Water advice

[Glot]

Moving up a step in my brewing and looking at water chemistry now.
I have tried using EZwater.
My water varies a lot so here are two reports based a few months apart.

Ca:14 Mg:7 Na:19 Cl:38 So4: 5 CaCo3 53


Ca:28 Mg: 30 Na:67 Cl:142 So4: 25 CaCo3: 126

To brew ales such as English Mild, what should I be adding? I know some parameters I should be trying to achieve but what I should be using to achieve those I don't know. If I can get an understanding then I can get free weekly water reports.

 

[acidrain]

I like Brewers friend over EZwater: http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/

In their water profiles menu, they list styles and water profiles: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewing-water-target-profiles/

Hope that helps.

 

[Glot]

Thanks. I'll check it out. My issue seemed to be if I adjusted one, I stuffed up another. The chemical choice seemed too small to someone inexperienced in water adjustment.

 

[mabrungard]

Wow! that is a lot of variation in the water quality. You would be best served by getting test kits for alkalinity and hardness. The aquarium hobbyist's use them extensively. My friends in UK like the Salifert kits and they do look to be high precision kits.

With those direct tests of your tap water along with the water reports, you could make a decent guess at the current quality and should be able to produce good beer.

 

[mabrungard]

Oh, another good tool for assessing the current water quality in this case will be a TDS meter. Those 2 water reports have markedly different TDS and that could be a quick and cheap way to guide you as to what condition your tap water is currently in.