Water Report Opinions (Ward Labs)

[two_hearted]

Hi everyone. Water is one of those things that I have a hard time wrapping my brain around. I've read the stickies and some Palmer, but I just thought I would solicit some feedback here. Nothing seems to stick out to me as bad or worrisome, but if you guys see anything that I should take note of, I would appreciate it.

pH 8.8
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est, ppm 295
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.49
Cations / Anions, me/L 4.8 / 4.8

Sodium, Na --40
Potassium, K --4
Calcium, Ca --25
Magnesium, Mg --21
Total Hardness, CaCO3 --150
Nitrate, NO3-N --0.9 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S --20
Chloride, Cl --85
Carbonate, CO3 --9
Bicarbonate, HCO3 --47
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 --54
Total Phosphorus, P --0.03
Total Iron, Fe --< 0.01

"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit

 

[Yankeehillbrewer]

The stickied water primer in this forum should answer your question. I'm going through this same process, trying RO water & Distilled, and just following what AJ suggests in the primer.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

 

[mabrungard]

Unfortunately, the Water Primer doesn't answer any questions unless you sucumb to forgetting about using tap water and use large quantities of RO or distilled water in your brewing. Its great in that respect, but is otherwise worthless to brewers trying to assess their tap water.

That tap water isn't terrible. The Mg, Na, and Cl are a little higher than I prefer in your base tap water. But they aren't excessive.

I'm hoping that you have visited the Water Knowledge page on the Bru'n Water website. That should assist you in better understanding some of the questions you are pursuing.

 

[Yankeehillbrewer]

Geez, I just re-read the original post and see you already read the stickies. My bad;-). I shouldn't post on here when I work nights, the ol' brain is too foggy

 

[ajdelange]

There are 3 approaches to preparing brewing water for making good beer.

1.) Use RO water and add some calcium chloride and/or calcium sulfate to taste. This is a simple but workable approach and is the basis for the Primer. You will make good beer and with some experimentation (i.e. trying a little more of this and a little less of that on subsequent brews) very good beers. You will do no calculations, use no spreadsheets and learn nothing about water chemistry. This is the KISS path.

2.) Learn about the effects of various ions in the mash liquor on the final beer. Tailor RO or DI water to have the ion profiles that work best for the style of beer and the particular grist you intend to use. This requires at least fundamental understanding of some of the principles of water chemistry and you will probably have to use a spreadsheet or calculator to determine how much of which salts to add to most closely match a desired ion profile. This is not too complex as you will avoid adding bicarbonate or carbonate salts to you water in nearly all cases (where alkalinity is required to offset a dark malt or malts you will do this by adding alkali directly to the mash until mash pH is correct) and the optimization problem (adjusting amounts of various added salts to best approximate specified ion content level) is easily done using the Solver with a simple Excel spreadsheet. You will learn a moderate amount of fundamental chemistry.

3). Try to tailor the water you have to match a desired brewing water ion profile. This is the most difficult and the bottom line is that it will not get you any better beer at the end of the day than Option 2. But you will have to learn a lot more and when you are finished will be a much more knowledgeable brewer. Adding ions is obviously done by adding salts but ions can be 'removed' either by dilution or by using other processes such as lime treatment. Again, the Solver can be used to tune water quite precisely to a desired profile but I'll note that it is usually not necessary to have a precise profile match. At the same time the Solver seems to be associated with some sort of mystique and people are afraid of it. I couldn't convince John Palmer that he should put it in his new book, for example.

Your water isn't bad. A 3:1 or 4:1 cut with RO water gets it into the range where the Primer's recommendations are workable. But if you are going to install an RO machine to get that much water why not just use 100% and have total control over the situation?

As my hobby isn't brewing but rather brewing water I always advocate Option 3 but I know that's not for everyone. I actually brew using Option 2.

 

[two_hearted]

Thanks aj, some great information there. I'll take some time to digest it all.

 

[two_hearted]

Unfortunately, the Water Primer doesn't answer any questions unless you sucumb to forgetting about using tap water and use large quantities of RO or distilled water in your brewing. Its great in that respect, but is otherwise worthless to brewers trying to assess their tap water.

That tap water isn't terrible. The Mg, Na, and Cl are a little higher than I prefer in your base tap water. But they aren't excessive.

I'm hoping that you have visited the Water Knowledge page on the Bru'n Water website. That should assist you in better understanding some of the questions you are pursuing.

Thanks Martin, the water knowledge page is very helpful.

 

[chezhed]

I just got my Ward's report and about fell out of my chair....Sodium at 172????? WTF???? Called SWMBO...."you know that water sample I asked you to put in the box and take to the post office?"
"Yes. I did take it last week."
"Yeah, I got the report....but did you use the bottle of water I set by the box?"
"No...I drank that and just filled another bottle."
"Uh....filled it where?"
"From the faucet...duh...where else would I get it?"

We have a water softener...........................................
I just wasted $27 and will have to submit another sample. Funny thing is I keep telling her she can't taste the difference but she insists otherwise.

So now, dare I start the argument again....with proof?

And I'm still brewing water blind now.....crap, I hate that lack of knowledge/control.

sorry to hijack

 

[afr0byte]

I just got my Ward's report and about fell out of my chair....Sodium at 172????? WTF???? Called SWMBO...."you know that water sample I asked you to put in the box and take to the post office?"
"Yes. I did take it last week."
"Yeah, I got the report....but did you use the bottle of water I set by the box?"
"No...I drank that and just filled another bottle."
"Uh....filled it where?"
"From the faucet...duh...where else would I get it?"

We have a water softener...........................................
I just wasted $27 and will have to submit another sample. Funny thing is I keep telling her she can't taste the difference but she insists otherwise.

So now, dare I start the argument again....with proof?

And I'm still brewing water blind now.....crap, I hate that lack of knowledge/control.

sorry to hijack

Ouch. I'm fortunate to have my wife scared to touch any of my brewing stuff, so I don't have to worry about these mishaps.