Water report

[SailorJerry]

Is this good, bad, or ugly? We are just moving to 5 gallon BIAB so I figured we'd complicate it a bit more and look at water chemistry.

Thoughts?

View attachment 1505417546629.jpg

 

[TheHopfather]

It is kind of a useless report for brewing. You need hardness (CaCO3) and then some useful brewing info, sulfates, chloride, calcium, magnesium. The only useful measurement I see on your water report is sodium, its a tad but high but still very acceptable.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

It is kind of a useless report for brewing. You need hardness (CaCO3) and then some useful brewing info, sulfates, chloride, calcium, magnesium. The only useful measurement I see on your water report is sodium, its a tad but high but still very acceptable.

You will also need either alkalinity or bicarbonate. Alkalinity can be derived from bicarbonate simply by multiplying ppm bicarb by 0.82. (which is 50/61)

https://mashmadeeasy.yolasite.com/

 

[SailorJerry]

Well, darn. I was hoping that the water report that I was provided by the city would be sufficient. I guess we'll tackle this process later in our brewing life..

 

[Qhrumphf]

Contact your water company. They almost always measure this stuff, just don't publicly release it. All the local water companies around here send out the same letter with the same info, useless for brewing, but bury the useful stuff in the depths of their websites if you dig.

 

[Qhrumphf]

As said, the ions you care about mostly are calcium, magnesium, sodium, sulfate, chloride, and alkalinity as CaCO3/bicarbonate (be aware that hardness as CaCO3 is a different figure, and hardness and alkalinity are different). Other useful data are pH and carbonate alkalinity (water pH is mostly irrelevant except for its impace on alkalinity, and unless your water pH is on the high end, carbonate will be miniscule anyway), and chlorine and chloramine (often referred to as free vs total chlorine, the difference being chloramine). A few other figures like potassium can be helpful for confirming ion balance but won't have an impact in most potable water supplies.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Also note that chlorine and chloride are NOT THE SAME THING. Moderate chloride levels can be a good thing (often are), but chlorine/chloramine is always bad and almost always present and requires some form of treatment (and the "if you can't smell it you're good to go" adage is bad advice).