Kansas City water report

[csh]

I just received the results from a Ward Labs water report for my tap water and am sharing them for anyone out north in Kansas City. I live by the airport, Zona Rosa, etc... Green Hills and MO-152. I've seen the KCMO water water quality report for 2012 and the data from this Ward Labs report is pretty close.

Ward Labs - 12 Dec 2013:

pH - 9.3
Total dissolved solids. ppm - 359
Elec. Conductivity, mmho/cm - 0.60
Cations/Anions, me/L - 5.7 / 6.4

ppm
Sodium, Na - 71
Potassium, K - 6
Calcium, Ca - 37
Magnesium, Mg - 7
Total Hardness, CaC03 - 112
Nitrate, NO3-N - 0.9
Sulfate, SO4-S - 73 (multiply by 3 to get SO4 == 219)
Chloride, Cl - 27
Carbonate, CO3 - 9
Bicarbonate, HCO3 - 41
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 - 49
Total Phosphorus, P - 0.19
Total Iron, Fe - 0.01

I measure my mash water pH at 9.15 - 9.2 pretty consistently.

I know that in KC we have pretty good water for most brewing. Because of that, I haven't gone to RO. My only addition is 1/8 ts potassium metabisulfate per 6-8 gallons mash water to reduce chlorine. Do I even need it?

Correct my assumptions below:
High sulfate (219) is good for hoppy beers
Low chloride (27) is good for hoppy beers
High sodium (71) is good for malty beers

When I plug the water report into the EZ water calc spreadsheet, I end up with a mash PH about 5.7, a bit above the 5.4-5.6 recommended range.

I'd like to understand what sort of changes I should make in order to have good results for hoppy beers (2xIPA) and malty beers (Bass, Fat Tire, stout). How about for dark strong / tripel Belgians?

Chris.

 

[Marc77]

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html

I've been reading Palmer's "How To Brew" book and found this. It's interesting and I think that'll answer your questions. The only confusing thing is that for the chart he has the Bicarbonate and Total Alkalinity numbers almost seem flip flopped. At any rate I used the Total Alkalinity number and using 100% base malts you'd have a resulting alkalinty of 5.72 or something around that. To get down to the 5.1 - 5.5 he mentions as the target range we'd need to add some chocolate malt, caramel's, black patent or something that naturally drops the pH.

Very interesting stuff and thanks for posting the #'s! I used yours because I'm off of 152 and Green Hills myself.