Finally submited a water sample. How does it look?

[Turfgrass]

I just received the results back from Ward Labs and I'm interested in what everyone thinks. I know that the water in my town will vary, bc of wells, however some water is also purchased by the town and I just wanted to know. Is it usable in brewing or just for plants? Thank you.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I use RO water from the store. 37 cents per gallon.

IMHO that's a lot of both sodium and chloride in your water, but otherwise unremarkable. Alkalinity is high enough to potentially cause issues.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

that salt is high in my book, looks like that water is perfect for dark beers by itself but your lite or pale ales will suffer without some additives, but just a little acid and gypsum should do the trick

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Sodium is high. Not too badly so, but don't add any more.
Chloride is in the same boat.
Calcium is at about the minimum level that most brewers aim for.
Sulphate is very low - you might like this, or you might want to add some to a lot (it's a personal thing). Most brewers want quite a bit for pale ales and IPAs.
Bicarbonate is getting up there, but is manageable. As OMB said, you'll need a bit of acid for pale to mid-coloured beers.
If I had your water, I'd be looking for a source of food grade sulphuric acid to counter the alkalinity and add sulphate. I don't know how easy that is to find in the US though. If you don't want sulphate, all you need is some phosphoric or lactic acid to counter the alkalinity.

 

[Kent88]

Calcium might be a little low. Chloride is highish, but that would work nicely for something malty. Sulfate is a little low, so some gypsum might be a good way to increase calcium. Sodium is a pinch too high. I'm still trying to figure out what the deal is with alkalinity/hardness/carbonate.

I'd recommend diluting it a little. I think that sodium is high enough that you wouldn't want to concentrate it like you might while you boil wort. Maybe 3 parts your water to one part RO?

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I'm still trying to figure out what the deal is with alkalinity/hardness/carbonate.

Hardness as CaCO3: High levels Mg and Ca both make water 'hard'. Hard water doesn't lather, doesn't quite make you feel clean when you wash with it and leaves behind scale. If all of the Mg and Ca in your water was present as Calcium carbonate (CaCO3), how much CaCO3 would there be? That's the number that is reported for hardness as CaCO3. There might not even be any Carbonate in the water (the Calcium and/or Magnesium could have come from Chlorides or Sulphates). It's not really useful in brewing - we generally only want the values for Ca and Mg on their own.
Alkalinitiy as CaCO3: Alkalinity is important because it tells us how much the water can resist downward change in pH. Two waters can both have the same pH, but one with high alkalinity will stay close to that pH if a small amount of acid is added, whilst one with low alkalinity will have it's pH significantly lowered. Calcium carbonate is the main contributor to natural alkalinity, which will increase a water's bicarbonate. If ALL of the alkalinity in the water was from Calcium carbonate (CaCO3), how much CaCO3 would there be? That's the number that is reported as alkalinity as CaCO3. Divide by 1.2 to get bicarbonate.
Carbonate: Not generally important from a water report. Bicarbonate or Alkalinity as CaCO3 is what we need.
Bicarbonate: The main ion that makes up natural alkalinity in water. It is approximately 1.2 times the Alkalinity as CaCO3. You only need to know either Alkalinity OR Bicarbonate for brewing.

Bicarbonate around the 100ppm range is easy to counter with acid additions even for pale beers. Much above this, things get trickier in pale beers. Along with the acid needed to counter the alkalinity, you are adding an associated anion (eg. lactate with lactic acid; phosphate with phosphoric acid; chloride with hydrochloric acid). If alkalinity is high, the amount of acid needed is high, so the anion concentration becomes high and might negatively affect the beer. Around the 200ppm range you need to think about blending acids and/or boiling water to remove bicarbonate and/or brew darker beer and/or blend with RO water. Up around the 300ppm+ range, most brewers would just use RO water (or stick with stouts and porters).

This is how I understand it and some is my opinion, and is probably not 100% correct (simplifications rarely are), but hopefully helps with a not too technical explanation.

 

[ajdelange]

A bit of clarification on the as CaCO3 notation. If you place 100 mg of Calcium carbonate (0.1 mole) in a flask, and add DI water to the 1 L mark --- nothing much would happen as CaCO3 is pretty much insoluble. But if you started bubbling CO2 through that water carbonic acid would form and that would dissolve some of the CaCO3:

CaCO3 + H2O + CO2 <--> Ca++ + 2HCO3-

If you continue this process eventually all the CaCO3 will dissolve and the pH will start to fall. This is what happens in the ground when ground water dissolves limestone and is, I believe, the whole reason for this as CaCO3 nonsense. If we shut off the CO2 when the pH of the flask reaches 8.3 virtually all (98%) of the CaCO3 will have been converted to HCO3-. If we give this flask to an analyst and ask him for the alkalinity and hardness he will take 100 mL of the water from it and add 0.1 N (0.1 mEq/mL) acid to it untill all the HCO3- has converted to CO2:

HCO3- + H+ --> H2CO3 --> H2O + CO2. How much acid will this take? The molecular weight of CaCO3 is very close to 100 so we started with about 1 mmol CaCO3. The flask thus has 2 mmol of HCO3- dissolved in it and he took a tenth of that so his subsample has 0.2 mmol HCO3- and it's going to take 0.2 mEq H+ to convert that. At 0.1 mEq/mL it will, thus, require 2 mL of the 0.1 N acid to do this. The acid requirement is 0.2 mEq/0.1 L or 2 mEq/L. That is the alkalinity and that is the best way to express it. People have other ideas. Here in the US we say well, we started with 100 mg of CaCO3 so why don't we say the alkalinity is 100 mg/L "as CaCO3" and that's what we do. We multiply the 2 mEq by 50 in order to get the answer we want. In other places they multiply by other numbers to get German degrees, French degrees, Clark degrees etc.

