Hard, High Alkalinity Water

[FuriousE]

So, I reached out to my city and received the following information on my water. These are the averages of the 20 or so wells that the city uses:

Phosphate mg/l 0.5
Iron mg/l 0.6
Manganese mg/l 0.0
Initial PH 7.4
Conductivity umhos/cm 813.0
Chloride mg/l 69.4
Fluoride mg/l 0.5
Hardness mg/l 410.0
gr 22.9
Alkalinity mg/l 298.3
Calcium mg/l 98.6

What I think this tell me is that I have very hard, alkaline water. I do have a softener, but bypass that when I brew. Given the levels of alkalinity, is there any saving this water?? Or am I stuck using RO water?

 

[ajdelange]

There are things you can do (treat with lime or heat, neutralize with acid) but you are still stuck with a high iron level (6 times higher than recommended for brewing) and a lot of magnesium. In the long run your life will be a lot easier with an RO unit.

 

[FuriousE]

Thanks for the quick reply! That is as I feared.

Just out of curiosity, where/how did you get the magnesium level?

 

[mabrungard]

The Mg level was inferred from the difference between the total hardness (410 ppm as CaCO3) and the calcium hardness (246 ppm as CaCO3 which was calculated from the reported 98.6 ppm Ca content) That leaves the remainder of the hardness as a Mg contribution.

I see from the water report that you are not actually located in Milwaukee. That is not Great Lakes water. I assume you are in an outlying suburb. That is pretty sucky water. The iron content makes it undesirable for brewing use. Time to punt that water.

 

[FuriousE]

Thanks for that explanation. I appreciate it.

You are correct, I am in Brookfield, a suburb in Waukesha county, a little west of Milwaukee.

My brother, with whom I usually brew, lives in Milwaukee. I wonder if it would be worthwhile to have him bring water to brew!

 

[hottpeper13]

I also have close to the same water and woodmans in Menominee Falls has ro water for .30 gal. costs me 3 bucks to do a 5 gal batch.