Will this water work for a Cream Ale

[PGibfried]

Been snooping around here quite a lot lately, and thought to pose a question about my water.

I would like to brew a Cream Ale that is crisp and tasty without having to purchase 10 gallons of RO water. It is a BIAB mash.

I have already made two batches with RO water, a little gypsum and calcium chloride, and a small amount of 10% phosphoric to hit a good ph range. They both turned out excellent.

I would like to use my water for a number of reasons which I won't bore u with. I have a deep well that tastes great but unfortunately has a fairly steep RA as u will see below:

Total alkalinity 200
Total Hardness 175
Calcium hardness 130ppm
Magnesium Hardness 45ppm
Residual alkalinity 155
Chloride 20-25ppm
Sodium 26 ppm

Is it possible to make a great light crisp Ale/Lager with this kind of water and the proper amounts of phosphoric for ph, or do I need to keep buying the jugs?

And I might add, this is the beer that my wife really likes so it is absolutely essential that I keep brewing this style if u know what I mean

 

[JonM]

Others will chime in, but I don't think I'd want that much calcium or magnesium in a light-flavored cream ale. I'd go with RO and just a little bit of CaCl. (and the appropriate amount of acid.)

 

[Yooper]

You can drop the alkalinity with phosphoric acid, but your magnesium level is over the taste threshold and that can't be removed with acid.

You could buy less RO water, and go 50/50 with it, and then use phosphoric acid to get the correct mash pH if you want. 45 ppm of magnesium is just too high, for all brewing styles. 20-25 ppm is the max I would go. Diluting by 50% would also decrease your calcium to optimum levels.

 

[ajdelange]

That's magnesium hardness (almost missed it too) so he actually got 0.95 mEq/L Mg++ which is less than 12 mg/L so no problem with that. He's also got 4 mEq/L alkalinity (a lot) and 2.6 mEq/L calcium so he could add calcium as the chloride or sulfate to get that up to say 5 mEq/L and then heat to drop 3 mEq/L each of alkalinity and calcium leaving 1 of the former and 2 of the latter (40 mg/L). This is quite doable but a real pain compared to cutting with 3 parts of RO water provided that you have the RO water handy.

 

[PGibfried]

I've thought about purchasing a reverse osmosis system, but it would take a lot of brews to justify it. Then again this is a hobby... I do it because I love it ... there is very little that is practical about it.

Maybe I should attempt a little experiment here. Cream Ale is pretty inexpensive to make when I get my base malt by the sack.

Thanks guys for the input.

I'll get back to u.

 

[thepicklebrewer]

I've thought about purchasing a reverse osmosis system, but it would take a lot of brews to justify it. Then again this is a hobby... I do it because I love it ... there is very little that is practical about it.

Maybe I should attempt a little experiment here. Cream Ale is pretty inexpensive to make when I get my base malt by the sack.

Thanks guys for the input.

I'll get back to u.

Trying to revive an old thread here but how'd it turn out. I have a similar water profile and want to do a cream ale. Curious if it tasted good