Water building question?

Ok, so I'm doing my first all-grain brew tomorrow (a Bavarian Hefe)and wanted to add a little calcium chloride to my tap water, but I have no idea how much to add.

My tap water has:
Chloride: 25 (ppm?)
Sulfate: 52
Alkalinity: 160

Should I cut my water with distilled to reduce the alkalinity, or just add the calcium chloride? If I use all tap water, how much calcium chloride should I add to 9.3 gallons?

Do Iwant chloride to sulfate at 1:1, or maybe higher for a hefe?

Thanks for any help. I'm a total newb at water adjustments.

http://home.roadrunner.com/~brewbeer/

download Brewater 3.0 - it's pretty easy to use and will do the calculations for you. Just check off what chemicals you have available to adjust with and choose a predefined style as a starting point.

samc said:

http://home.roadrunner.com/~brewbeer/

download Brewater 3.0 - it's pretty easy to use and will do the calculations for you. Just check off what chemicals you have available to adjust with and choose a predefined style as a starting point.

Click to expand...

Thanks! Great calculator. Just what I was looking for. Does anyone know what sort of Chloride to sulfate ratio would be best for a hefe?

It depends on your recipe. If you are shooting for middle of the road SG and IBU then you could go 1.5x-2x depending on your taste. But if you are going higher SG and lower IBU then I would do 1x.

Unless you really want to go low bitterness and more sweetness then you could go high SG, low IBU, and 2x. That's what I do and I love it. But it is definitely on the sweet side.