Need Help with my water report

[HopHouse]

Hey everyone!

Just got an email back from the lab manager at my local water ( Nashville, TN) and she reported these numbers for me. I'm a bit confused as I'm not sure how to plug these into water calculations in How To Brew or utilize these in my brewing.

She reported:

Calcium as hardness in CaC03 - 76 mg/l

Total Alkalinity as CaC03- 64 mg/l

Chloride - 6.8 mg/l

Sulfate - 37.4 mg/l

Sodium- 6.0 mg/l

She stated that they do not test or analyze magnesium in their lab analysis.

Please any help you can provide would be appreciated!

 

[ajdelange]

Funny that they would do a calcium hardness test without doing a magnesium hardness test as if a selective test is done it is usually as part of a total test. Anyway, taking the numbers at face value the magnesium would be pretty low - around 5 mg/L (22 mg/L as CaCO3).

Good water for brewing. A little acid with a modest dilution with RO and you should hit mash pH pretty closely for most beer styles. Have a look at the Primer.

 

[Grinder12000]

Gotta have magnesium I would think.

 

[ajdelange]

Only if you are doing a beer which requires magnesium as part of its flavor profile which I can't imagine since its flavor is reportedly a sour bitterness. There is lots of magnesium (certainly enough to serve as cofactor) in malt.

 

[Grinder12000]

Well - you can't create a water profile without knowing how much or how little magnesium is in the water. My water has only 19ppm (great for dark beer).

But if you are doing a mini mash or any extract it's not a problem. Otherwise you are flying blind not knowing the ingredients in what you have.

 

[ajdelange]

Well - you can't create a water profile without knowing how much or how little magnesium is in the water. My water has only 19ppm (great for dark beer).

But if you are doing a mini mash or any extract it's not a problem. Otherwise you are flying blind not knowing the ingredients in what you have.

In OP's case it is clear that the magnesium content is around 5 mg/L - low enough that he doesn't have to worry about it. He certainly doesn't need to add more.

Everyone should know what is in his water for sure but magnesium is not part of the equation in preparing water for brewing unless you have enough of it to cause problems. Adding magnesium to water like OP's in order to emulate the profile of, say, Burton, is likely to lead to a worse, not a better beer. The reasons for this have been set out by me and others here and elsewhere many times before. Gordon Strong explains it nicely in his book if you have that.

 

[Grinder12000]

How is it clear it's 5ish? I had zero idea and am just following Palmer who speaks highly of Ma

Who said anything about Burton?

You are saying to not even care about magnesium? If you have a lot or a little makes no difference?

 

[ajdelange]

How is it clear it's 5ish?

The lab would obviously report the most significant ions. The fact that they do not report magnesium says that it is not significant. Water must be elecrically neutral. Summing the reported ions shows a deficit of positive charges that could be made up by 5 mg/L magnesium. This is a rough estimate, of course, because of other factors such as the way water authorities tend to measure and report but one good enough that one feels pretty confident that Mg isn't 10 or 20.

I had zero idea and am just following Palmer who speaks highly of Ma

He does? Never heard anyone do that as magnesium has no desirable properties except in the trace amounts required to serve as enzyme co factors and its pH reducing ability at which it is half as effective as calcium which latter does not have the negative (or as negative) flavor effects.

Who said anything about Burton?

I did. I used it as an example of water that has, reportedly, more magnesium than OP has and thus as one that might tempt a brewer to add magnesium to his water with the idea that a Burton style ale would be better with magnesium at a level more like Burton's than OP's.

You are saying to not even care about magnesium? If you have a lot or a little makes no difference?

It does make a difference. If you add it you are potentially damagaing the beer. OTOH it's impossible to have too little as malt supplies a lot of it.

 

[Grinder12000]

I just thought that since Palmer uses Ma in his calculations for finding effective hardness in was something you would need to know. My Ma was 11ppm.

 

[mabrungard]

I'm on board the 'no need for Mg' in your brewing water train. Malt releases a bunch of Mg into wort.

A study I had reviewed was performed using a simple sugar media to assess the effect of Mg. That study showed that a minimum of 5 ppm Mg is very beneficial. That was the basis of my recommendation that a minimum of 5 ppm be in brewing water. A normal malt-based wort has over 10 times that amount.

That is not to say that Mg doesn't have a place in brewing water. It should be used as desired for its flavor effect, a sour bitterness. That really limits its applicability to fairly bitter styles. It probably has little need in a beer that is malt focused. It shouldn't be a serious concern if the Mg level was at 15 ppm or less. That range from 15 to 30 ppm should probably be left to the bitter styles.