Adjusting House Water For Brewing

[lennyll12]

Hey All,

First time poster here. I have been home brewing for a few years now but still consider myself as a nube to the hobby. Overall I have been happy with most of my beers but want to capitalize on the overall quality of them. My next goal is to improve and understand water quality for my brewing. I live on a farm with well water. The water has high hardness and alkalinity levels. I do have a softener but was told to bypass the softener for my brewing water. Is that correct?

Below are my Water Statistics (Bypassing the Softener)

Hardness: 250 ppm
Chlorine: 0 ppm
Alkalinity: 200 ppm
PH: 8 - 9
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Iron: 0
Copper: 0
No Hydrogen Sulfide
Lead/Pestacide: Negative

I mostly do 5 galon batches of All Grain brewing recipes. So pleasehelp me understand and what I can do to better my water quality for my brews.

Cheers Yall!

 

[VWBug5000]

Your choices usually end up being either use RO water and build from scratch to meet the style profile, or dilute with RO water.

I live in Las Vegas, which had the 5th hardest water in the country, last I checked. I always use a 50/50 mix of RO and tap water with good results. If you get an RO filter, use it after the softener. The filter membranes live a lot longer when filtering soft water

 

[VikeMan]

Hardness: 250 ppm
Chlorine: 0 ppm
Alkalinity: 200 ppm
PH: 8 - 9
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Iron: 0
Copper: 0
No Hydrogen Sulfide
Lead/Pestacide: Negative

The numbers you posted look like they came from a water supplier's quality report. But to be really useful for brewing, here's what you need to know:

Calcium
Magnesium
Sodium
Chloride
Sulfates
Alkalinity (which you have)

If your water supplier can't (won't) supply these values, you could have your water tested by Ward Lab fairly inexpensively.