Water Report questions

[endorphine44]

I just got my water report for my new house.
It’s well water, I was on city water before and never paid much attention to the water quality as it was decent water and I was brewing all extract kits. I haven’t brewed in almost a year while we were building the house and this time I want to start into some BIAB/Partial Mash brewing instead of all extract.

So what do I need to do to my water?
Any style’s that won’t work very well with this water profile?

This is without a water softener on the house. I’ll be adding one later, but I’ll have a faucet on both sides of the softener I can pull brewing water from. I’ll also have to get a new test done after the softener is in place to see what changes it makes.

    Contaminant         |     Results   |    Units    |    National Standards    |    Min. Detection Level

Inorganic Analytes – Metals:

Aluminum 		ND 	mg/L 		0.2 		EPA Secondary	    	0.1
Arsenic 		ND 	mg/L 		0.010 		EPA Primary 	    	0.005
Barium 			ND 	mg/L		2 		EPA Primary 	   	0.30
Cadmium 		ND 	mg/L 		0.005 		EPA Primary 	    	0.002
Calcium 		21.5 	mg/L 		-- 				    	2.0
Chromium 		ND 	mg/L 		0.1 		EPA Primary 	    	0.010
Copper 			0.006 	mg/L 		1.3 		EPA Action Level  	0.004
Iron 			3.550 	mg/L 		0.3 		EPA Secondary 	0.020
Lead 			0.006 	mg/L 		0.015 		EPA Action Level 	0.002
Magnesium 		20.44 	mg/L 		-- 					0.10
Manganese 		0.243 	mg/L 		0.05 		EPA Secondary 	0.004
Mercury 		ND 	mg/L 		0.002 		EPA Primary 		0.001
Nickel 			ND 	mg/L 		-- 					0.020
Potassium 		2.3 	mg/L 		-- 					1.0
Selenium 		ND 	mg/L 		0.05 		EPA Primary 		0.020
Silica 			8.9 	mg/L 		-- 					0.1
Silver 			ND 	mg/L 		0.100 		EPA Secondary 	0.002
Sodium 		5 	mg/L 		-- 					1
Zinc 			0.030 	mg/L 		5 		EPA Secondary 	0.004

Physical Factors:

Alkalinity (CaCO3) 	100 	mg/L 		-- 					20
Hardness 		140 	mg/L 		100 		NTL Internal 		10
pH 			6.5 	pH Units 	6.5 to 8.5 	EPA Secondary
Total Dissolved Solids 	160 	mg/L 		500 		EPA Secondary 	20
Turbidity 		2.5 	NTU 		1.0 		EPA Action Level 	0.1

Inorganic Analytes – Other:

Chloride 		15.0 	mg/L 		250 		EPA Secondary 	5.0
Fluoride 		ND 	mg/L 		4.0 		EPA Primary 		0.5
Nitrate as N 		ND 	mg/L 		10 		EPA Primary 		0.5
Nitrite as N 		ND 	mg/L 		1 		EPA Primary 		0.5
Ortho Phosphate 	ND 	mg/L 		-- 					2.0
Sulfate 			19.0 	mg/L 		250 		EPA Secondary 	5.0

 

[uncleleon]

No water expert here but I do use well water.
No need to add magnesium!
The iron level looks scary to me.

Ph isn't bad at all. I would preboil and decant. That should lower your hardness 20 or so and then work from there depending on the style. Or you could charcoal filter and get out all the metal and silica.

Overall that looks like some really good brewing water! I would shy away from any yeast nutrient with magnesium as you have plenty. Might add a little calcium for yeast health
Gypsum for hop centering
Light delicate styles will need further acidification
If you have more specific questions or styles it would be easier to point you in the right direction. But I'm a mineral minimalist. You can play with the online calculators, but I would beware of anyone's suggested water profile. Less is more.

 

[endorphine44]

Thanks UncleLeon, I've been doing some reading and thought I might have to add Gypsum, Baking Soda, and/or Table Salt to my water depending on they type of beer I'm making.

I think I'm going to start with a basic Irish Red ale with no changes/additions to the water and see what I get. I'll adjust from there if I need to.

 

[ajdelange]

So what do I need to do to my water?

Take care of the iron. It is 35 times the maximum recommended for brewing!

Any style’s that won’t work very well with this water profile?

No style will work well with this water. They will all taste metallic from the iron. What does this water taste like when you drink it now?

This is without a water softener on the house. I’ll be adding one later, but I’ll have a faucet on both sides of the softener I can pull brewing water from. I’ll also have to get a new test done after the softener is in place to see what changes it makes.

The effects of a water softener are perfectly predictable. Calcium and magnesium will drop to about 1 mg/L each and sodium will go up by 23*21/50 and magnesium by 23*20/12.15. Iron may go down too. You should hope that it does because you really don't have enough hardness to justify a softener. You should discuss other treatment possibilities for the iron (greensand filter for example) with your water treatment supplier. That will get rid of the iron without also removing the beneficial calcium and replacing it with worthless sodium.

 

[endorphine44]

The water softener I'm looking at claims to remove up to 12ppm iron from water (Whirlpool WHES44 if anyone has experience with that model). I don't necessarily want to lose the calcium and magnesium, but I don't want my hot water tank, showers, washer, etc to scale up from the hard water either (I can always add calcium and magnesium back to the water if I need to). I'll have water faucets available in front and behind the softener, so I can use either or mix as needed. I may also be able to branch the hard water through a separate filter just for iron and use it just for brewing.