Please help me understand my water report

[m_sell31]

Been doing a lot of reading but it's not sticking for me(just like high school and college Chemistry). Any comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

pH 7.3
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 257
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.43
Cations / Anions, me/L 4.6 / 4.6
ppm
Sodium, Na 59
Potassium, K 2
Calcium, Ca 23
Magnesium, Mg 10
Total Hardness, CaCO3 99
Nitrate, NO3-N < 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 1
Chloride, Cl 4
Carbonate, CO3 < 1.0
Bicarbonate, HCO3 269
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 221
"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit

 

[solbes]

Copied the relavant ones below to comment on:

Sodium, Na 59 - Good number
Calcium, Ca 23 - A little low, you need calcium for mash conversion (50-150 ppm ideal)
Magnesium, Mg 10 - A tidge low but probably fine, Palmer recommends 10-30 ppm
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 221- This is your alkalinity. Higher number buffers the ability of darker malts to drop mash pH.
Sulfate, SO4-S 1 - Combo of SO4 and CL shows your water will enhance malty flavors (as opposed to increased perception of hop bitterness)
Chloride, Cl 4 - Combo of SO4 and CL shows your water will enhance malty flavors (as opposed to increased perception of hop bitterness)

I would recommend downloading EZ Water Calculator off of this site (an Excel spreadsheet). You can then plug in the malts you are using for a specific brew and see if you need to cut your water with RO to reduce alkalinity. You can bring Calcium and Magnesium back up with Calcium Chloride or MgSO4 (Epsom salt). Then adjust pH with a small volume of 88% Lactic acid.

For a beer like a Pilsner or Kolsch, you would need more RO water to get softer water. You'd need to add in a little CaCl and likely a couple mL's of Lactic to bring your mash pH down.

For a beer like a porter or stout, you may not have to cut your water at all, or if you do maybe with 50% RO. The darker malts will drop your mash pH for you.

For hoppy beers, skew your Cl/SO4 ratio towards increased bitterness by adding some MgSO4. For malty beers, you may not have to do anything. The Calcluator will tell you if you need to increaes the proportion of CaCl to MgSo4.

Your alkalinity is moderately high to high. This buffering capacity is usually what gives people fits for their tap water. Those with low alkalinity and low hardness are blessed with awesome water; they just add in a little calcium or magnesium as required.

 

[m_sell31]

Thank you! Any other comments/suggestions?

 

[ajdelange]

Sodium is a bit high but shouldn't be a problem unless you decide to use a sodium salt for augmentation of the chloride which is lower than you'd like to have for most beers. That's simply handled by using calcium chloride instead of sodium chloride. While your chloride is fine for most beers a lot of people still think you need at least 50 mg/L and even more. Calcium does have beneficial effects at higher levels but many really good beers are made with calcium levels less than what's in this water. Same for sulfate - your level is fantastic for light lagers but many want lots more in their ales and other beers. So you can get extra calcium from calcium sulfate too.

The main problem you will have with this water is the high alkalinity. You have 221/50 = 4.42 mEq/L which means that each liter of water you brew with will require over 4 mEq of acid to nullify its effect. This is a bit of a show stopper as you will either have to add the 4 mEq acidity per liter with bottled acid or try to remove the alkalinity by augmenting the calcium until it is greater than the alkalinity (over 4.42 mEq/L) and then heating or treating with lime to drop calcium carbonate. A third approach is to try to use dark malts for this but as 4.4 mEq/L is pretty high it's going to take quite a bit of dark malt e.g. ~14% 600L black malt with a typical base malt to get to a mash pH of around 5.5. One last approach to removing high alkalinity is to dilute it away with RO water. To get alkalinity down to around 22 from 220 will take a dilution of 9:1 or greater. You might as well use all RO water if the dilution needs to be so high.

As noted earlier chloride is to low for nearly all beers and sulfate is way to low for some styles. Augment chloride with calcium chloride and sulfate with gypsum. Do not use epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) unless you are well aware of what Mg ion does and want it anyway.

 

[m_sell31]

Sodium is a bit high but shouldn't be a problem unless you decide to use a sodium salt for augmentation of the chloride which is lower than you'd like to have for most beers. That's simply handled by using calcium chloride instead of sodium chloride. While your chloride is fine for most beers a lot of people still think you need at least 50 mg/L and even more. Calcium does have beneficial effects at higher levels but many really good beers are made with calcium levels less than what's in this water. Same for sulfate - your level is fantastic for light lagers but many want lots more in their ales and other beers. So you can get extra calcium from calcium sulfate too.

