Extremely hard water profile - problem?

[Brewsit]

So in preparing to brew at my new home, I wanted to run my water profile by you guys and see what you thought. This is well water, so there is no chlorine to worry about, but my water is extremely hard, and very high in sulfur.

I have a complicated filtration system set up at the well that Culligan maintains that filters out most of the iron, but the hardness is battled with a water softener at the house that I can bypass easily.


pH 7.12
SECIFIC CONDUCTIVITY 2.33 mS/cm
TDS 1494mg/L
TOTAL HARDNESS as CaCO3 1702 mg/L
CALCIUM (Ca) 1238mg/L
MAGNESIUM (Mg) 464mg/L
SULFATE (SO4) 1490mg/L
CHLORIDE (Cl) 100mg/L
NITRATE (NO3) .6mg/L
IRON (Fe) .608mg/L
FLUORIDE (F) 4.2mg/L


My question is then, should I just purchase a few culligan jugs to use for brew water and add the minerals that I need, or is there something I can do to use my well water?

 

[day_trippr]

Wow. Those are some really big numbers. I would say not only is that water unsalvageable for brewing pretty much anything, I suspect it would give an RO system fits as well.

I see big jugs of commercial water in your brewing future...

 

[Chrisl77]

What does the water look like after your softner? If your softner doesn't add to much sodium to the water it could be usable with a few mineral additions. If you decide to get an ro unit you can put it after the softner as well which would probably make the membrane last the normal amount of time.

 

[Brewsit]

I have thought about getting an RO system installed, but still need to talk to Culligan. I have dialed in the water softener to a setting of 40 (not sure what that means, really, but when it was set any higher, you could taste the salt coming out of the water dispenser on the fridge). I think that if my reason for getting the RO system is for beer brewing, I don't think the cost benefit is very good. Might as well import water from my favorite region

So do I win a prize for having the hardest water of all the brewers, or can someone beat those numbers?

 

[Chrisl77]

Well the 40 is probably the setting for how much salt your system uses I am guessing that you are setting it at 40 lbs. but without knowing what type of softner you have i cant be certain. I usually set up my customers softners to use 12 lbs. per cubic foot of resin so unless you have a very big softner tank you are probably just wasting salt.

 

[day_trippr]

[...]So do I win a prize for having the hardest water of all the brewers, or can someone beat those numbers?

If you really want to get some help on your water profile, you should start a thread in the Brew Science forum. There are some very helpful folks that hang out there that can bat your water issues around.

I think your numbers might get them all excited

Cheers!

 

[Brewsit]

If you really want to get some help on your water profile, you should start a thread in the Brew Science forum. There are some very helpful folks that hang out there that can bat your water issues around.

I think your numbers might get them all excited

Cheers!

Thanks for the tip, will do!

 

[SteakGrisel]

I live in San Antonio and may be able to help.