Meijer Spring Water Profile

I just received the water profile for Meijer spring water and thought I'd share it.

Bicarbonate 260
Calcium 79
Chloride 15
Magnesium 26
Sodium 8
Sulfate 24
Alkalinity 260
pH 7.92

This makes sense to me because before I knew what these values were, I made a pale ale that had a really low efficiency and kind of sucked, and an oatmeal stout that had great efficiency and turned out great.

I have used spring water from more or less local sources, just to avoid the chloramines in our water, and just assumed it was similar to my own tap water. Looks like it is.

I agree, its hard and alkaline. Great for stout, but could still work for a pale with a little acid in the mash. Good work.

We used Meijer spring water last week to brew a Pliny the Elder clone, but added some 5.2 pH Mash Stabilizer to the mash to get our pH correct. Does that affect any of the mineral content levels? Does the water profile look like it will be good for a Pliny clone? Or does it seem like the sodium or chloride levels are low and we would have benefited from adding a little Gypsum as well?

How did you check the mash pH after adding the 5.2?

Note that he didn't say he did get the pH correct but rather that he added the 5.2 in order to get it correct. I'm still waiting for someone to reliably document a case where this product does live up to its claims or for the manufacturer to come forward and explain under what conditions it might work. As we have noted many times before the theory says it shouldn't work and lab checks confirm that.

The first time we used the ph test strips to check and although the shade of the colors were subjective, I did feel like the color was close to the range we were looking for. I am not a scientist, so I cannot confirm that it actually works, but I k ow our beers have been coming out well, so it hasn't hurt the process. I am trying to learn more about using salts and other additives to get the right ph and balance of salts. Just discovered that Beersmith has an awesome water profile tool to help do the math on the additions needed to achieve the desired profile. I also have been getting to know the local water profile (Chicago, Lake Michigan water). Now I just have to learn more about the desirable profiles for different types of beers and breweries.

I have over the years observed that it seems to work quite well for people who do not use pH meters but not at all well for those who do.

Best advice is to read everything you can under "brew science", learn which salts affect the mash in what way per particular style of brew, use a PH tester, and brew often.

bakeup said:

I just received the water profile for Meijer spring water and thought I'd share it.

Bicarbonate 260
Calcium 79
Chloride 15
Magnesium 26
Sodium 8
Sulfate 24
Alkalinity 260
pH 7.92

Click to expand...

How did you get these results?

Soni said:

How did you get these results?

Click to expand...

I emailed Meijer and asked.

Thank you bakeup!

Does anyone have an idea about the reason why only these seven are made available to the public? Do these data show the entire mineral content of their water? What about the presence of any form of Fluoride, or any other unwanted element?

Soni said:

Thank you bakeup!

Does anyone have an idea about the reason why only these seven are made available to the public? Do these data show the entire mineral content of their water? What about the presence of any form of Fluoride, or any other unwanted element?

Click to expand...

I received more than just those parameters. Fluoride was at 0.2. There are no other heavy metal measurements though.

Thanks again!:rockin:

I'm just getting into learning about water and the effects it has on the taste etc depending on whats in it for a particular kind of beer Is there a rule of thumb or a simple chArt some where that showers the type of beer and what ballpark I should be in with whats in the water?

https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/

This site has a great calculator that I use.

There is a chart at http://www.pbase.com/agamid/image/57446374 that plots the water chemistry (or some aspects of it anyway) of the cities with which many of the beer styles are associated but there is more to it than just that as you have to know how the brewers in those cities treated that water before they brewed with it. In general it is only necessary to have very general knowledge of what the water that goes with a beer is like in order to do a good job of reproducing it. Manage pH and get the sulfate and chloride levels right and you are there. Chloride and sulfate levels need to be adjusted by the brewer to individual preference.

The guidelines in the Primer here are a good place to start (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/)

Resurrecting this thread because I just ordered their latest water report. It's close, but a little different, than what the original post in 2011 reported.

Ca 71
Mg 26
Na 8
Cl 17
S 30

Alkalinity 260
pH 7.5

Report attached (Edit, it won't let me attach. It might be too large. PM me if you'd like a copy and I can email it to you)