The main problem you will have with this water is the high alkalinity. You have 221/50 = 4.42 mEq/L which means that each liter of water you brew with will require over 4 mEq of acid to nullify its effect. This is a bit of a show stopper as you will either have to add the 4 mEq acidity per liter with bottled acid or try to remove the alkalinity by augmenting the calcium until it is greater than the alkalinity (over 4.42 mEq/L) and then heating or treating with lime to drop calcium carbonate. A third approach is to try to use dark malts for this but as 4.4 mEq/L is pretty high it's going to take quite a bit of dark malt e.g. ~14% 600L black malt with a typical base malt to get to a mash pH of around 5.5. One last approach to removing high alkalinity is to dilute it away with RO water. To get alkalinity down to around 22 from 220 will take a dilution of 9:1 or greater. You might as well use all RO water if the dilution needs to be so high.

As noted earlier chloride is to low for nearly all beers and sulfate is way to low for some styles. Augment chloride with calcium chloride and sulfate with gypsum. Do not use epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) unless you are well aware of what Mg ion does and want it anyway.

My plan after using the EZ water calculator is to use Lactic Acid to bring down the Alkalinity. It is telling me I need 10 ML of lactic Acid for a Pale Ale I am planning, do all 10 ML go into the Mash water or equally distributed between the Mash and Sparge water?

 

[mabrungard]

The alkalinity is definitely a problem for brewing with that water. Unfortunately, using lactic acid to neutralize that level of alkalinity is going to exceed the taste threshold for the lactate ion and I suggest that you need to use a tool that doesn't limit you to lactic acid or acid malt use.

The amount of acid for the mash and sparge can be different. Using a simplistic tool can get you into more trouble. Unfortunately, brewing water chemistry is not EZ.

 

[covers42]

Would 50% dilution with distilled water (easier to find than perfect RO) or RO work with a mixture of additives?
A lot of the RO I have tested in 5 gallon jugs can be not filtered well or additives have been added back in.

Teaspoon of gypsum and 3-5 ml of lactic acid may be mild enough to not effect the taste. Looks like your bicarbonate are through the roof causing the alkalinity issue and dilution may be needed.

 

[solbes]

Yeah 10 mL of 88% Lactic is too much and you may pick up some sour overtones. I try to limit mine to no more than 2 mL.

I have high alkalinity like yours and cut my water with RO. Typically I buy 4 or 5 gallons at the grocery store for $0.39/gallon (so 80-85% RO). Hard to justifiy a home RO system with those prices, but maybe someday if for no other reason than the convenience of it. For porters and stouts I go 55-65% RO usually. I always let the tap water portion sit out overnight to dissapate the chlorine that is added by my city municipality.

 

[ajdelange]

My plan after using the EZ water calculator is to use Lactic Acid to bring down the Alkalinity. It is telling me I need 10 ML of lactic Acid for a Pale Ale I am planning, do all 10 ML go into the Mash water or equally distributed between the Mash and Sparge water?

That depends on how you want to approach the problem. Possibly the easiest way is to decide that you want to nullify the effects of all the alkalinity in all the water you are going to use. Suppose you are going to make 5 gallons of beer and decide to start out with 10 gallons of water. This is 37.85 litres and each contains 4.42 mEq of alkalinity. That's a total of 167.3 mEq of alkalinity. You don't actually have to dispose of all of it, perhaps 90%, depending on the starting pH, and 90% is certainly good enough to get an estimate of how much acid you will need. 90% of 4.42 mEq/L is 3.978 mEq/L (the exact amount required is 3.888 mEq/L). 90% of 167 mEq is 150 mEq. To supply that amount of acid you will need approximately 150/12 = 12.5 mL of 88% lactic acid because each mL of it contains 12 mEq acid or 100 mL of 10% phosphoric acid because each mL of that contains 1.5 mEq acid. Note that phosphoric would be a better choice for you given that you have so much alkalinity to deal with. Phosphate ion is quite flavor neutral (certainly in comparison to lactate ion). Having made this simple calculation you measure out the correct amount of one or the other of the acids and slowly (bit by bit) add to 10 gal of water while stirring and monitoring the pH. When the pH gets close to the desired mash pH (I used 5.5 in this example calculation) slow way down so that you won't undershoot your target. If you do just add more water.

If the calculation is too much for you just add small amounts of acid to the volume of water you need until pH 5.5 (or whatever your target) is reached. In doing this you have automatically measured the alkalinity, done the precise calculation for the amount of acid required, and measured out exactly the correct amount for the type and strength of acid you have. Doesn't get much easier than that!

When you are finished you have water of 0 alkalinity WRT your intended mash pH. Depending on the grist the excess acid or acid deficit from the chosen malts may pull your mash pH higher or lower than desired. Check to see if this is the case by mixing a portion of your grist with a portion of the treated water. If pH rises add more acid until you hit the right pH. If it goes down further add sodium bicarbonate or lime (calcium hydroxide) until it goes up to the right pH. Scale by grain weight. IOW if it took 0.1 gram of sodium bicarbonate in a 1 pound test mash and you are mashing 25 lbs grist add 2.5 grams.