Any Water numbers out of whack?

[jdauria]

This is my water report for Braintree, MA per the town's water department.

PH 7.2
Alkalinity 20.2
Chloride 74.8
Hardness 38.3
Calcium 11.0
Magnesium 2.63
Sulfate 14.1
Sodium 40.1

We have a carbon water filter on our kitchen tap, so I usually get my water from an outside tap (using potable water hose) so I know the numbers should not change much as they would from the filter.

Can anyone tell me if any of the numbers are of concern? Anything that should be adjusted for every brew? I do all grain. Thanks!

 

[mabrungard]

The sodium is slightly high and the chloride is fairly high. That water is soft and has low alkalinity. The RA of the water is low and should be suited for lighter colored beers. The low calcium is a little problematic since there isn't a lot of room to use calcium chloride to bump the calcium up with. Gypsum would be an alternative, but unless brewing hoppier styles, the sulfate level should be kept modest (<100 ppm).

Additional alkalinity or some other measure might be needed when brewing darker styles since the mash pH may fall too far.

 

[jdauria]

Thanks Martin. I have a Pale Ale in the primary now and did use some gypsum after using the EZ Water Calculator as well as some other water chemicals to a lessor extent. I've only made one dark beer so far and that was just an extract with specialty grain, so not as much of an issue.

If doing dark beers would it make more sense for me to use distilled water and adjust with chemicals accordingly?

 

[Grinder12000]

Sodium is slightly high? Mine is 106ppm. Sad face for me:-(. My calcium is 4ppm

JD. Read the PRIMER it's pretty interesting. Oops. Didn't mean to cap lock lol