The real problem with the "as CaCO3" thing is that people don't understand that what it really is is 50 times the alkalinity, think that real CaCO3 is involved and fail to realize that half the alkalinity in the ground water case comes from dissolved CO2. The alkalinity of 100 mg of CaCO3 dissolved in a liter of water and brought to pH 8.3 with sulfuric acid is not 2 mEq/L. It is 1 mEq/L. The alkalinity of 100 mg/L of CaCO3 in 1 L of water is 50 mg/L as CaCO3 whereas if, and only if, the CaCO3 is dissolved with CO2 is it 100 mg/L.

Now the solution also contains 1 mmol of Ca++. If, just as he did for the alkalinity, the analyst titrates with a chelant until all the calcium is consumed, he will require 2 mEq of chelant. In the US he says "In for a penny, in for a pound, I called 2 mEq of bicarbonate ion calcium carbonate, I'll call 2 mEq of calcium ion calcium carbonate too! And magnesium as well." That's how we got to where we are with this.

 

[couchsending]

You’ll make some really full soft beers with that water and some gypsum/acid to up your Ca levels and get pH into spec. For dark beers probably just some Ca.

 

[Turfgrass]

I’m interested in brewing 3 different beer styles and they are saison, NEIPA and milk stouts and it sounds like I need to do three things-

1. Dilute tap water with RO to reduce sodium and chloride.
2. Add phosphoric acid to bring alkalinity and ph down.
3. Add gypsum to increase sulphur, calcium and reduce ph.

Does phosphoric acid come in a concentration greater than 10%?

Would acidulated malt be a good idea?

You’ll make some really full soft beers with that water and some gypsum/acid to up your Ca levels and get pH into spec. For dark beers probably just some Ca.

Stouts benefit from a higher mash Ph?

that salt is high in my book, looks like that water is perfect for dark beers by itself but your lite or pale ales will suffer without some additives, but just a little acid and gypsum should do the trick

Where do you like to see your leveled for pale ales and ipa’s?

Thank you all for helping me out!

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I’m interested in brewing 3 different beer styles and they are saison, NEIPA and milk stouts and it sounds like I need to do three things-

1. Dilute tap water with RO to reduce sodium and chloride.
2. Add phosphoric acid to bring alkalinity and ph down.
3. Add gypsum to increase sulphur, calcium and reduce ph.

Does phosphoric acid come in a concentration greater than 10%?

Would acidulated malt be a good idea?


Stouts benefit from a higher mash Ph?


Where do you like to see your leveled for pale ales and ipa’s?

Thank you all for helping me out!

1. No need to dilute your water for NEIPA or milk stout. I'm not sure for saison. Your Sodium level is quite OK. You want the chloride for a NEIPA and stout. I'm not in to NEIPAs, but I think you'd want even more chloride.
2. Yes, you'll need acid to bring reduce the alkalinity, but probably not for the stout. Your water has 1.75mEq/L of alkalinity, which will need about 0.1mL/L (0.4mL/gallon) of 85% Phosphoric acid to bring to a 5.4 pH.
3. Gypsum is to increase sulphate and Calcium, and will help to lower pH.

85% Phosphoric is common.

You could use acidulated malt. Phosphoric acid is easier IMO and also reduces sparge pH.

I normally aim for about 150ppm sulphate and 75ppm chloride for pale ales, with a 5.4 mash pH. I don't brew IPAs. There are many different opinions and tastes with this though.

 

[Kent88]

Full disclosure, I haven't been tinkering with my water much yet, I am just trying to get the theories behind it figured out. That said, in the Brewing Elements Series book Water, I'm pretty sure that it recommends keeping sodium below 50ppm. I suggest you try brewing with your water without diluting and see if it tastes salty. Then try making the same recipe while diluting it with a little RO. You'll see what you prefer.

Mashes with a lot of dark grain (like milk stouts) typically can handle a *little* more alkalinity as the dark grains want to lower mash pH more than pale grains do.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

Where do you like to see your leveled for pale ales and ipa’s?

I'm pretty conservative most times, pale ale on top and ipa on bottom, I use phosphoric acid to lower the ph and remove hardness

 

[couchsending]

Nothing will taste even remotely “salty” until levels well north of 150ppm.

Personally I would brew something with your water plus Gypsum and acid to get pH into spec. Then try the exact same recipe with RO water and build to Ca, Cl, So4 similar to the last batch but without all the acid to adjust the bicarbonates and Na.

I’m a big fan of higher Na levels in the 40-50 range for pale beers and even higher for dark beers. I think you’d be surprised how much Na is in some
Of your favorite beers. Especially the ones with better mouthfeel. Malt generally contributes roughly 30-50ppm of Na on its own.

 

[Turfgrass]

I have yet to see a phosphoric acid at 85% for sale. What’s a good source?

 

[ajdelange]

http://www.dudadiesel.com/choose_item.php?id=FGphos