Water Profile, filtering, etc...

So thought i would start to address my brewing water. Up to date i have just been using tap water and beers taste good, but hoping i can make them better. I have been unable to get a water report with the info i need so thinking i may send a sample off to wardlabs, but before I do that i had a couple questions. First, should i be filtering my water then adjusting? And second, if i should be filtering it, should i buy the filter first, and send the sample of filtered water? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

Before I doctored my water I went with the notion that we had hard water as we get calcium/lime deposits. So I bought 1 gal of RO water for dark beers and 2 gals for lighter beers and things were good. But I had to filter my water as it smelled like a pool.

Regardless I think it good to filter it (I use a faucet Pur type filter) as there could still be contaminates.

Not having a water report I'd say send a filtered sample.

But I'm also far from experienced and only know enough to feel comfortable dabbling with mine.

 

Yes, send a filtered sample. Or you could send one filtered and one not (iirc, it's about $25/sample) and see if you need to bother filtering.

 

Good point, since I don't have a filter yet guess I should send in first to see if I can get by without. Thanks!