ? Do I need to do something about it ?

Cheers,
walther

That's really just a health report to indicate there is nothing in the water to make you sick. It does not contain the necessary information in regards to brewing.

It appears that you have fairly hard water with a slightly high pH and low chloride level. However, BigEd is correct in that there is not enough information for that report to be truly useful for brewing.

If I had to guess, your water is good for brewing dark beers that have a good portion of roasted grain in the mash. However, that's really just a slightly educated guess.

See if you can get a more detailed report.

Many (most?) municipal supplies have the pH raised intentionally, but this is not correlated with a higher alkalinity. Oddly, a lot of the most alkaline water is well water and has a low pH due to dissolved c02. So there is almost a negative correlation between alkalinity and pH but not for any real reason, it's a happy accident. My WAG is that it is surface water and probably has a RA between 0 and 20, but you really need Ca, Mg and alkalinity to know what you are working with from a pH perspective. You would also want sodium, sulfate and chloride for recipe purposes.

Thank you for the replies,

I will see if I can find a lab where I live to get more detailed information.
I think you are correct that my water may be best for darker beers, I have a good history of those.

cheers,
walther

Call your utility and ask for a more detailed water analysis. They should have one available. Mine happens to be large enough that they have their own water lab. They simply asked for my address to determine which plant serves my area and emailed me the .pdf file of the analysis report.

Simple excellent advice ! just got a detailed report from my water plant,....

Ca 71
Mg 11
Na 45
Cl 47
SO4 30
HCO3 277

I will of course read up on water treatment. But to get me started, can you something general about the water, like you should always add a bit of .... or water needs work if you want to brew ...

Thanks again !
Walther