solavirtus
Well-Known Member
First off, I'm just getting into water chemistry stuff, so bear with me. My water comes out of a well, and it's really hard and there's tons of iron, so I just figured that it wasn't even worth brewing with straight well water. For a long time I've been using 50/50 softened and unsoftened water, knowing that softened water was also no ideal. After reading the primer, I decided I really needed to get a Ward Labs report and get a better handle on the situation. So I got a report of my softened water thinking I would be diluting with RO/distilled and adding appropriate salts, and keeping track of stuff with the EZ Water spreadsheet.
Here's the results for my softened water:
pH 7.9
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 452
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.75
Cations / Anions, me/L 7.4 / 7.6
Sodium, Na 168
Potassium, K 1
Calcium, Ca < 1
Magnesium, Mg < 1
Total Hardness, CaCO3 < 1
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 9
Chloride, Cl 32
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 373
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 306
So, correct me if I'm wrong, but this water stinks for brewing. It does look like my water softening system works pretty good though. My plan now is to use this water diluted 3 or 4 to 1 with RO/distilled then adding CaCl2, gypsum, maybe some epsom salt for Mg, and a few mL of lactic acid as needed.
Any thoughts or advice would much appreciated.
Here's the results for my softened water:
pH 7.9
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 452
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.75
Cations / Anions, me/L 7.4 / 7.6
Sodium, Na 168
Potassium, K 1
Calcium, Ca < 1
Magnesium, Mg < 1
Total Hardness, CaCO3 < 1
Nitrate, NO3-N 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 9
Chloride, Cl 32
Carbonate, CO3 < 1
Bicarbonate, HCO3 373
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 306
So, correct me if I'm wrong, but this water stinks for brewing. It does look like my water softening system works pretty good though. My plan now is to use this water diluted 3 or 4 to 1 with RO/distilled then adding CaCl2, gypsum, maybe some epsom salt for Mg, and a few mL of lactic acid as needed.
Any thoughts or advice would much appreciated.