ward labs report...yea! now if i could understand it!

here's my report ...my pH is 7.8.....i figured 7.2 from my last check few years back.

pH 7.8

TDS ppm 205

cations/anions, me/L 3.5/3.5

ppm

Sodium, Na 11
Potassium, K 2
Calcium, Ca 46
Magnesium, Mg 8
Total hardness,CaCO3 148
Nitrate,NO3-N 0.6 safe
Sulfate; SO4-S 6
Chloride,CL 14
Carbonnate, CO3 < 1 (not detected)
Bicarbonate, HCO3 168
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 137

i know i need to bring the pH down when brewing pale ales, i was thinking of using a small quality of sauermaltz.
i used gypsum before the water report, can i still get away with using gypsum without it affecting the hop influence or should use another treatment?

is there anything else i'm not seeing cause this is pretty much greek to me.

thanx.

GD

 

Water ph doesn't matter it's mash ph that's important. Try to input you water in a couple of calculators and read.
Bru'nWater
EZWater
Kaiserwatercalculator

I use Kaiser's the most fwiw

 

I could try to sounds like an expert, but I'm not. JP is the man when it comes to water in brewing. His book has all your answers. http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-1.html

 

Posted with a big caveat that I use & build up from RO water for a few reasons so I never learned how to read these ward reports (effort of understanding carbonate/bicarbonate/alkalinity, only costs about $3.50 - $4 for enough water for a batch and takes 10 minutes instead of 30 minutes filtering tap water, afraid of seasonal variations I see listed by some people, lazy and too cheap to pay for analysis when vending machine RO saves me time at such a small cost). I would dilute either 1:1 or 2:1 with RO or DI, add enough CaCl2 to get your chloride to 40 - 60 ppm (.3 - .45 g/gal), gypsum to your flavor preference (mine is around 40-60 ppm for hoppy beers*)(.3 - .4 g/gal). This will also get your calcium back into a good range for yeast health. If you use less gypsum and dilute your water less adding 1% sauermaltz will add a bit of a buffer to help keep the mash pH down and should be indetectible for flavor.

*I finally got around to adding gypsum to an APA and to an IPA in approx 50ppm increments, between each step I couldn't taste much different, but between ~200 and ~40 with no additions the higher sulfate was much drier on the palate. That dryness resulted in a more pronounced bitterness to me, not really a more bitter flavor or more hop presence, . It's really tough for me to describe, but I prefer the beers as I brewed them with lower sulfate.

 

the report was sent for so i could determine what my sulfate levels were.
brew water is pumped via a private well from a deep aquifer in central florida.
having just started A.G. with BIAB, brewing mostly belgian beers. on the blondes especially i noticed a sharp hop influence with gyspum using only 1 tsp to adjust my mash water down from 7.8 pH to within 5.2-5.5.
a sharp hop note in the finished beer. i was concerned if high sulfates were the cause. now i see this is probably not the issue and am thinking too much carbing in the keg is causing carbonic acid bite in solution.
i have tried to use the water calulators but my computer is funky and sometimes wouldn't allow me to imput my data????

so guess i'm left to trial & error.....with adjusting the mash using calcium chloride since i prefer no hop influence ....or using a combo of sauermaltz as you noted with other treatment if needed.

from what little i understand from reading other threads on this subject i have some pretty good water.....

thanx...
GD

 

Since you are interested in sulfate let's note that "Sulfate; SO4-S 6" is read "sulfate, as sulfur; 6 mg/L" This means that the sulfur in the sulfate in your water weighs 6 mg/L. The sulfate ions themselves weigh 3 time this or 18 mg/L. That's still not much and should be suitable for almost any beer including some of the continental lagers that require low sulfate.

The potential problem with your water is its relatively high, though not uncommon, alkalinity of 137. You'll want to deal with this one way or another for most beers which will suffer from high mash pH if you don't. Just boiling the water (add some chalk and stir it up as you heat it up) should drop much of it. Diluting the resultant decanted water 1:1 with RO water will get your sulfate even lower and dilute away the residual alkalinity (not removed by boiling). You will need to add calcium chloride to make up for the lost calcium and low (especially after the dilution) chloride. Add this (about 1 tsp/5 gal for most beers - see the Primer) before the boil to aid in bicarbonate (alkalinity) reduction.

 

thanx so much for the advice.

i can work on diesel engines but man this chemistry trip is just too much for this dude's neuropathways!! but willing to suffer thru in order to make a decent brew!

GD

 

This goes both ways which is why we share what we can.