Water Report Help

Looking for a little help. I think I have done this right, but not sure. Here is what my water report looks like.

Total Alkalinity: 54 mg/L
Chloride: 30 mg/L
Hardness, Calcium: 74 mg/L
Hardness, Total: 121 mg/L (does not say Magnesium it says Total, so I am guessing that I have to subtract the total number from the Calcium number to get approx 47 for Magnesium, please correct me if that is wrong.)
pH: 7.1
Sodium: 29 mg/L
Sulfate: 84 mg/L

Is that the right way to figure out how much Magnesium is in the water?

I think if I calculated right that I am looking at about 3 to 5 SRM? Is that right? If I want to brew stouts I need to increase my residual alkalinity by 200+ppm by adding Chalk or Baking Soda to brew beers in the 25 SRM range?

IIRC, that is the correct way to determine Mg from Total Hardness. Plugging your numbers into TH's spreadsheet shows a SRM of 0-4 with a RA of -76. Very light beer styles. Yes, you would need to boost your Ca levels without lowering your RA. CaCO3 and NaHCO3 are what you can use. Preferrably CaCO3, so you won't be adding a ton of Na. There are much more knowledgeable people on this forum who will probably chime in as well. Check out TH's spreadsheet (use the google forum search). Good luck.

Thanks. I found TH's spreadsheet! Works great. The baking soda will really increase the RA numbers but the added danger of more sodium. How much Na, becomes too much? 50ppm 100ppm? Or when does it start to become evident in the finished product?

gunner11 said:

The baking soda will really increase the RA numbers but the added danger of more sodium. How much Na, becomes too much? 50ppm 100ppm? Or when does it start to become evident in the finished product?

Click to expand...

I have no idea what the limit is, but I would guess that the lower the better, if you can. If you look at some of the city profiles (the drop-down menu in Results) you'll see a pretty wide range.