Confused about my Ward's water report

I've been doing a lot of research and reading about water reports and changing your water profiles with programs like BeerSmith and Bru'n Water. Everytime I try inputting my numbers, they seem way way off of what other profiles are. Is my water really that far off, should my sodium be that high? or I'm reading the report wrong? can anyone help me write a profile good for hoppy beers with my water?
Also I consider my water very good tasting, coming from someone who is pretty picky about drinking water taste.

LemonJelly said:

I've been doing a lot of research and reading about water reports and changing your water profiles with programs like BeerSmith and Bru'n Water. Everytime I try inputting my numbers, they seem way way off of what other profiles are.

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That's because it is way off relative to more typical waters. No one in his right mind would have located a brewery in your region in the past. Today relatively inexpensive RO would be a brewers salvation but he would still have to think about disposal of brine from it.

LemonJelly said:

Is my water really that far off, should my sodium be that high?

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Yes it is and the dead horse in the room is the sodium which is at 8.7 mEq/L. A typical value is more like 1 or 2. Also notable is 7 mEq/L alkalinity. Your water is essentially as solution of sodium bicarbonate.

LemonJelly said:

or I'm reading the report wrong?

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No.

LemonJelly said:

... can anyone help me write a profile good for hoppy beers with my water?

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Not probable though I immagine one could brew some beer with it. It would be very minerally as one would have to add lots of acid to neutralize the alkalinity or tons of dark malt. Or one could to decarbonate by adding lots of calcium salts. The sulfate and chloride levels are not out of sight now but would be pretty high after decarbonation calcium salt addition.

LemonJelly said:

Also I consider my water very good tasting, coming from someone who is pretty picky about drinking water taste.

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That's somewhat surprising because if I taste a sodium bicarbonate solution it tastes pretty bad to me. I had a house with high sodium and bicarbonate (but not nearly as high as yours) and the water was awful.

Looking into my crystal ball I see an RO setup in your future.

That water has clearly been run through an ion-exchange softening process. Either in the home or on a municipal level, it has been softened. That water is not suitable for brewing. It is well suited as a feed water for a RO unit.

Damn I had no idea how bad my water is, guess I just grew accustomed to it over the years.. Can any of you recommended a good RO water system that would be good for my needs? And a big thank you to you guys for helping me with this. Out of all the stuff I've learned about homebrewing, water seems to be the most challanging for me to fully understand.

Like the guy said above, do you have a water softener? Anyway, never fear. A lot of grocery stores and wal-mart sell RO water on the cheap.

LemonJelly said:

Damn I had no idea how bad my water is, guess I just grew accustomed to it over the years.. Can any of you recommended a good RO water system that would be good for my needs?

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I've already assembled recommendations for what you should consider when looking for a RO system. Visit the Bru'n Water Facebook page (link below) and scroll way down the list of articles to find one on WHAT RO SYSTEM SHOULD I BUY?

If this water has been run through a water softener, is there any usefulness in submitting another sample to Ward with pre-softened water or would that likely be pointless? If it's still worthwhile, and the resulting water is more useful then perhaps pulling your brew water pre-softened might work.

If it has been softened (in which case I would expect calcium to be comparable to magnesium i.e. at 1 mg/L though I suppose the could have been near exhaustion) then about all an additional test will tell you is how sodium was in the baseline water and how the approximately 350 mg/L total hardness is distributed between Ca++ and Mg++ - both useful bits of information. If OP has a home softener I hope he will tell us that he does.

Sorry just got off work. I do have/use a water softener. I'm a newbie home owner and just assumed everyone used a water softener. The only thing I really know about it is I'm suppose to fill it up when the salt gets low. It probably explains why my sodium levels are extremely high though... I also just found my towns water report (I had trouble finding this till today) , if thats of any help.

Link: http://www.villageofwalworth.govoffice2.com/vertical/sites/%7B9197016A-2CD3-4D78-9587-3FC839912C0F%7D/uploads/CCR_Report_for_Publication.docx

LemonJelly said:

Sorry just got off work. I do have/use a water softener. I'm a newbie home owner and just assumed everyone used softener.

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No, not at all though the water treatment companies have been quite successful at selling the combination of a neutralizer (which hardens the water) followed by a softener which undoes what the neutralizer did and remives calcium and magnesium to the point where the water is corrosive).

LemonJelly said:

The only thing I really know about it is I'm suppose to fill it up when the salt gets low.

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You also have to set it to recharge the resin bed when it is exhausted. How often that is depends on how hard the raw water is and how much you are drawing. Modern softeners have a little turbine at the inlet so all you have to do is dial in the hardness and when enough water has been drawn the microprocessor schedules regeneration for 2 AM the following morning. Your system is 'leaking' 4 mg/L calcium which may mean that you machine has been set up for less hardness than actually pertains.

LemonJelly said:

It probably explains why my sodium levels are extremely high though...

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It definitely explains the high sodium. A softener exchanges sodium ions for calcium and magnesium ions.

LemonJelly said:

I also just found my towns water report (I had trouble finding this till today) , if thats of any help.

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Not really. As is often the case it is designed to keep the EPA off their backs rather than supply brewers with useful information. Note that it does have the name of a guy you can call for further information. Ask about calcium hardness, magnesium hardness, alkalinity, sulfate, chloride and iron also nitrate, nitrite and potassium.The report does indicate sodium of 53 mg/L so you can deduct those from the 199 giving 199 - 53 =146 mg/L or 6.3 mEq/L. This tells us that the softener removed 50*6.3 = 315 ppm as CaCO3 hardness but it doesn't tell us how much of that was magnesium and how much was calcium (softeners also remove some iron, strontium etc). After all is said and done probably the best thing to do is send a pre-softener sample to Ward Labs. Most new softeners have a shuttle valve on the back of the head which permits them to be bypassed. If not there may be a hose bib connected upstream of the softener. Or get it from the drain valve on your pressure tank.

When you get the report back you can use the total hardness number to set your softener's processor (probably have to convert to grains per gallon).