Texas Frisco, TX water supply

[Runyanka]

Does anyone here live in or near Frisco TX? I recently moved to Frisco from another suburb in the DFW area. Recently my IPA's, pale ales, and basically any other beer I brew have excessive harshness. I think I've narrowed it down to the city water. Has anyone had their water tested, care to share the results? Do you guys use store bought RO water?

 

[thekraken]

I'm in the area, I use RO water from self service at Kroger on 423. I've never done a water report, we use the Wylie water table, you can find the monthly report online.

I had a significant efficiency boost when I stopped using tap water.

 

[Griffin495]

What suburb did you move from? Not sure, but doesn't the North Texas Municipal Water District pretty much provide water to the whole area? Their site says they provide the water for Frisco.

https://www.ntmwd.com/our-water-system/

 

[plazola86]

I'm in Allen and use RO from Kroger. You could build your own water profile for any style with a "blank slate" of RO water and its only 39 cents a gallon. I find building a water profile much easier than trying to figure out the changing mineral content and chasing PH levels around from the district.

 

[Runyanka]

I'm in the area, I use RO water from self service at Kroger on 423. I've never done a water report, we use the Wylie water table, you can find the monthly report online.

I had a significant efficiency boost when I stopped using tap water.

Oh nice, is the self service machine inside or out? I'm at Main St. and Teel, so right around the corner!

 

[Runyanka]

What suburb did you move from? Not sure, but doesn't the North Texas Municipal Water District pretty much provide water to the whole area? Their site says they provide the water for Frisco.

https://www.ntmwd.com/our-water-system/

We used to live further north near Pilot Point, that house did have a full house filtration system (not RO), so that may have been the difference too.

 

[Runyanka]

I'm in Allen and use RO from Kroger. You could build your own water profile for any style with a "blank slate" of RO water and its only 39 cents a gallon. I find building a water profile much easier than trying to figure out the changing mineral content and chasing PH levels around from the district.

I like this idea, I'll probably start going that route. Why cut corners on the water when I'm putting so much into everything else.

 

[thekraken]

Oh, well you're next door to yet another Kroger. I haven't been in that one but I'd bet it probably looks exactly like mine. The water dispenser in mine is in the same isle as the bottled water. I just roll in their with my carboys in a buggy and fill em up. And I know from experience that if you're all out of carboys and get caught filling up brew buckets other customers will give you funny looks.

Here are the monthly water reports, we're under "Wylie Water Treatment Plant":
https://www.ntmwd.com/water-quality-reports/

They're usually a couple months behind.

 

[WhoDatDad78]

Does anyone here live in or near Frisco TX? I recently moved to Frisco from another suburb in the DFW area. Recently my IPA's, pale ales, and basically any other beer I brew have excessive harshness. I think I've narrowed it down to the city water. Has anyone had their water tested, care to share the results? Do you guys use store bought RO water?

Im in McKinney. I actually ended up using a filtration system to get my water down to where it was usable. After acid additions and CaCl with a bit of gypsum it produces drinkable beer.

 

[Runyanka]

Okay so I downloaded the "EZ water calculator" and entered the water report from the link above. It looks like there are pretty minor adjustments to get everything into the "green". Let me know what you think:

 

[BrewinBromanite]

I'm in McKinney as well, but haven't used tap. Typically go with Ozarka, with a combo of spring and RO (their reports are online, but comes from a handful of springs typically, so by no means perfect), and do minor additions and maybe some acidulated malt based off the basic water primer thread on here. Not much help here, probably. Water treatment has been the last frontier for me, and just starting to experiment a little with it.

 

[WhoDatDad78]

Okay so I downloaded the "EZ water calculator" and entered the water report from the link above. It looks like there are pretty minor adjustments to get everything into the "green". Let me know what you think:

View attachment 417776

Sorry for the late reply. Sold my house, moved, built a new house in Celina, moved again, the company Ive been with for the last 4 years sold to a competitor so I got laid off, then the holidays hit. So it's been a doozey of a year. I'm still trying to figure it out with the water adjustments. The water around here seems to change pretty drastically from one month to the next, so I'm thinking that I need to install an R/O system in the garage to make a clean slate to build my own profile.

 

[mashpaddled]

All the water in the north Texas system is surface water which means the minerals change with the weather. It's dry, water evaporates and the mineral content rises. It rains and dilutes the lakes then mineral content decreases. The water authority also has to be fairly aggressive with adding chloramine in conjunction with weather changes because surface water has more contaminants than ground water. An individual water report is not particularly helpful outside of brewing the same day you took the water sample.

The water around DFW is not great to begin with but the treatment does you no favors for brewing. Buying RO water or installing an RO filter is by far the best way to obtain reliable brewing water.

 

[WhoDatDad78]

All the water in the north Texas system is surface water which means the minerals change with the weather. It's dry, water evaporates and the mineral content rises. It rains and dilutes the lakes then mineral content decreases. The water authority also has to be fairly aggressive with adding chloramine in conjunction with weather changes because surface water has more contaminants than ground water. An individual water report is not particularly helpful outside of brewing the same day you took the water sample.

The water around DFW is not great to begin with but the treatment does you no favors for brewing. Buying RO water or installing an RO filter is by far the best way to obtain reliable brewing water.

That's what I'm saying. Thanks for confirming what I have been thinking. I have had mixed results, but the best beers ive made to date have been from R/O water plus a few additions from the thread somewhere in this forum... it can't be good when you can smell the chloramines every time you turn on the faucet.